Northern Review, 1945-1956: A History and an Index

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.

The Northern Review was a small but historically important literary magazine that originated from the amalgamation of two earlier poetry magazines based on very different poetic principles: Preview, which reflected (in A. J. M. Smith’s classification) the “cosmopolitan” and relatively traditional attitudes of Patrick Anderson and P. K. Page (among others); and First Statement, which fostered a freer, “native” poetry and was the place where Louis Dudek, Irving Layton, and Raymond Souster first published their work in any quantity. Northern Review was edited by John Sutherland, a brilliant but opinionated and unpredictable critic who veered in the course of his editorship from a dogmatic Marxism to a no less committed Catholicism. Operated on the proverbial shoe-string, Northern Review had a stormy and crisis-ridden history but left its mark on the development of modern Canadian literature.

Though it is never identified as such, Hilda Vanneste’s study shows all the signs of having originated as an academic thesis. It is dutifully researched, generously footnoted, and laid out in the sanctioned pedagogic manner. Furthermore, it is reproduced from typescript of somewhat uneven ink, and contains the repetitions, as well as the typographical and spelling errors, that one comes to associate with university dissertations. Presumably, economy dictated this, but it is a pity that the work was not prepared for regular publication with more concern for the needs of a wider readership.

This area of literary history is, of course, fairly specialized, but those who are interested will find a wealth of material gathered together. Vanneste is a bit thin on interpretation (the origins of this unlikely collaboration between rival groups remain somewhat obscure), but she has provided us with a step-by-step presentation of the known facts, quoting from the magazine itself, from the literary milieu within which it operated, and from interviews with and private letters of some of the participants. Not least valuable is the index covering the whole life of the magazine, which will help future researchers.

A specialist book, then, but one that devotees of the history of Canadian poetry will find useful if not particularly exciting.