William Arthur Deacon: A Canadian Literary Life

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

William Arthur Deacon was “an intellectual patron and prophet in Canadian writing.” A full-time literary journalist for 38 years, he served on staff at Saturday Night from1922 to 1928; The Mail and Empire from 1928 to 1936; and finally The Globe and Mail from 1936 until 1960, when he at last went into reluctant retirement. Himself the author of Pens and Pirates, Poteen, The Four Jameses, and My Vision of Canada, his life’s steadfast mission was that of working for “the establishment of an entire, self-contained, dynamic Canadian cultural milieu.” To this end he encouraged and supported countless Canadian writers both in public through his influential literary pages, and privately in his enormous and fascinating correspondence. Over the years, Deacon as a critic and reviewer was a powerful force in the shaping of a nation’s literature and in educating the Canadian reading public to a new awareness and receptivity. While this biography scarcely touches upon Deacon’s private life, it provides an intimate and detailed picture of a literary man at work with and for the giants of Canadian literature.