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The following is excerpted from the Kingston Whig-Standard review of Both Hands: A Life of Lorne Pierce of Ryerson Press by Sandra Campbell.
Both Hands, a new biography of [Lorne] Pierce written by Kingston author Sandra Campbell and published by McGill-Queen’s Press, finally gives Pierce his due.
Until she retired this month, Sandra was a highly respected professor in the Pauline Jewett Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies at Carleton University tin Ottawa. It struck me as odd that such an ardent feminist would choose a man as her first biographical subject.
“I started off in literature,” she replied. “And generally, I’m interested in the people behind the scenes who make things happen. Lorne Pierce was one of those people.
“I was interested in how various groups are treated by publishers,” she went on. “How women writers such as Dorothy Livesay and Laura Goodman Salverson were handled, the power structures they were implicated in. Publishing is an important one of those.”
Sandra first came across Pierce when she was researching her PhD on Pelham Edgar, the author and influential teacher of Northrop Frye. She visited Queen’s Archives and began reading through the dozens and dozens of boxes of Pierce material, entranced by his erudite mind, his passion for Canadian literature, and his irresistible Irish wit.
His personal vision is compelling: “I think of my desk as an altar at which I serve, addressing the whole cultural life of Canada,” he wrote. “I’m going to make Ryerson Press a Canadian cultural mecca.”
(…)
When he died in 1961, Pierce was hailed as “the most influential man of letters in Canada.” With Both Hands, Campbell gives him renewed life, at a time in Canadian publishing when we are very much in need of his brand of vision and integrity.
To learn more about Both Hands, or to order online, click here.
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