William Arthur Deacon : : A Canadian Literary Life / / Clara Thomas, John Lennox.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Thomas, Clara,; Lennox, John,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2019]; ©1982
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (400 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; CONTENTS --; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --; PROLOGUE --; CHAPTER ONE. A Man with a Mission --; CHAPTER TWO. Apprenticeship and Choice --; CHAPTER THREE. Saturday Night 1922-8 --; CHAPTER FIVE. Writings of the Twenties: Pens and Pirates, P oteen, and Peter McArthur --; CHAPTER SIX. The Four Jameses --; CHAPTER SEVEN. The Survival Game: Journalism in the Thirties --; CHAPTER EIGHT. A Community of Letters 11: 1930-45 --; CHAPTER NINE. Writings of the Thirties: Open House, My Vision of Canada, and The Literary Map of Canada --; CHAPTER TEN. The Canadian Authors' Association --; CHAPTER ELEVEN. The Globe and Mail Years --; CHAPTER TWELVE. A Community of Letters 111: 1946-60 --; CHAPTER THIRTEEN. The Retirement Years --; Selected Writings of William Arthur Deacon --; NOTES --; INDEX
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781487575014; 9783110490947
• DOI: 10.3138/9781487575014
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Clara Thomas, John Lennox.

William Arthur Deacon was an intellectual patron and prophet in Canadian writing. For forty years, as literary editor of Saturday Night (1922-8), The Mail and Empire (1928-36), and The Globe and Mail (1936-60) he contributed vast amounts of time and energy to building a readership and a sympathetic climate for Canadian writers and writing. His correspondence put him in touch, as no other reviewer before him, with virtually every English- and French-Canadian author of his time. Based on his correspondence, books, and review columns, the biography views Deacon’s life in terms of this involvement and in the context of the cultural and political forces of his time. Deacon’s early years as a lawyer, his self-imposed literary apprenticeship, and his break with the law as a profession concurred with the sense of mission and destiny that were part of his Methodist family background and his personal theosophical beliefs. Coming to Toronto in 1922, he quickly established himself as the country’s premier literary reviewer and poured his energies into that role. In that decade he also published Pens and Pirates, Poteen, The Four Jameses, and the appreciative monograph Peter McArthur. Deacon’s dismissal from Saturday Night and the Depression years tempered his zeal and broadened his awareness beyond literary horizons, although they were still the focus of his energies. His nationalism and pacifism were articulated in My Vision of Canada (1933). He also found himself more aware of the importance of literary community as he became deeply involved in the survival of Canadian writers and publishers. Deacon’s years with the Canadian Author’s Association, first as member, then as Toronto branch president, and finally as national president, witnessed the establishment of the Canadian Writers’ Foundation, the Governor-General’s Awards, the Standard Writers’ Contract, and the recognition by the federal government of special tax arrangements for Canadian writers. The list of those who enjoyed Deacon’s friendship and support reads like a who’s who of Canadian literature, and his associations with French-Canadian writers after the Second World War broadened the cultural awareness of his readers. His service to both reader and writer and to the culture on which both depend was without parallel – as this volume vividly reveals.