* I
The Sheila Watson Archives
John M. Kelly Library, University of St. Michael's College
University of Toronto
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2009 with funding from
University of Toronto
http://www.archive.org/details/sheilawatsonarchOOston
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Cover: Sheila Watson in apartment in Paris, [1955 - 1956?].
Previous page: excerpt from diary, Paris, [17 September 1955J.
The Sheila Watson Archives
By Anna St . Onge
John M. Kelly Library, University of
St. Michael's College, University of Toronto
The production of this brochure was made possible
thanks to the financial support of the John M. Kelly Library and
the Canada Research Chair in Book History, at the University of Toronto,
as part of its training and research activities.
Text by Anna St. Onge
Design and Layout by Renee Jackson
Special Collections and Archives of the John M. Kelly Library
at the University of St. Michael's College.
Joseph Sable Centre for 19th Century French Studies,
Department of French Studies, University of Toronto, 2009.
Contents
Introduction By Fred T. Flahiff
A Letter from Jonathan Bengtson
A letter From George Bowering
Foreword by Anna St. Onge
Prologue
Childhood Remnants
as much a part of my life in british columbia as.
Dog Creek, Cariboo Region, British Columbia
The Double Hook
Wilfred Watson
Fits, Starts and Fragments: Unpublished Fragments
Correspondence with Anne Angus
Antigone
Journals
Marshall Mc Luhan
Wyndham Lewis
The Professor
White Pelican
Migration West
Deep Hollow Creek - Coming Full Circle
The eye closed. It opened and closed again.
Acknowledgements
1
2
3
5
6
7
8
9
10
12
13
m
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
24
25
Portrait of Sheik Watson, [1968-1969?].
Introduction
In the early to mid-nineteen nineties Sheila Watson decided to send me her papers — as well as books she considered or particular
significance to her interests and in her life — and she said to me at the time that she was sending me her lire. I never for a mo-
ment saw this gesture — that extended over three or four years — as anything but an attempt to preserve what she believed might
otherwise end in countless green garbage bags, or later still, in recycle bins. It was .1 determined gesture. In her final years, Sheila
had come to recognize an obligation to herself and to those who valued what she had done. But she also realized an obligation to
those who, by nature or by happenstance, had come to be a part of the fabric or her life.
"I'll make a pineapple upside-down cake for you as long as I have the strength to Hip this cast iron frying pan," she promised me
one day in the eighties. The strength to wield the frying pan declined some time before the will to send banker's boxes of papers
and books. With these, however, she still needed help, and her friend Linda Shannon provided this.
I had spoken often to Sheila about what she should do with her papers. Many of the places where I had suggested they might be
deposited - the National Library in Ottawa, the University of Alberta, for example — had already made overtures to her. But she
remained unwilling or unable to commit this part of herself to any place, or more precisely, to any institution. When I mentioned
St. Michaels College as a possible repository, she was less dismissive — more comfortable with the idea. An aunt, her father's sister,
had, after all, been a school nurse here in the twenties when the College and the College School had shared the same space. And
she had worked with Marshall McLuhan, who was her thesis supervisor and friend, and here she had taught with him a course in
modern poetry in the year 1968-69, when she and her husband, Wilfred, had come from Edmonton to work with him, at a time
when he was recovering from surgery for a brain tumour. And she had other friends here as well; Father Charles Leland, for one,
who said Mass for her every intention.
Sheila did not consult with me about sending me her papers and books. I suspect that hers was less a decision in a deliberate
sense than an impulse to act without having to involve herself in any formal negotiations or transactions. It remained a personal
gesture - passing the buck perhaps, or possibly even a kind of pineapple upside-down cake after her hand and wrist had become
too weak for the real thing.
The last of the boxes arrived a week after Sheila's death on February 1st 1998. By then, I had had an office built in my basement
to house them — some eighty boxes in all. I still had no clear sense of what I was going to do with them, other than record their
contents. This I did over the next few years; admittedly, in a primitive and unsophisticated way — pen or pencil on 3x5 index
cards. I also transcribed journal entries I discovered scattered throughout rwenty-seven notebooks, which were otherwise filled
with notes she had made of her reading.
The basement of what had once been a Victorian workman's row house in mid-town Toronto is, admittedly, a far cry from any
peak in Darien. But that's where I found myself; in reading Sheila Watson's journals, experiencing a world which until then only
its author had known, a world new for me in the clarity, the honesty, the selflessness with which she wrote of pain and beauty
and wonder and ordinary things. And there were also drafts of published and unpublished works — an intractable story and an
unfinished novel, for example — hundreds of letters, and the inevitable debris of bills and receipts and contracts and tax returns
that attach to any life. It was indeed her life she had sent me - and in her journals, its soul.
