A Gentleman of Pleasure for Christmas

Signed copies of A Gentleman of Pleasure, gift wrapped in Anaglypta (heavy embossed paper) and postage paid to any destination, are now available at the retail price of C$39.95. Interested souls can make contact through email at my blogger profile. Cheers!

The Last of the Elegant 'Decadent Esthetes'

A gift from poet Stephen Morrissey, these Glassco related clippings from more than three decades past. Included is the man's Gazette obituary:

Daniel Francis in Geist

How do you write an accurate life of someone who lied for the fun of it? Busby is assiduous in tracking down the facts but sometimes he has to acknowledge that they do not carry him all the way to the truth. Never mind. A Gentleman of Pleasure is a thorough and thoroughly entertaining study of Canada's foremost literary charlatan and it is only appropriate if the reader is sometimes left wondering what's the truth and what's just truthiness.

Historian Daniel Francis in the latest issue of Geist.

Yuya Kiuchi in Choice

No other work matches this one for comprehensiveness: Busby's research is meticulous and impressive, and he provides valuable, often corrective, information abut Glassco.

Professor Yuya Kiuchi in the most recent issue of Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. "Recommended."

Andrew Lesk in The Malahat Review

Andrew Lesk reviews A Gentleman of Pleasure and John Glassco and the Other Montreal:

It is nothing less than thrilling—if I may use a word not often associated with Canadian literature—to have two excellent works on (and by) John Glassco appearing in the same year. Is this the (or, another) beginning of a Glassco revival? Let’s hope so. Brian Busby’s remarkably complete and very readable biography of a somewhat idiosyncratic man of letters brings to the fore Glassco’s many talents, on display not only in his celebrated (and notorious) Memoirs of Montparnasse but also for his less well-known (but equally important) work in the fields of poetry, translation, and pornography. Alongside Busby’s handsomely presented volume, Carmine Starnino focuses on selections of Glassco’s poetic works, which he prefaces with a brilliant and concise introductory essay. For the reader new to Glassco—and to those unfamiliar with his other work—the two books will definitely reward and delight.

The entire review can be found here.

John Glassco's Mysterious McGill Graduation

Winter in Montreal in 1927. Student life at McGill had depressed me to a point where I could not go on. I was learning nothing; the curriculum was designed at best to equip me as a professor destined to lead others in due course on the same round of lifeless facts. I was only seventeen and had the sense of throwing my time and my youth into a void.

Memoirs of Montparnasse famously begins with Glassco quitting McGill, the very institution at which his father served as bursar. The poet's university transcript records: "Left Dec. 10th 1927." True. Another hand has added "To study in France." Not true. Although the transcript clearly indicates that he completed only two of the four years required to earn his BA, Glassco made an appearance as a graduate with this image and these words drawn from the 1929 Old McGill.

Tonight at St. Marys Public Library

F.R. Scott Memorial Plaque

This coming Thursday, 13 October, will see the dedication of a plaque in memory of Glassco's friend and mentor F.R. Scott at the chapel of Montreal's St James the Apostle Anglican Church. Scott's will be the third in a cortege of writer's plaques that began two years ago when a small group gathered to remember John Glassco. A plaque to A.J.M. Smith followed, installed on the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of his passing.

This year's service, which will see formal recognition of 'The Writer's Chapel', will include two speakers from McGill university, the institution forever tied to Scott: Desmond Morton (Hiram Mills Emeritus Professor) and Roderick A. Macdonald (F.R. Scott Professor of Constitutional and Public Law).

All are welcome.

Thursday, 13 October 2011

Evensong, 6 p.m.

Church of St James the Apostle

1439 St Catherine Street West, Montreal

A reception with wine and cheese will follow.

Crossposted at The Dusty Bookcase.

Graeme Taylor's Grave, Mount Royal Cemetery

Unmarked.

The thirtieth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

'Complete set of Saikaku prints for Ralph'

Ralph Gustafson's copies of the Philip Core illustrations from The Temple of Pederasty. It's likely that Glassco gave these to his fellow poet in 1970.

The twenty-ninth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

Tonight in St. Marys

John Glassco, the Gaspé, 1971

Glassco in July 1971, during his self-described "honeymoon" with Marion McCormick.

