John Glassco, Book Thief

Pettes Memorial Library, Knowlton, Quebec

Hugely flattered to hear you stole my book. This is fame. I used to steal a lot of books myself, mostly from libraries: my method was to look at the little card in the back envelope and if it hadn’t been taken out more than twice in the past year I would figure I needed it more than the public. 

— John Glassco, letter to Al Purdy, 18 September 1964

John Glassco, that self-proclaimed "great practitioner of deceit," made a very fine book thief. His personal library, most of which was purchased by Queen's University, includes volumes lifted from the Westmount Public Library and the Royal Edward Laurentian Hospital.

Queen's is not alone in having profited from Glassco's ill-gotten gains. Twenty-three years ago, I purchased what I thought to be his copy of Irving Layton's Balls for a One-Armed Juggler (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1963).

A couple of decades passed before I happened to notice this on the top edge:

Glassco dated the copy April 1963, the month of publication. It is presented here as evidence that he was not above breaking the rule described in his letter to Purdy:

Two summer's ago, I purchased another of Glassco's books, Henry de Montherlant's Perish in Their Pride [Les Célibataires] (New York: Knopf, 1936), only to notice this after the sale:

(cliquez pour agrandir)

The Laurentian Sanitarium became the Royal Edward Laurentian Hospital, at which Glassco spent a nearly all of 1961 undergoing treatment for tuberculosis. On 3 November of that year he wrote his wife:

Now that I’m getting ready to leave I’m casting a selective eye on the books in the library. There’s just so much stuff here I’d like to opt (organizieren) that no one has ever read or will ever read. But I’d better not: that’s bad medicine. Only two: Robert Elie’s La fin des songes (there are three copies, all untouched) and Madame Ellis’ book on Garneau. They’ll none of them be missed, as Gilbert says. Anyway, I’d like to give them a good home.

How's that for gratitude?

Trivia: The book Purdy pilfered was The Deficit Made Flesh (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1958). The victim was a Montreal bookseller.

Plug: Both Glassco letters quoted feature in The Heart Accepts It All: Selected Letters of John Glassco, edited by yours truly.

Cross-posted at The Dusty Bookcase.

Selling Jamaica Farm

Photo by Stewart Cooke

Newly installed on the barn at what was once John Glassco's Jamaica Farm, site of the much-missed Foster Horse Show. The farm itself is again for sale, this time in two parts.

The barn, milk house and three acres of land. "Known locally as the original site of the Foster Horse Show."

The house Glassco built for first wife Elma. The realtor's listing recognizes its past:

JAMAICA FARM - CHANNEL YOUR INNER POET when you choose this home, formerly Buffy Glassco's residence. Discreetly sheltered by majestic pines, neighbour to Brome Lake Golf Club and well-located near Autoroute 10 and Brome Lake, your home and its 23+ acres has much to offer.

At $745,000 for both properties, the farm ranks as one of the most expensive pieces of Glasscoiana. Well worth the investment, I say.

The Eastern Townships Advertiser, 16 August 1961

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.

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.

Souvenirs of the Eastern Townships

A favourite of the thirty images in A Gentleman of Pleasure, this 1940 photograph captures John Glassco riding outside the Eastern Townships community of Knowlton. Seated next to him is his "housekeeper" Sappho, Mary Elizabeth Wilson, the third in one of several ménages à trois he enjoyed with Graeme Taylor.

A week ago, A Gentleman of Pleasure was launched at Knowlton's Brome Lake Books. Driving home the next day, I snapped these photos.

The Knowlton United Church, where on 18 February 1941 Taylor married Sappho. The union was witnessed by Glassco and the minister's wife.

In a letter to his friend Robert McAlmon, Glassco wrote that after the ceremony he joined the newlyweds in consuming "the last champagne in the district". Sappho left the two men in 1944 – she divorced Taylor five years later.

Jamaica Farm, Glassco's first home in the village of Foster. In 1945, he moved into this yellow farmhouse with Taylor. The two men lived alone until 1956, when they were joined by Elma Koolmer, another "housekeeper". Roughly six months later, Taylor died of Buerger's Disease in Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital.

Glassco's second and last Foster house, built in 1966 for Elma. Five years later, he would scatter her ashes in a stream that can be seen from the rear windows.

Crossposted at The Dusty Bookcase.

The Olympia Glassco - Book the Second

The English Governess

Miles Underwood [pseud. John Glassco]

Paris: Ophelia, 1960 [sic]

In his seventy-one years, John Glassco produced five books of verse, eight volumes of translation, and the prose masterpiece Memoirs of Montparnasse, but not one approached the sales he enjoyed with The English Governess and its sister book Harriet Marwood, Governess. Both stories of flagellantine romance between a boy, Richard Lovel, and his beautiful governess, Harriet Marwood, they're easily confused and are often described as being one and the same.

Though published second, Harriet Marwood, Governess is actually the older of the two. In 1959, it was offered to Maurice Girodias, but the publisher thought it too tame. Glassco then rewrote the novel – perhaps with the help of Elma, his wife – slashing it by more than half and ramping up the sex. Made to order, as The English Governess it was quickly accepted and appeared within ninety days under Olympia's Ophelia Press imprint.

Glassco chose not to be identified as the author, selecting Miles Underwood as a nom de plume. He kept his secret for over a year, and only began to reveal himself when seeking legal advice from F.R. Scott concerning Girodias' non-payment.

The English Governess was a immediate success, a favourite in a market that relied almost exclusively on word of mouth. Reprinted after just three months, on 10 January 1961 it was suppressed by French authorities under a decades-old decree targeting périodiques et ouvrages de provenance étrangère. As was his practice, Girodias reissued the banned novel using a different title: Under the Birch: The Story of an English Governess. Not much of a disguise, but more than enough to baffle the brigade mondaine. The novel has since appeared as The Governess (a pirated edition) and in a bowdlerized edition published under the catch-all title The Authentic Confessions of Harriet Marwood, an English Governess.

Note: My two volume copy, printed by Taiwanese pirates, is a cheap reproduction of the first edition. I'm assuming that these disreputable souls divided the novel in half so as to enable the rusting staple binding.