The establishment of the Sheila Watson Archives in the John M. Kelly Library at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto,
represents the penultimate stage in Sheila fulfilling her obligarion to those who succeed her. Theirs in turn is the responsibility
for the final stage.
FT Flahiff
A Letter From Jonathan Bengtson
The |ohn M. Kelly Library in the University of St. Michael's College is delighted to be the depository of the archives of Sheila
Watson. The Library is particularly indebted to two individuals, Dr. Fred FlahifT, Watson's friend and executor of her estate,
who has taken an active interest in the housing and long-term preservation of the physical content of Watson's literary legacy,
and Anna St. Onge, the author of this publication, who sorted and described Watson's archive in preparation for opening it
to scholars.
The English writer and vicar, Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832) once noted: "Many books require no thought from those
who read them, and for a very simple reason. They made no such demand upon those who wrote them." Applied to Watson,
one must assume she wrote with a certain amount of intellectual ague. Watson is not the easiest of writers to penetrate — as
some of the potential publishers of her work testify to in the pages that follow. Yet a little persistence yields rich and varied
rewards that belie any assessment of her based solely on the volume of her published material. The Double Hook, in particular,
challenged convention and the status quo, thus creating new creative spaces for those who followed. Now that Sheila Watson's
papers are available for study it seems rather likely that this unique voice in 20th century Canadian literature will continue,
ever so subtly, to inculcate future generations of writers.
Jonathan Bengtson
Director of Library and Archives
University of St. Michael's College
A Letter from George Bowering
I have twice in my life uttered an imprecation and hurled the book I was reading across the room. The second was D. H.
Lawrence's Twilight in Italy. The first was The Double Hook. It had been my first try at reading the book. At the time I was
both a fan of naturalism and an ignorant pup. 1 had a lot to learn, and much of what I have learned in the years since has
come from my twenty or so readings of this great work. Vie Double Hook was the product of a literary mind and imagination
that were leagues ahead of any others in the Canada of the late fifties.
Sheila Watson had unusual knowledge and sophisticated opinions about the entire course of international writings, arts and
philosophy in the twentieth century. Anyone lucky enough to hear one of her addresses at a conference listened to an elabo-
rate extemporized argument that illuminated the connectives in twentieth century thought and art. Thus the puzzlement and
disappointment over the most obvious feature of her career — the long silence after Hie Double Hook. Her devotees, though,
reason that as that novel is the high point of Canadian literature, its 116 pages are the equal to any other writer's two dozen
volumes.
Vie Double Hook has since its publication been an icon for other writers who do not fit easily into the realist tradition. In
fact it makes an appeatance in the novels and poems of writers such as Robert Kroetsch, Rudy Wiebe, Michael Ondaatje, bp
Nichol and yout lucky and obedient servant.
George Bowering
Letter from George Bowering, 12 November 1990.
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Portrait of Sheila Watson as a young woman, [193-?].
Foreword by Anna St. Onge
When I was hired to arrange and describe the records or Sheila Watson, I had no inkling of who she was, her significance in
Canadian literature, or why the papers of a British Columbia-born, University of Alberta professor of English were being do-
nated to a Ontario university. The night before the interview, I read what I believed to be a simple novella, Tlie Double Hook.
A little over a hundred pages? Easilv done. How wrong I was, on so many fronts. The longer I work as an archivist, the more
1 appreciate my year spent with Sheila Watson's papers. I will probably never again be given the time and encouragement
to focus on a single fonds ({'archive. That said, I do not believe I will ever know the real Sheila, by all accounts a remarkable
mind, generous teacher and devoted friend and spouse.
I was charged to identify or impose some semblance of order and make Watson's documents accessible to researchers. I
struggled with this paradox throughout my work; that I was to set order to the life's work of a woman I had never known
and who had spent most of her professional life attempting to de-personalize the act of writing. Sheila's papers had arrived
without any clear evidence of original order. They had, however, been carefully preserved by her biographer and loyal friend
Fred Flahiff before arriving one day in 2006. I set about my work: documents were removed from original boxes; letters were
dated and sorted; and, manuscripts poured over to determine date and purpose. Questions were posed and eventually deci-
sions made: keep scraps of notes and citations? Remove financial records? Keep correspondence with editors together with
the manuscripts under discussion?
