Time and Place: The Life and Works of Thomas H Raddall

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

Acadia University held its first annual conference on Atlantic
literature and culture in September 1990. The series is named after
Thomas H. Raddall, and it was appropriate that his work should be the
focus of the opening symposium. Time and Place prints the proceedings of
that important occasion. The book contains essays on various aspects of
his life and writings, plus concluding remarks from three guest
scholars.

Most volumes of conference papers merit the traditional verdict of the
curate on the egg: good in parts. The standard of this collection seems
to me higher than most, though I have to report finding the peripheral,
less expected topics more interesting that the literary-critical ones.
These include Allen Penney on Raddall as conservator of the Simeon
Perkins House in Liverpool, Clary Croft on his use of folklore, and
Judith Dudar on his controversial researches into Grey Owl. Against
these informative and (to me) refreshingly original pieces, the
discussions of his work as fiction writer and historian seem a bit
run-of-the-mill. An exception must be made, however, in the case of
Donna E. Smyth, whose article (too narrowly categorized as
“feminist” on the contents page) is an excellent general reading of
Raddall’s work—the best single essay on his fiction that I have
read.

The collection is edited by Alan Young, who has done so much to
champion Raddall’s writing in the past. In organizing this conference
and editing these proceedings, he has carried further the good work of
getting a skilled, but currently somewhat unfashionable, writer the more
positive hearing that he deserves.