Editing Modernism in Canada - Important news for Lowry Enthusiasts

I am pleased to report some significant news regarding the publishing of new and out of print works by Malcolm Lowry under the banner of the Editing Modernism in Canada project:

The EMiC project is affiliated with and/or partnered with several presses and series of editions: The Porcupine’s Quill; the Canadian Literature Collection, edited by Dean Irvine, and the Anthology Collection, edited by Janice Fiamengo, both published by the University of Ottawa Press; the Laurier Poetry Series, edited by Neil Besner, and the TransCanada series, edited by Smaro Kamboureli, both published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press; the CrossCurrents series, edited by Paul Hjartarson, published by the University of Alberta Press; McGill-Queen’s University Press; and the University of Toronto Press.

The editions in preparation include texts by a wide range of canonical, formerly canonical or popular, and non-canonical authors: Carroll Aikins, Ted Allan, Sol Allen, Irene Baird, Marius Barbeau, Bertram Brooker, Ernest Buckler, Fred Cogswell, Louis Dudek, Sui Sin Far, Marie Joussaye Fotheringham, A.M. Klein, Raymond Knister, Dorothy Livesay, Malcolm Lowry, Hugh MacLennan, Eli Mandell, P.K. Page, E.J. Pratt, F.R. Scott, Elizabeth Smart, Miriam Waddington, Sheila Watson, Wilfred Watson and the collaborative authorship of Martha Ostenso and Douglas Durkin as well as Oscar Ryan, Mildred Goldberg, Ed Cecil-Smith, and Frank Love. Many of these editions include digital apparatuses, and many of the proposed editions will be published online in the EMiC digital repository.

Given the EMiC project’s mandate to supervise and train graduate students and postdoctoral fellows working on their own editions, these editions are but a partial representation of the potential number of EMiC editions.

Our rationale for the selection of authors and texts has been determined by multiple criteria:

1) canonical authors whose works are either out of print or available only in excerpts in anthologies;

(2) canonical authors whose work is in print but unavailable in critical editions;

(3) previously unpublished works by canonical authors;

(4) formerly canonical or popular authors whose works are out of print and otherwise inaccessible;

(5) non-canonical authors whose work has already been the object of previous critical and literary-historical study but remains unpublished, uncollected, or out of print;

(6) marginalized and minoritized authors whose work has not yet been widely recognized as part of modernist literary cultures.

In addition to EMiC editions, the project will issue a series of essay collections and special journal issues with contributions by participants in the 2011 workshop and the 2010 and 2012 conferences. Read more on EMiC

What is exciting for Lowry enthusiasts is the following which EMiC has in the pipeline:

2011

* Malcolm Lowry, Lunar Caustic, eds. Victor Doyen and Christopher Ackerley. Print edition with web-based apparatus (University of Ottawa Press)

* Lowry and Space, eds. Miguel Mota and Richard Lane. Multimedia book.

* After Lowry, dir. Miguel Mota. Film.

2012

*Malcolm Lowry, In Ballast to the White Sea, eds. Paul Tiessen, Patrick McCarthy, and Miguel Mota (University of Ottawa Press). Print edition with web-based apparatus.

2013

* Malcolm Lowry, The 1940 Under the Volcano, eds. Paul Tiessen, Patrick McCarthy, and Miguel Mota. Print edition with web-based apparatus (University of Ottawa Press)

Probably, the most exciting news is the publication of the supposedly "lost" manuscript of In Ballast to the White Sea. I understand that this publication will be based on an early draft held in Jan Gabrial's archive. This early draft may not be as complete as the one lost in the fire in Lowry's shack in 1944. However, it will provide a glimpse into the long thought lost work which will have huge significance for Lowry enthusiasts and scholars.

I will keep readers posted on above when I have more details.