The Sheila I glimpsed was in moments of documented time: a shopping list scrawled on the back of a cigarette package; small,
sepia photographs taken in Dog Creek in the 1930s; a carefully worded, perhaps deliberately obtuse, letter to a confidante; a
raw diary entry on betrayal; and, meticulous typescripts for issues of White Pelican.
The archivist operates as a sort of mediator of an archival fonds, appraising the whole and then moving down to smaller divi-
sions of records based on function; and through description communicates the importance and usefulness of the records to
users who will be removed from the physical item, albeit through distance or time. The often silent and nameless hand of the
archivist through arrangement and description seeks out order and logic in the activities of a creator and in doing so can affect
how an individual is interpreted and contextualized by future users. As a professional archivist I attempted to arrange Sheila
Watson's records transparently, to document my choices and order records as neutrally and mechanically as possible based
on date, alphabetization and function. Archival theory is based on an idea of a detached, dispassionate appraisal of records,
but in practice, especially with private papers, archival work can be an emotional activity. I worried about my choices. How
would I do well by Sheila — and which Sheila should I emphasize? Sheila the teacher? Sheila the writer? Sheila the Lewis
scholar? Would my choices assist or inhibit? Clarify or confuse?
Mid-way through the project, I came across a small blurry photograph of Sheila Doherty. It was most likely taken in the early
1930s, about the time when Sheila was graduating from the University of British Columbia. Blurry and out of focus, Sheila's
features are ghostly and frozen in time. 1 scanned the image and printed it out on an oversized scale, keeping it by my desk as
I worked through my descriptions as a reminder. I will never know the real Sheila Watson, but I have caught glimpses of her
ghosts. And I hope I have done them justice.
What follows are a selection of documents from Sheila Watson's life that aim to illustrate her activities as a writer, teacher,
editor, mentor and friend.
Anna St. Onge
5
Prologue
The oldest item in the Sheila Watson archives at first seemed to be quite incongruous to the writer's life — a sturdy nineteenth
century ledger of over 250 pages of densely packed clippings from local American newspapers. It was most likely the creation
of Samuel Barclay Martin Jr, Sheila Watson's maternal grandfather from Demopolis, Alabama. The scrapbook appears to have
previously been a ledger for accounts, but has been pasted over with clippings from the 1860s and 1870s chronicling the
American Civil War, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, local and national events, as well as a range of poetry, prose and
printed ephemera. There is a hand-written index on the back cover. Of her mother's side, Sheila wrote that "after the Civil
War the Martins moved to California and later S.B. Martin and his first cousin (and adopted brother) Marshall English came
to B.C. via the Nevada Mines and opened the first Mechanized Cannery on the Fraser River". Of her maternal grandmother,
Ida Macaulay, Sheila related she had travelled from Peterborough, Ontario, to keep house for an uncle who was the Indian
Agent in Victoria.
Martin family scrapbook, [between 1860-1872?]. This item has been digitized and is available through the Internet Archive: www.archive.org
Childhood Remnants
Sheila Martin Doherty was born on the 24th of October 1909 in New Westminster, British Columbia. She and her two
brothers William and Kelly were born and spent their early childhood living in a building on the grounds of the New
Westminster Public Hospital tor the Insane, where their father, Dr. Charles Edward Doherty, was medical superintendant.
When Dr. Doherty died in 1920, he left his wife, Ida Mary Elwena Martin and their four children (Sheila's sister Norah was
born in 1919) with limited means of support. The family moved into town, where Sheila attended St. Ann's Academy and
later The Sacred Heart Convent School in Vancouver. The archives contain few traces of Sheila Doherty's childhood and ado-
lescence: family portraits; Sheila playing on the hospital grounds with her brothers and cousins; a demure Sheila posing for a
school portrait, visiting cousins at a summer cottage; and, a metal trinket won for demonstrating sound fire safety.
Blue Goose Fire Prevention Prize, black bead rosary, crest-shaped pendant, 1924.
Sheila Doherty as a toddler with brother William and nanny Mrs. Stewart, [ca. 1911?].
Portrait of Sheik Doherty as a toddler wearing bracelet and white puff sleeved dress, [ca. 1911 ?].
Sheila Doherty as a child with brothers William and Kelly and cousins Dorothy and Jean McKay, [ca. 1913?].
Portrait of Sheila Doherty as young woman in sleeveless flapper dress with pearl and chain necklace, [ca. 1925?].
