| Author: Grove,
Frederick Philip, 1879-1948.
Title: A
search for America / by Frederick Philip Grove. --
Edition: [First edition, distributed for Carillon Book Club]. --
Published: Ottawa : Graphic Publishers Limited, Jan. 1928, c1927.
Description: [ix], 448 p. ; 19.5 cm.
Contents: Book One: The Descent. -- Book Two: The Relapse. -- Book Three: The
Depths. -- Book Four: The Level.
Annotation: Autobiographical fiction affording numerous references to Grove's
life as Felix Paul Greve (1879-1909), and the three years he spent in America
before he came to Manitoba in December, 1912. -- On title page: 'America is a
continent, not a country.' -- Preface ["Author's Note", p. vi] is dated Dec.
1926, Rapid City, and signed with the printed initials F.P.G. Grove claims that
this book has been rewritten 8 times over the last 32 years, and excuses "anachronisms" as "an
unavoidable consequence of such a method of composition." He thanks A.L.P. [Phelps]
and W.K. [Kirkconnell] of Wesley College, Winnipeg, for their encouragement.
p. [v]: "I reverently dedicate this book to the memory of George Meredith, and
Algernon Swinburne, and to one of that illustrious triad who is still living,
namely Thomas Hardy, for 'Canadian literature is a mere bud on the tree of great
Anglo-Saxon tradition'." -- Table of Contents, p. [vii]: Book One: The Descent.
Book Two: The Relapse. Book Three: The Depths. Book Four: The Level. -- p. [viii]: "Copyright
1927 by Frederick Philip Grove." -- Each of the four "Books" is preceded by a
separate, unnumbered title page and a quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson [p.
ix], Thoreau [p.117 & 363], and Carlyle [p.255]. -- p. 450: "A note on the
type in which this book is set... " followed by "Set up and printed by Graphic
Publishers, Limited, Ottawa, Canada; Binding by Hutchings & Patrick...Paper
by Howard Smith Paper Mills, Cornwall, Ont. ... Cover and jacket design by Alan
A. Beddoe."
First ed. published in October, 1927 by H. C. Miller/Graphic Publishers, Ottawa.
Henry Miller wrote to Grove on Feb. 12, 1928 [Mss 2, Corresp.] that "Mr. Knight
has ordered 500 copies of the Search" as "the first offering to the [Carillon
Book] Club, while the second is Mackenzie King's The Message of the Carillon." The
Club was founded "the day after Christmas [1927]," and "the selecting committee
[was] composed of L. J. Burpee, E. W. Harrold of the Ottawa Citizen, Jimmy Pedley,
and C. C. Knight." Miller reported that with the 500 copies sales numbered near
1,400 copies 3 months after publication, and that Grove's Lecture Tour would "drive
the total sales to well over the 6000 mark before June [1928]..."
A second printing called "First reprinting" was published in June,1928. It has
the publisher's emblem, a Thunder Bird in a circle, as well as stylized foxes
and eyes on orange and black lining paper, and states: "This is a Miller Book" and "Cover & Jacket
by Alan B. Beddoe." -- RBR copy is No. 451 of the 500 Carillon Book Club copies
ordered from the first edition of October 1927 and mailed out in early 1928.
It is bound in dark blue lackered linen, with an embossed cathedral on the cover.
The lining paper is patterned with concentric circles within small squares which
are aligned in vertical rows; the left side also shows a cathedral in the centre
while the right side reads: "This book has been chosen as the first to be distributed
to the Booklovers of the Carillon Book Club of Canada. This is copy No. 451,
and is the property of...[illegible, Armstrong, illegible]."
Local Note: Purchased from Burton Lysecki with FPG Endowment Fund, August 1,
1997.
Subjects: Grove,
Frederick Philip, 1879-1948-Fiction.
Other Author(s): Graphic
Publishers (Canada) |
