Edward Morley Callaghan (February 22, 1903 – August 25, 1990) was a Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and
TV and radio personality.
Biography
Of Canadian/English-immigrant parentage,
[Clara Thomas, ''Canadian Novelists 1920-1945'', Longmans, Green and Company, Toronto, 1946 p. 17-18] Callaghan was born and raised in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
. He was educated at Withrow PS,
Riverdale Collegiate Institute
Riverdale Collegiate Institute (Riverdale CI, RCI, or Riverdale) is a semestered high school located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada owned and operated by the Toronto Board of Education until its amalgamation in 1998 into the Toronto District School B ...
, the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
and
Osgoode Hall Law School
Osgoode Hall Law School, commonly shortened to Osgoode, is the law school of York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
The law school is home to the Law Commission of Ontario, the Journal of Law and Social Policy, and the '' Osgoode Hall L ...
. He articled and was called to the Bar, but did not practice law. During the 1920s he worked at the ''
Toronto Star
The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...
'' where he became friends with a fellow reporter
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
, formerly of ''
The Kansas City Star
''The Kansas City Star'' is a newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Star'' is most notable for its influence on the career of President Harry S. Truman and a ...
''. Callaghan began writing stories that were well received and soon were recognized as one of the best short story writers of the day. In 1929
[ he spent some months in Paris, where he was part of the great gathering of writers in ]Montparnasse
Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse has bee ...
that included Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...
, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...
, and James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
.
He recalled this time in his 1963 memoir
A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobi ...
, ''That Summer in Paris''. In the book, he discusses the famous boxing
Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...
match between himself and Hemingway wherein Callaghan took up Hemingway's challenge to a bout. While in Paris, the pair had been regular sparring partners at the American Club of Paris. Being a better boxer, Callaghan knocked Hemingway to the mat. The blame was centered on referee F. Scott Fitzgerald's lack of attention on the stopwatch as he let the boxing round go past its regulation three minutes. An infuriated Hemingway was angry at Fitzgerald; Hemingway and Fitzgerald had an often caustic relationship and Hemingway was convinced that Fitzgerald let the round go longer than normal to see Hemingway humiliated by Callaghan. Both principals involved confirm the match took place, but there is a disagreement between them as to how badly Hemingway was beaten. See ''That Summer in Paris'', and ''Hemingway's Letters: To Max Perkins, 28 Aug 1929; to Fitzgerald, 12 Dec 1929; and to Mizener, 04 Jan 1951''. This boxing match could not have taken place at the American Club of Paris; since its founding in 1904, the American Club of Paris has never had a clubhouse, so it would have been impossible for the fight to have taken place there. It could have been at Pershing Hall on the rue Pierre Charron, also known at the time as the American Soldiers and Sailors Club. A more likely candidate, however, is the basement of the United States Students' and Artists' Club on the boulevard Raspail in the Montparnasse area, much closer to where both Callaghan and Hemingway lived.
Callaghan's novels and short stories are marked by undertones of Roman Catholicism, often focusing on individuals whose essential characteristic is a strong but often weakened sense of self. His first novel was ''Strange Fugitive'' (1928); several short stories, novellas, and novels followed. Callaghan published little between 1937 and 1950 - an artistically dry period. However, during these years, many non-fiction articles were written in various periodicals such as ''New World'' (Toronto), and ''National Home Monthly''. ''Luke Baldwin's Vow'', a slim novel about a boy and his dog, was originally published in a 1947 edition of '' Saturday Evening Post'' and soon became a juvenile classic read in school rooms around the world. ''The Loved and the Lost'' (1951) won the Governor General's Award
The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual List of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields.
Th ...
. Callaghan's later works include, among others, ''The Many Colored Coat'' (1960), ''A Passion in Rome'' (1961), ''A Fine and Private Place'' (1975), ''A Time for Judas'' (1983), ''Our Lady of the Snows'' (1985). His last novel was ''A Wild Old Man Down the Road'' (1988). Publications of short stories have appeared in ''The Lost and Found Stories of Morley Callaghan'' (1985) and in ''The New Yorker Stories'' (2001). The four-volume ''The Complete Stories'' (2003) collects for the first time 90 of his stories.
Callaghan was also a contributor to ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', '' Harper's Bazaar'', ''Maclean's
''Maclean's'', founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian persp ...
'', '' Esquire'', ''Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan may refer to:
Food and drink
* Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo"
History
* Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953
Hotels and resorts
* Cosmopoli ...