Portrait of theatre group in costume with Sheila Doherty as a young woman, [192-?].
as much a part of my life in british
Columbia as encountering a bufflehead...
Sheila continued her education at the University or British Columbia, acquiring her B.A. in English in 1932, and a year
later her teaching certificate and her Masters of English, her thesis concerning Addison and Steele, editors of the eighteenth
century periodical The Spectator. Sheila Doherty graduated at the height of the Great Depression. In the autumn she was
to see her first work of creative writing published, a poem entitled "The Barren Lands", with the unfortunate detail that it
was published under the name Theila Martin Doherty. The archives do not contain any early manuscript material from this
period, nor do any early journals or correspondence survive from Sheila's time as a young teacher and graduate. However, the
Watson library includes volumes acquired at this time that she kept over her lifetime.
In 1981 she reflected on her time at University of British Columbia, remarking that "all the young revolutionaries were going
around with bootleg copies of Lady Cbatterley's Lover under one arm, and Hemingway under the other, and going down to
the Hotel Europe, thinking we had to kill our man, or catch our prostitute, or do some ineffable deed before we could write
[...] Part of my experience of B.C. was reading Pound when he was just writing the Cantos, reading Eliot before he wrote the
Four Quartets, reading Faulkner, reading Dos Passos, reading Hemingway. And that was as much a part of my life in British
Columbia as encountering a bufflehead on one of the lagoons on Vancouver Island."
Photograph of Sheik Doherty (seated second from left) with fellow university students, April 1933.
Inscribed copies of Jane Eyre and Duhliners from the Watson Library Collection.
■
**»»>
Mfc,-
Dog Creek, Cariboo Region,
British Columbia
In later reflections of her teaching in the Cariboo, Sheila wrote that "1 didn't go there to write
about this part of the country. I went there to teach, and that's where I happened to be. I didn't
choose it, it chose me. It was the only place in 1934 that said, 'Come, and teach our children.'
I had no idea where it was when I left by train in Vancouver, except somewhere there!' Sheila
taught in the community, in a single-room school house from 1934 to the fall of 1935. In later
reflections, Sheila claimed that she did not produce any relevant writing when she lived in Dog
Creek, although she took and preserved a collection of photographs of her life there. "I'd been
away for a long time before I realized that if I had something I wanted to say, it was going to
be said in these images." It was not until she was walking to work in post-war Toronto, that the
voices and images of the Cariboo would begin to reveal themselves.
m
Dog Creek School, [1934-1935].
Saddled horse by cliff face, [1934-1935].
Sheila Doherty crouching with dog and rifle, [1934-1935].
SheiLi Dohery seated with dog holding two puppies, [1934-1935]
Sheila Doherty wearing a wide brimmed hat, embracing a dog, [1934-1935].
Two men in suits with automobile in front of log cabin with woman at door, [1934-35].
Two men branding a calf in winter. In envelope inscribed "Fragments of the limbs of Osiris, " [1934-1935].
The Double Hook
The Double Hook follows the course of several days in a small isolated community
in the Cariboo region of the British Columbia interior. Although Sheila drew on
her two years teaching in Dog Creek as visual inspiration tor the novella (com-
plete with the hotel's alcoholic parrot), it was not until she and Wilfred were
livin" in Toronto that she first began to hear the whispers of the characters that
would emerge in the story.
I also wish to tell you that I am leaving McClelland * Stewart as quickly
as I c.»n arrange to. I do this with a certain regret, because I felt that while
we might have done much more, each year we were able to do even a few worth-
while books. But now young Jack Med .11 and wishes to be the editor.Uack grad-
uated with some difficulty in pass arts and wrote supps in English). I don t
taow what his editorial policy will be, but the disturbing thing about him, to
date' ,s that his policy fluctuates from minute to minute.
\
McClelland & Stewart Limited
TORONTO. CANADA
£•«» Canadian "eve " TH E ^ « u™ °" M *>' '«">
Canachan literary discoveries in „ ^ ' hc m ™ "*"'"«
"marfcable ta.eni. anrl J£" ' *»»■ Sheila Watson ha s I
">e Canadian public. hdPPV '° ,nt ™*«* her work to
-The publication of THE nnt'm i ,,
"* -"turc i nl0 tlw . ™ D ?^ E " OO K also maris „„.
"vers. We hope ,i, a , thiswi OD * publishin S ™ paper
*» »n,in g . sincc „ offm ™g»» «w market f or Cana .
