A Catalogue of the Letters, Tapes and Photographs in the Irving Layton Collection

R.G. Moyles is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British Views of
Canada, 1880-1914.

In 1969, Concordia University in Montreal began its Irving Layton
Collection, which today comprises an almost complete corpus of his
work—manuscripts, correspondence, notebooks, published texts,
photographs, and audio/video-tapes. The manuscripts were catalogued and
described in an earlier publication, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in
the Layton Collection (1988). This volume completes the project by
cataloguing the correspondence (some 7000 letters to and 600 by Layton
from the 1930s to the 1980s); audiotapes (some 70 sets of poetry
readings, interviews, radio shows, and symposia); photographs and slides
(from family outings to official functions); scrapbooks (five of them
compiled by Layton from 1943 to 1966); and videocassettes and films (six
of the former and one of the latter). This particular catalogue has been
compiled by an expert, and is, above all, accessible and comprehensible.
It is preceded by lucid explanatory notes and an engaging introduction,
and is followed up by comprehensive author/title and subject indexes.

This exemplary catalogue offers Canadian scholars yet another means of
access to an important library collection, and stands as a tribute to
the prolific career of one of Canada’s outstanding poets.