'', '' Saturday Evening Post'', ''Yale Review
''The Yale Review'' is the oldest literary journal in the United States. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
It was founded in 1819 as ''The Christian Spectator'' to support Evangelicalism. Over time it began to publish more on hi ...
'', ''New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...
'', ''Performing Arts in Canada
A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.
Management science
In the work place ...
'', and ''Twentieth Century Literature
20 (twenty; Roman numeral XX) is the natural number following 19 and preceding 21. A group of twenty units may also be referred to as a score.
In mathematics
*20 is a pronic number.
*20 is a tetrahedral number as 1, 4, 10, 20.
*20 is the b ...
''.
Callaghan married Loretto Dee, with whom he had two sons: Michael (born November 1931) and Barry Barry may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Barry (name), including lists of people with the given name, nickname or surname, as well as fictional characters with the given name
* Dancing Barry, stage name of Barry Richards (born c. 19 ...
(born 1937), a poet and author in his own right. Barry Callaghan's memoir ''Barrelhouse Kings'' (1998), examines his career and that of his father. After outliving most of his contemporaries, Callaghan died after a brief illness in Toronto at the age of 87. He was interred in Mount Hope Catholic Cemetery
Mount Hope Catholic Cemetery is a Catholic cemetery at 305 Erskine Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
History
Mount Hope was created near the end of the 19th Century when the Archdiocese of Toronto was faced with a capacity issue at St. Micha ...
in Ontario.
Recognition
Callaghan was awarded the Royal Society of Canada's Lorne Pierce Medal The Lorne Pierce Medal is awarded every two years by the Royal Society of Canada to recognize achievement of special significance and conspicuous merit in imaginative or critical literature written in either English or French. The medal was first aw ...
in 1960. In 1982 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada
The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit.
To coincide with the cen ...
.
Morley Callaghan is the subject of a CBC Television '' Life and Times'' episode, and the CBC mini-series, ''Hemingway Vs. Callaghan'', which first aired in March 2003.
From 1951 until he died in 1990, the author had lived in the Rosedale, Toronto
Rosedale is a neighbourhood in central Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was formerly the estate of William Botsford Jarvis, and so named by his wife, granddaughter of William Dummer Powell, for the wild roses that grew there in abundance. It is loc ...
area, at 20 Dale Avenue. A historic plaque at the nearby Glen Road footbridge summarizes Callaghan's noteworthy writing career and the most significant of his literary contemporaries, including Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
and F Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...
.
Commemorative postage stamp
On September 8, 2003, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the National Library of Canada
Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is t ...
, Canada Post
Canada Post Corporation (french: Société canadienne des postes), trading as Canada Post (french: Postes Canada), is a Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada. Originally known as Royal Mail Canada (the opera ...
released a special commemorative series, "The Writers of Canada", with a design by Katalina Kovats, featuring two English-Canadian and two French-Canadian stamps. Three million stamps were issued. Callaghan was chosen for one of the English-Canadian stamps.
Bibliography
Novels
* ''Strange Fugitive
Strange may refer to:
Fiction
* Strange (comic book), a comic book limited series by Marvel Comics
* Strange (Marvel Comics), one of a pair of Marvel Comics characters known as The Strangers
* Adam Strange, a DC Comics superhero
* The title cha ...
'' - 1928
* ''It's Never Over
English auxiliary verbs are a small set of English verbs, which include the English modal verbs and a few others. Although definitions vary, as generally conceived an auxiliary lacks inherent semantic meaning but instead modifies the meaning of an ...
'' - 1930
* '' A Broken Journey'' - 1932
* '' Such Is My Beloved'' - 1934
* '' They Shall Inherit the Earth'' - 1935
* ''More Joy in Heaven
''More Joy in Heaven'' is a novel written by Canadian author Morley Callaghan and published in 1937.
The central figure, Kip Caley, was inspired by Norman Ryan (1895-1936), a criminal who had committed a number of robberies in Quebec, Ontario and ...
'' - 1937
* '' The Loved and the Lost'' - 1951
* '' The Many Colored Coat'' - 1960 (reissued as ''The Man with the Coat'', 1988)
* '' A Passion in Rome'' - 1961
* ''A Fine and Private Place
''A Fine and Private Place'' is a fantasy novel by American writer Peter S. Beagle, the first of his major fantasies. It was first published in hardcover by Viking Press on May 23, 1960, followed by a trade paperback from Delta the same year. ...