» chance ,o read and to own c *„ 'T " M "*** of life
>>"' mexpensive editions Our book, T boob in a " rac »-
■J«d b) Frank Newfcld one o7r "Jr* gr ° Up » '" >* <*«
th ' s no.,- . writtw will R nr "I 21; "' H ° OKon »"'ch
"JMl'ty of his „ork. >OU S ° mc '*» of the striking
THE DOUBLE Hnni-
RED CARP ET FOR THE StV* k""^ shonl >' ■» A
rrvmg Lavlo ,, anc| thereafter D ;; i ,, C0 " CaCtl ^ of
m "» *» type of publica„o„ Y "'" b ° 0ks w «* « feel
-^--:;r^--™^LB L EHooK.
rearing experience. " a ren, arkablc and rewarding
Mrs, Shells Watson,
Banff School of Fine Arts,
Banff, Uta.
Dear Mre. Watson i
I m sorry Wat it has taken us so vary long to reach a decision
concerning DOUBLE HOOK. As I told Kay Mathers some time ago, I
should not have asked you to put up with this intolerable delay
had I not had some confidence that we should decide to publish.
At long last we are prepared to do Just that.
We think very highly of your book. It is an outstanding piece of
writing and there has never been any doubt in our mind as to
whether or not it deserved publication. It's the sort or thing
that makes a publisher feel it must be published. Unfortunately,
it has been a general concensus of opinion that it is not a sound
commercial publishing risk. lou may or may not agree with this.
I hope, in fact, that you don't agree and you do think that it is
a good publishing risk. Don't let that statement alarm you
because I aa not going to ask you to take or share that risk, or
forego royalties or anything of that sort.
The fact of the matter la that we have been trying to evolve a
means of publishing DOUBLE HOCK that would enable us to at least
have a fighting chance of success. We think we have found it and
we hope you will agree. We want to publish DOUBLE HOOK In our Hew
Canadian Library paper-back series (I hope you are familiar with
it). It is what we call in the trade a "quality" paper-back line
designed to sell at *1.00. The series has thus far concerned
itself only with Canadian "classics". We have done four books,
with four nore coming this fall.
DOUBLE HOOK would become a new division
devoted to new or contemporary writing.
■ branch of the H.C.L.
McClelland & Stewart Limited
<Put>teAan
Toronto. Canada
Mrs. Sheila Watson
August 8, 1958
The advantage of publiehlng this particular book in this particular
way is la) that It would get rather wider critical attention than
the average first novel (this is Just a guese but the New Canadian
Library seems to appeal to critics and reviewers); (b) that it would
be displayed far more widely; (e) that the price would put it within
the reach of the undergraduate market who are likely to be most
interested (and good readers generally); and Cd) that it is rather a
novel idea in this country at least and for that reason is likely to
get considerable attention.
There are some drawbacks. Firstly, the libraries don't much like
paper-backs. Secondly, your chance of making any ooney out of the
original publication, at least, would be non-existent. The maximum
royalty that we can pay is seven per cent, and seven per cent of $1.00
Isn't very much. We would be very lucky to sell 3000 copies.
Naturally, 1 hope that the book would catch on in a spectacular way
and sell 25,000, but thie is highly unlikely.
Well, that la about the story. If you are Interested on this basis
we will send you a contract. We would propose to publish in the early
spring. We don't want to suggest any changes in the text. (There are
a few slips that copy editing will eliminate but nothing beyond that.)
We are not yet certain whether Salter's foreword should be included
or not. A difference of opinion exists on this. Do you want to make
any changes In the text?
I shall look forward most eagerly to your views on this proposal.
Once again ay sincere apologies for the lengthy delay, and do give my
very best regards to your husband.
JGMcCrve
iu^r
a.
C^Ucu^t
'-LAND & STEWART LIMITED
25 Hollingcr Road
Toronto 16. Canada
Excerpt of letter from McClelland and Stewart, 26 January 1949.
Promotional flyer of cover design by Frank Newfeld, [ca. 1959?].
Letter from Jack McClelland, 8 August 1953.
10
F
SHEILA
WATSON
the Double Hook
Sheila worked on the manuscript over several
years, revising phrasing and simplifying form
and sentence. She would attempt to get the
work published in the United States and Eng-
land during her year spent in Paris, but with no
success. Even in later years when she had the
support of such patrons as Marshall McLuhan
the work was judged too risky.
