Page:EB1922 - Volume 30.djvu/606

560

succeeded by the Duke of Devonshire in 1916; and when the Duke of Devonshire's term expired on July 18 1921, he was succeeded by Gen. Lord Byng of Vimy. (W. L. G.*)

CANADIAN LITERATURE

English-Canadian, The literary record of Canada in 1910-21 falls more or less definitely into three sections pre-war, war and post-war. During the war years the heart of the Canadian people became so completely absorbed in the great conflict, in which they had so much at stake, that, after the first year or so at any rate, there remained little room for any intellectual activity not connected directly or indirectly with the war and its successful prosecution. The new literature of 1910-14 had reflected the characteristic of the Dominion in those years a spirit of optimism, of national self-consciousness, of conserv- atism in the broader sense, and intellectually of wider and more stimulating horizons. And the return to peace conditions, dur- ing 1918-21, was mainly notable in literature for more or less thoughtful reviews of Canada's part in the war, consideration of her problems of reconstruction, and the picking up anew of the somewhat neglected threads of her intellectual life.

Unquestionably the most important achievement of the pre- war period was the publication of Canada and its Provinces, a .comprehensive survey of the history of the country in 23 vol- umes, edited by Dr. A. G. Doughty and Dr. Adam Shortt, and counting among its contributors most of the recognized author- ities in Canadian history, biography and economics. Another notable essay in Canadian history was the series known as the Chronicles of Canada, in 32 volumes, edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton, a series designed to present in attractive and at the same time authoritative form the outstand- ing events of Canadian history. The authors of the individual volumes included such well-known writers as Charles W. Colby, of McGill University, Col. William Wood, Stephen Leacock, Dr. Doughty, Oscar D. Skelton, of Queen's University, and Sir Joseph Pope. The publication in 1911 of an Index and Dic- tionary of Canadian History completed the series of biographies known as The Makers of Canada.

The celebration of the tercentenary of the founding of Quebec brought in its train, with a flood of purely ephemeral literature, several books of permanent value, such as The King's Book of Quebec (1911), edited by Dr. Doughty and Col. Wood, James Douglas' New England and New France (1913), Wood's In the Heart of Old Canada (1913), and Prof. Wrong's The Fall of Canada (1914). In 1920 the Hudson's Bay Company cele- brated its 25oth birthday with elaborate pageants in Win- nipeg and elsewhere throughout the West. The occasion was also marked by the publication of a very completely illustrated history of the Company. In 1921 McGill University celebrated the icoth anniversary of its charter.

This period also witnessed a succession of biographies and autobiographies of famous Canadians, including Beckles Willson's Lord Strathcona (1914) and W. T. R. Preston's pun- gent life of the same many-sided character, Sir Richard Cart- wright's Reminiscences (1912), Sir George W. Ross' Getting into Parliament and After (1913), L. J. Burpee's Sir Sandford Fleming (1915), John Boyd's Sir George Etienne Cartier (1914), Sir Charles Tupper's Recollections of Sixty Years in Canada (1914), and Goldwin Smith's posthumous Reminiscences (1910), Life and Opinions (1913) and Correspondence (1913), all three edited by his literary executor, Arnold Haultain.

Other noteworthy books of this period are W. H. Atherton's Montreal 1535-1914 (1914), John Ross Robertson's Landmarks of Toronto (1914), E. H. Oliver's The Canadian North-West (1914), and Doughty and McArthur's Documents relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1791-1818 (1914) ; and in books of description and travel, A. P. Coleman's The Canadian Rockies (1911), Ernest Thompson Seton's Arctic Prairies (1911), Dr. Campbell's Canadian Lake Region (1910), and Charles Sheldon's Wilderness of the Upper Yukon (1911). Among a host of polit- ical and economic essays may be mentioned John S. Ewart's The Kingdom Papers (1914), Sir William Peterson's Canadian

Essays and Addresses (1915), Sir George Foster's Canadian Addresses (1914), Sir Andrew Macphail's Essays in Politics (1910), Maj.-Gen. C. W. Robinson's Canada and Canadian Defence (1910), and Edward Porritt's Revolt in Canada against the New Feudalism (1911). In 1913 a new edition also appeared of Col. George T. Denison's History of Cavalry, written as early as 1876, and awarded in the following year the prize offered by the Tsar of Russia for the best essay on the subject.

