THE WHITE SAVANNAHS. Signed by Collin to his wife.
Toronto: MacMillan, 1936.
1st Edition. Hardcover. An extraordinary copy of a cornerstone work in Canadian literary modernism — the author’s own dedication copy, signed and inscribed to his wife.
First Edition. 8vo, green cloth, (x), 288 pp. A near fine, bright copy in a remarkable dustwrapper showing only light wear.
THE DEDICATION COPY, inscribed by the author beneath the printed dedication
“For Louise” (his wife):“from Edwin / June, 1936.”
A rare and exceptional association copy of this landmark work — the first book-length study of English-Canadian literature written from a purely critical standpoint, and the first modernist critical work in Canadian literary history.
Collin’s THE WHITE SAVANNAHS established him as a major figure in Canadian criticism. Drawing upon the influence of T.S. Eliot, Sir James Frazer, and the French Symbolists, Collin examined the poetry of Archibald Lampman, Marjorie Pickthall, E.J. Pratt, Leo Kennedy, A.J.M. Smith, F.R. Scott, A.M. Klein, R. Le Franc, and Dorothy Livesay. The essays originally appeared in The Canadian Forum and the University of Toronto Quarterly.
The title, THE WHITE SAVANNAHS, alludes to Collin’s sense of cultural isolation while living in London, Ontario — a “desert” in contrast to the artistic ferment of Montreal.
“In 1982 critic W. E. Collin recalled the excitement with which he discovered the poems of Leo Kennedy in a copy of The Forum in 1930, and the urgency that sent him hurrying to Montreal to meet with the poet and his colleagues… Collin would eventually celebrate the group in his critical anthology The White Savannahs (1936).”
— Patricia A. Morley, As Though Life Mattered (1994).
[William Edwin Collin (1893–1984), literary critic, born in Oakenshaw, England; died in London, Ontario.] He also wrote a study of Paul-Jean Toulet and served from 1941–1956 as the annual reviewer of French-Canadian literature for the University of Toronto Quarterly.
Item #34236 Price: US$22,500.00