The image first appeared on this blog in May.

The twenty-eighth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

The Tamarack Review, No. 49 (1969)

Glassco's copy of The Tamarack Review, No. 49, featuring the first excerpts of Memoirs of Montparnasse.

The twenty-seventh of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

Memoirs of Montparnasse - Annotated by Glassco

Frank and Marian Scott's copy of Memoirs of Montparnasse. Perhaps the most valuable book in my collection, it was a gift from the late Lawrence P. Nowicki, to whom I dedicated A Gentleman of Pleasure.

For Frank and Marian Scott

with love from

Buffy

and Numerous footnotes in Holograph,

forming a Key to the disguised

Characters in this Work —

Jan. 6, 1970

The twenty-sixth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

Poésie 64/Poetry 64 (1965)

John Glassco's heavily annotated copy of Poésie 64/Poetry 64, edited by Jacques Godbout and John Robert Colombo.

Published by Ryerson Press and les Éditions du Jour in 1965, the anthology was one of many volumes Glassco used in translating. This copy holds a slip of paper on which we see his 1966 translation of Françoise Bujold's "Le Semaine". "Cancelled for anthology", Glassco has written – a reference to his monumental The Poetry of French Canada in Translation (Toronto: Oxford, 1970).

The twenty-fifth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

Ce soir a Montréal - Tonight in Montreal

7:00 pm, Sunday, September 25

Salle des Jeunesses musicales

305 Mont-Royal Ave. E.

Montreal

Yvette Ledoux, Paris, c. 1927

Yvette Ledoux

28 July 1898, Trois-Rivières, Québec - 9 November 1945, Castle Point, New York

"Angela Martin" in Memoirs of Montparnasse.

The twenty-fourth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

Northern Journey, No. 3 (October 1973)

While Glassco submitted nothing to Northern Journey after the little magazine's debut, his name did appear again in its pages. The third issue features a short story, "Slow Burn", in which a character named "Margaret Atwood", "the reigning queen of Canadian literature", rides in a car after a reading:

Ms. Atwood sat up front. She said she was satisfied with the reading but not as pleased as she was in Montreal where John Glassco had paid her a grand compliment. After her performance there, "Buffy" had come up to tell her that she had given him "a great big erection."

The story, by journalist Wil Wigle, prompted a letter from Atwood's lawyer to Northern Journey editor Fraser Sutherland. Demands were made, the Writers Union became involved, resignations followed and unpleasantness spread like spilled paint in kindergarten class.

Glassco hadn't read the story for the simple reason that he had no subscription; an oversight he soon corrected.

A friend of both Atwood and Sutherland, Glassco found himself in a awkward position, and worked behind the scenes to diffuse the situation. In the end, he dismissed the mess as "an erection in a teapot."

Not only did Northern Journey not bend to the demands made by Atwood's lawyer, Rosalie Abella (now a Supreme Court justice), it played up "the offending issue".

The Globe & Mail, 2 November 1974

More, much more, in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The twenty-third of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

Northern Journey, No. 1 (1971)

The debut issue of Northern Journey, edited by Fraser Sutherland and Terrance MacCormack. Glassco contributed three pieces: "Euterpe's Honeymoon (Notes on the Poetic Process)", "Onan; or Little by Little (Found Poem)" and the first chapter of Fetish Girl. The last, published under the nom de plume Sylvia Bayer, includes this amusing introduction:

I am delighted to see this opening chapter of my eighth published novel appear in a serious literary magazine in my native land, and only hope this example of a frankly commercial literary genre won't be too out of place there. After all, aphrodisiac writing is genuine "pop" art, isn't it? And this has the distinction of being the first book ever written for rubber fetishists.*

Sylvia Bayer

Montreal, July 15, 1971

The back of the magazine features fourteen Canadian Writers Cards – "Save them, swap them with friends... It's a new and absorbing hobby!!" Glassco's card (CW8) appears bottom left, on the same perforated sheet as Sylvia Bayer (CW4). The photograph he supplied is in fact that of his first wife Elma.

* As I point out in A Gentleman of Pleasure and in this post, Glassco is mistaken in making this claim.

