The Gucci Bag

Louise H. Girard was Head of Book Selection, University of St. Michael's College Library, Toronto.

The McClelland and Stewart edition of this title was reviewed last year (CBRA 1983, entry 3151). Although the titles are the same, the content of this edition differs from that of the McClelland and Stewart edition: this edition contains 13 poems that are not in the McClelland and Stewart edition, and 23 poems in the McClelland and Stewart edition do not appear in this edition. Further, the arrangement of the poems within the two editions differs. The overall artistic and intellectual content of the two works does not differ considerably, however. The fact that the forewords of the two editions is substantially the same would seem to indicate that Irving Layton himself feels that he has covered the same ground. The main difference between the two editions is that the content is more tightly focused in the Mosaic volume. This, in fact, makes it the better of the two. This edition is also something of a collector’s item, since it is a signed and numbered edition of 429 copies with the first 100 copies being specially bound.