The New Canadian Library is a
publishing
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
imprint of the Canadian company
McClelland and Stewart
McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is owned by Random House of Canada, Penguin Random House of Canada, a branch of Penguin Random House, the international book publishing division of German media giant Bertelsmann.
...
. The series aims to present classic works of
Canadian literature
Canadian literature is the literature of a multicultural country, written in languages including Canadian English, Canadian French, Indigenous languages, and many others such as Canadian Gaelic. Influences on Canadian writers are broad both ge ...
in
paperback
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) book ...
. Each work published in the series includes a short essay by another notable Canadian writer, discussing the historical context and significance of the work. These essays were originally forewords, but after McClelland and Stewart's 1985 sale to
Avie Bennett
Avie Bennett, (January 2, 1928 – June 2, 2017) was a Canadian businessman and philanthropist. He was the founder of First Plazas, a real estate development company that built retail strip malls in Canada. Bennett also served as the tenth c ...
, the prefatory material was abandoned and replaced by
afterword
An afterword is a literary device that is often found at the end of a piece of literature. It generally covers the story of how the book came into being, or of how the idea for the book was developed.
An afterword may be written by someone other ...
s.
[Janet Friskney, "New Canadian Library," in Benson, Eugene and William Toye ds.''The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature.'' Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997 (p. 794)]
It was founded by
Malcolm Ross with the intention of providing affordable material for his students;
David Staines
David McKenzie Staines, (born August 8, 1946) is a Canadian literary critic, university professor, writer, and editor.
Staines was born in Toronto, Ontario, and studied at the University of Toronto, where he obtained a BA in 1967, and at Harv ...
has been the general editor of the series since 1986. In 2007 the
University of Toronto Press
The University of Toronto Press is a Canadian university press founded in 1901. Although it was founded in 1901, the press did not actually publish any books until 1911.
The press originally printed only examination books and the university calen ...
published ''New Canadian Library: The Ross-McClelland Years, 1952-1978'', a work by Janet Beverly Friskney that provides an account of the New Canadian Library during the years of Ross's editorship.
Titles in the New Canadian Library
Numbered series
Originally, all titles in the series were numbered sequentially.
Unnumbered series
Books published in the collection after the sequential numbering ceased were:
Poetry collections
* ''Canadian Poetry: From the Beginnings Through the First World War'' edited by
Carole Gerson and Gwendolyn Davies
* ''Poets Between the Wars'' edited by
Milton Wilson
* ''Poets of Contemporary Canada 1960–1970'' edited by Eli Mandel
* ''Poets of the Confederation''
* ''Masks of Fiction''
* ''Masks of Poetry''
* ''Poetry of Mid-Century''
* ''The Poems of Earle Birney''
* ''Nineteenth-Century Narrative Poems''
* ''The Poems of Bliss Carman''
* ''Poems of Al Purdy''
* ''The Damnation of Vancouver''
* ''The Selected Poems of Irving Layton''
Canadian writers
* ''Marshall McLuhan''
* ''E. J. Pratt''
* ''Margaret Laurence''
* ''Frederick Philip Grove''
* ''Leonard Cohen''
* ''Mordecai Richler''
* ''Stephen Leacock''
* ''Hugh MacLennan''
* ''Earle Birney''
* ''Northrop Frye''
* ''Malcolm Lowry''
* ''James Reaney''
* ''George Woodcock''
* ''Farley Mowat''
* ''Ernest Buckler''
* ''Morley Callaghan''
* ''Robertson Davies''
Notes
External links
New Canadian Library web site at McClelland and Stewart
{{Authority control
1958 establishments in Canada