'' - 1975
* '' A Time for Judas'' - 1983
* '' Our Lady of the Snows'' - 1985 (based on his novella The Enchanted Pimp)
* '' A Wild Old Man on the Road'' - 1988
Novellas
* '' No Man's Meat'' - 1931
* '' Luke Baldwin's Vow'' - 1948 (reissued as ''The Vow'', 2006)
* '' The Varsity Story'' - 1948
* '' An Autumn Penitent'' - 1973 (and ''In His Own Country'')
* '' Close to the Sun Again'' - 1977
* ''No Man's Meat and The Enchanted Pimp
No (and variant writings) may refer to one of these articles:
English language
* ''Yes'' and ''no'' (responses)
* A determiner in noun phrases
Alphanumeric symbols
* No (kana), a letter/syllable in Japanese script
* No symbol, displayed ð ...
'' - 1978
Short fiction
* '' A Native Argosy'' - 1929
* '' Now That April's Here and Other Stories'' - 1936
* '' Morley Callaghan's Stories'' - 1959
* '' Stories'' - 1967
* '' The Lost and Found Stories of Morley Callaghan'' - 1985
* ''The Morley Callaghan Reader
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' - 1997
* '' The New Yorker Stories'' - 2001
* ''The Complete Stories'' (four volumes) - 2003
* ''Ancient Lineage and Other Stories
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...
'' - 2012
* The Snob
* The Sentimentalists
Non-fiction
* ''That Summer in Paris: Memories of Tangled Friendships with Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Some Others'' - 1963
* ''Winter'' - 1974
Plays
* '' Turn Again Home'' (based on the novel ''They Shall Inherit the Earth'', produced in New York City in 1940, and produced under the title ''Going Home'' in Toronto in 1950)
* '' Just Ask George'' (produced in Toronto, 1940)
* '' To Tell the Truth'' (produced in Toronto, 1949)
* '' Season of the Witch'' - 1976
Film adaptations
*'' Now That April's Here'' (1958)
*'' The Cap'' (1984)
Further reading
Books
* Boire, Gary A., ''Morley Callaghan and His Works'' - 1990
* Boire, Gary A., ''Morley Callaghan: Literary Anarchist'' - 1994
* Cameron, Donald, ''Conversations with Canadian Novelists, Part Two'' - 1973
* ''Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 3'' - 1975
* ''Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 14'' - 1980
* ''Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 41'' - 1987
* ''Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 65'' - 1991
* ''Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 68: Canadian Writers, 1920–1959, First Series'' - 1988
* Morley, Patricia, ''Morley Callaghan'' - 1978
* Orange, John, ''Orpheus in Winter: Morley Callaghan's'' The Loved and the Lost - 1993
* Sutherland, Fraser, ''The Style of Innocence'' - 1972
* Wilson, Edmund, ''O Canada'' - 1965
* Woodcock, George, ''Moral Predicament: Morley Callaghan's'' More Joy in Heaven - 1993
Periodicals
* ''Books in Canada
''Books in Canada'' was a monthly magazine that reviewed Canadian literature, published in print form between 1971 and 2008. In its heyday it was the most influential literary magazine in Canada.
Foundation
One of the co-founders of ''Books in Ca ...
'', April, 1986, pp. 32–33.
* ''Canadian Forum'', March, 1960; February, 1968.
* ''Canadian Literature'', summer, 1964
* ''Canadian Literature'', winter, 1984, pp. 66–69.
* ''Canadian Literature'', autumn, 1990, pp. 148–49.
* ''Dalhousie Review'', autumn, 1959.
* ''Essays on Canadian Writing'', winter, 1984–85, pp. 309– 15
* ''Essays on Canadian Writing'', summer, 1990, pp. 16–20.
* ''Form and Century'', April, 1934.
* ''New Republic'', February 9, 1963.
* ''New Yorker'', November 26, 1960.
* ''Queen's Quarterly'', autumn, 1957
* ''Queen's Quarterly'', autumn, 1989, pp. 717–19.
* ''Saturday Night'', October, 1983, pp. 73–74.
* ''Tamarack Review'', winter, 1962.
* ''American Spectator'', February, 1991.
References
External links
Morley Callaghan archives
held at Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
, Ontario
{{DEFAULTSORT:Callaghan, Morley
1903 births
1990 deaths
20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights
Canadian male novelists
Canadian Roman Catholics
Canadian male short story writers
Companions of the Order of Canada
Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
Governor General's Award-winning fiction writers
Members of the Order of Ontario
Canadian people of Irish descent
Lawyers in Ontario
Writers from Toronto
University of Toronto alumni
Toronto Star people
20th-century Canadian novelists
Canadian male dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Canadian short story writers
Osgoode Hall Law School alumni
20th-century Canadian male writers