In imaginative literature, the only books of verse that need be noted here are Bliss Carman's Echoes from Vagabondia (1912), William Wilfrid Campbell's Sagas of Vaster Britain (1914), William Henry Drummond's Poetical Works (1912), Marjorie Pickthall's Drift of Pinions (1913), Frederick George Scott's Poems (1912), and Arthur J. Stringer's Open Water (1914). In 1913 Dr. Campbell brought out his excellent anthology, the Oxford Book of Canadian Verse. In fiction, the most noteworthy names are those of Miss L. M. Montgomery, Charles G. D. Roberts, Norman Duncan, C. W. Gordon (" Ralph Connor "), Theodore Roberts, Alan Sullivan and Arthur Stringer.

With regard to the literature of the war, or of Canada's part in it, many volumes of personal experiences had already been published by 1921. A really notable book is Winged Warfare (1918) by Col. William A. Bishop, V.C. Others that may be named here are Col. George G. Naismith's On the Fringe of the Great Fight (1917), F. C. Curry's From the St. Lawrence to the Yser (1917), F. McKelvey Bell's First Canadians in France (1917), and Captured by Lieut. J. Harvey Douglas (1918). In 1917 appeared the first of six volumes of Canada in the Great World War (completed in 1921), an authoritative account of Canada's part in the conflict, by a number of competent writers. An official history of the war, from a Canadian viewpoint, under the title of Canada in Flanders, the first two volumes of which were prepared by Lord Beaverbrook and the third by Maj. Charles G. D. Roberts, appeared in 1916-8. Other war books of interest are Col. J. G. Adami's Official War Story of the C.A. M.C. (1919), Dr. Herbert A. Bruce's Politics and the C.A.M.C. (1919), J. F. B. Livesay's Canada's Hundred Days (1910), Hon. Henri S. Beland's Three Years in a German Prison (1919), Alan Sullivan's Aviation in Canada (1919), Capt. Harwood Steele's Canadians in France (1920), John W. Dafoe's Over the Canadian Battlefields (1919), and Sir Robert Borden's The War and the Future (1917). Through the foresight of Lord Beaver- brook and Dr. Doughty, Canada acquired an exceptionally com- plete collection of war records, paintings, and trophies.

Among the more significant of the post-war books are Sir Robert Falconer's Idealism in National Character (1920), J. L. Morison's British Supremacy and Canadian Self -Government (1919), Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King's Industry and Humanity (1918), R. M. Maclver's Labour in-the Changing World (1919), W. C. Good's Production and Taxation in Canada (1919), A. H. Reginald Buller's Essays on Wheat (1919), Prof. Wrong's The United States and Canada (1921), W. G. Smith's Study in Canadian Immigration (1920), and two books discussing the relations between English- speaking and French -speaking Can- ada O. W. H. Moore's The Clash (1918) and P. F. Morley's Bridging the Chasm (1919).

In history and biography there were such important works as J. S. McLennan's Louisbourg (1918), Chester Martin's Lord Selkirk's Work in Canada (1916), G. C. Davidson's North West Company (1919), William Smith's History of the Post Office 1639-1870 (1920), W. R. Riddell's Old Province Tales (1920), Prof. Skelton's The Canadian Dominion (1919), Sir John Willison's Reminiscences (1919), W. T. Grenfell's A Labrador Doctor (1919), E. M. Saunder's Life of Sir Charles Tupper (1916),. Skelton's Sir Alexander Gait (1920), and Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1921), Sir Joseph Pope's Correspondence of Sir John MacDonald (1921) and Walter Vaughan's Sir William Van Home (1920). The Historical Section of the Canadian General Staff issued the first three volumes of an official History of the Military and Naval Forces of Canada from 1763 (1920-21).

Of agencies which, each in its own way, were making in these later years for the development of intellectual life and scholar-