The Clockmaker: Series One, Two, and Three

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.

Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s first “Sam Slick” papers appeared
anonymously in a Nova Scotian newspaper in 1835. They soon gained wider
popularity, enjoying success in both England and the United States.
Three volumes were published under the title of The Clockmaker (all
reprinted here), and the Yankee pedlar’s adventures and attitudes
provided the subject for a number of subsequent books. Sam Slick
himself—like his contemporary Mr. Pickwick—became a house-hold word.
The Clockmaker was the first international bestseller written in what is
now Canada.

The present edition is the 10th volume to be published by the Centre
for Editing Early Canadian Texts, an organization dedicated to producing
scholarly modern editions of early Canadian prose. In this case, the
process is especially welcome, since the dialect forms and deliberately
eccentric spellings, as well as the proliferation of cheap and often
carelessly printed texts, have led to various distortions of what
Haliburton actually wrote.

George L. Parker, in his long introduction, brings together all we need
to know about the publication history of The Clockmaker; he also
provides an exhaustive account of editions and subsequent literary
discussion. In addition, there are much-needed explanatory notes,
primarily devoted to the elucidation of historical references, and a
meticulous apparatus criticus.

It is possible to become too reverent about early Canadian texts, many
of which are of limited literary interest. But The Clockmaker can
legitimately be considered a classic; it is a book that lives by virtue
of Haliburton’s fascination with word usage, his fine ear for the
rhythms and cadences of speech. Sam Slick remains vivid as a character
not merely because of his opinions but also because of his inimitable
idiom. The Clockmaker is an important part of our literary heritage;
both Parker and the CEECT are to be congratulated for producing this
excellent scholarly edition of a work that is too often abridged.