The twenty-second of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

The 2011 John Glassco Prize Gala

This coming Sunday evening, I'll have the honour of speaking at the 2011 John Glassco Prize Gala, sponsored by the Association des traducteurs et traductrices littéraires du Canada/Literary Translators' Association of Canada. Also on the bill: Moe Clark, Patricia Claxton, Sheila Fischman, Paul Gagné, Lazer Lederhendler, Lori Saint-Martin and our M.C. Robert Paquin.

7:00 pm, Sunday, September 25

Salle des Jeunesses musicales

305 Mont-Royal Ave. E.

Montreal

Jamaica Farm, Foster, Quebec

Purchased in 1945, Jamaica Farm was Glassco's second home in Quebec's Eastern Townships. The poet and his friend Graeme Taylor lived alone in its yellow farmhouse (then white) until 1956, when they were joined by 'housekeeper' Elma Koolmer. Taylor died the following year. In 1963, Glassco and Elma were married.

The couple lived in the farmhouse until 1965, when Glassco built a new home for Elma on the land.

The twenty-first of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

Aimé van Rod's La Gouvernante (1913)

La Gouvernante

Aimé van Rod

Paris: Librairie Artistique et Litteraire, 1913

The French flagellantine novel Glassco plagiarized in writing The English Governess and Harriet Marwood, Governess.

I was amazed and appalled to see how completely it gave expression to the same erotic situations I had already projected: everything is the same – I might have written it myself in a fit of industry.

— John Glassco, 'Intimate Journal', 22 March 1938

The twentieth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

Graeme Taylor, Foster, Quebec, c. 1955

The last known photograph of Graeme Taylor, taken approximately two years before his death.

The nineteenth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

Robert McAlmon's The Nightinghouls of Paris

Three pages from the manuscript of Robert McAlmon's The Nightinghouls of Paris. A roman à clef set in 1929 Montparnasse, it centres largely on Sudge Galbraith and Ross Campion, two Montreal boys modelled after Glassco and Graeme Taylor.

In 1947, McAlmon mailed the manuscript to Glassco. It was returned without comment, bringing their nineteen-year friendship to an abrupt end. Glassco was most disturbed by the frank portrayal of himself and his relationship with Taylor. The novel's publication would have been embarrassing, if not disastrous.

Glassco needn’t have worried about the novel’s appearance. In 1947, McAlmon’s career was already over; he would not live to see another title published. It wasn't until 2007, sixty years later, that The Nightinghouls of Paris was finally published by the University of Illinois Press. Edited with an Introduction by McAlmon's biographer Sanford J. Smoller, it is an invaluable document, and is recommended highly to anyone studying Glassco and his work.

The eighteenth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

John Glassco and Graeme Taylor, Nice, 1929

Glassco and Graeme Taylor captured strolling along the boardwalk in Nice. It's almost certain that the photographer was Robert McAlmon.

The image first appeared on this blog in April.

The seventeenth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

Edward Rawlings' Obituary

The obituary for Glassco's maternal grandfather, Edward Rawlings, published in The New York Times on 13 December 1911, the day after his death. The poet was not quite one year old when the old man died. At the age of twenty-five, Glassco inherited a small sliver of Rawlings' estate – more than enough to purchase Windermere, his 'White Mansion' in the Eastern Townships.

The sixteenth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

First Statement, Vol. 2, No. 12 (April-May 1945)

The "April & May 1945" number of influential Montreal little magazine First Statement. Irving Layton, A.M. Klein, Patrick Anderson, Ralph Gustafson, Miriam Waddington... amongst the lesser-known writers we find Wingate Taylor, "a farmer in the Eastern townships [sic] of Quebec." He's better remembered – though, in truth, he's barely remembered at all – as Graeme Taylor. His contribution, "The Horse-Stall", is taken from Brazenhead, an unpublished lost novel. The story marked Taylor's first appearance in print since his days in Montparnasse. It was also his last.

The same issue features a Glassco review of Gwethelyn Graham's Earth and High Heaven.

The fifteenth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.
An expanded version of this piece has been cross-posted at The Dusty Bookcase.