About BC Books Online
BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
A quick tip: When reviewing the "Browse by Category" listings, please note that these are based on standardized BISAC Subject Codes supplied by the books' publishers. You will find additional selections, grouped by theme or region, in our "BC Reading Lists."
Description
The eighty letters, cards and other messages in this correspondence -- produced mainly by Lowry and Gerald Noxon but also by Margerie (Bonner) Lowry -- offer a fresh introduction to Lowry, a certain 'Canadian' Lowry. At the same time they give insight into two writing careers (Bonner and Noxon) closely intertwined with his and vigorously championed by him in the 1940s. The letters observe the mind of Lowry at play on questions of literary technique, on films, and on the beauties and rigors of life in his Dollarton shack on an inlet near Vancouver. They reveal a warm, supportive, enormously sensitive and intelligent man, modifying somewhat the image of him now available.
Contributor Notes
Paul Tiessen is Professor of English, Wilfrid Laurier University and editor of The Malcolm Lowry Review. Nancy Strobel is a graduate student at the University of Western Ontario.
Editorial Reviews
The definitive account of a small but significant part of Lowry's life . . . Tiessen's canvas is small, but it is beautifully worked, and his exquisite summary of the past makes me look in anticipation for what is yet to come.
— Canadian Literature
This correspondence is well worth reading by everyone who is interested in Lowry. The letters to Gerald Noxon lead into Lowry's private existence as only letters to a dear friend can.
— BC Studies
The letters as a whole contain the relaxed observations and spontaneous flashes of wit and honesty only letters can show.... Noxon was the best of all possible friends to a man like Lowry: able to be detached without indifference, supportive without collusion, loyal without enmeshment. This volume of letters is as much a tribute to Noxon's wisdom as it is to Lowry's vulnerability.
— The Whig-Standard