C. Day Lewis admitted that he himself admired
it, "...but round it difficult to get clear in my
mind the characters and their responses to one
another and to their situation" and that com-
mercially "the book would stand no chance in
the British market." Another British publisher
was ruthless, calling it "an extremely interest-
ing experiment, which fails, not by dropping
into the ridiculous, but largely because of the
oblique style in which most of it is written." In
one rejection letter, the editor concluded that his
company could not make a success of the
book, that "the novel will never be accepted by
a committee, but it might achieve publication
wherever the decision depends on the judgment
of one man."
It was Jack McClelland, the new upstart pub-
lisher at his fathers firm, who decided to take a
risk on what he believed to be "an outstanding
piece of writing." He remarked with humour:
"It's the sort of thing that makes a publisher feel
it must be published. Unfortunately, it has been
a general consensus of opinion that it is not a
sound commercial publishing risk. You may or
may not agree with this." With Vie Double Hook
McClelland & Stewart would experiment with
new publishing strategies to get titles considered
'high risk out into the Canadian market.
11
ilfred Watson
While teaching in Duncan on Vancouver Island between 1940-41, Sheila
met Wilfred Watson, a former lumber mill worker who was studying for
his B.A. in English at the University of British Columbia. The reality of
t 1 1 _UL. ■i'^i£ , ''^i^l academic marriage is documented in Sheila's correspondence with her hus-
'i^'^X^^^ ^and Wilfred. Married on the 29th of December 1941, the couple lived
apart, with Sheila teaching in Mission City while Wilfred finished his un-
dergraduate degree in Vancouver. With conscription, Wilfred spent the
remainder of the war serving in the navy. It was not until 1945 that the
couple were reunited in Toronto, where Wilfred pursued his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. Later the couple would be sepa-
rated by the realities of academic appointments and their research, resulting in a rich documentation of correspondence, often
several letters posted in a day in which the couple discuss their reading, teaching and writing. Sheila was Wilfred's best agent,
mounting a successful campaign on behalf of his first collection of poetry, Fridays Child, which resulted in an offer to publish in
a 1955 letter from Faber & Faber's editor, T.S. Eliot. It received the Govenor General's Award for poetry the same year.
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Student photograph of Wilfred Watson, [between 1941 and 1942?].
Wilfred Watson in grass, [after 1941?].
Letters from Wilfred Watson, 1951.
12
Fits, starts and fragments:
unpublished manuscripts
While teaching at the University of British Columbia, and later in the 1950s while teaching in Powell River, Sheila began
her Oedipus suite of short stories, of which four were published, and an unfinished novel, Landscape of the Moon, inspired bv
Paul Nash's painting of the same title and her experiences as a sessional lecturer.
/
several hours earlier to have tea with Boots who was spending hl3 ( j,
holidays with us.
When I went In I found the two of then thsrE iieiiiisittlng with
^B^cXMU^alttiJlo: iKtaraiXBi*""-''*!** with Mf our mother
There were empty cups on the table and the fire was burning to
Its last ash. I knew the sign. Our Bother was bored. She was
waiting for Hoses to go.
lxthraskixthBiscataxxim««Jisxhir*'<xi:^aia».i.:»iit-ti::atrMi5e
He got up when I cam& In.
So you go on making your fortune, he said, while we sit here
trying to sake the world a better place, to llxaxln* yow up In.
It suits ne as It Is, our mothor said, but Xas**xszj.X7£*:<xU&
since S
x«iBxa»x«B>^l»;Juuw«^«*x*aiKcatoxthiii I'm full grown xa I suppose I
am not a proper Judge. Myopia is the prlvlledge of the old<
Tut, tut. Hoses said. Think of Churchill.
'cUi-ii ' thinlc of Ynnts, ; - t o ot
; the
«
idea^ lr of them
- yx " e \ A8 rt ??f|;ent slant or, things. hi6
5is. a as-d e hlm^hat he meanj ^^pa^ L? h "
ssi •ss^- «^Sa f retpirieit- e
earth t£» turn- *SJ"SSS"« lt ' '.JUT
SSSS^^rthe^rS.
-"«SeHf^-ro«
rclrelfsr^irence which seemed^tO r6 SUgB ture Qf
Sot the tortoijt Prt» tal« h i. inspection ^ tl0B
f n fstabirsh-'t -— convenient
Photograph of bust
of Sheik Watson
by Erol Ciancii,
[ca. 1952].
Manuscript fragments of unpublished short stories, [between 1949 and 1956?].
13
Correspondence with Anne Angus
When Wilfred found employment at the University of Alberta in Calgary in 1951, Sheila remained in Powell River, British
Columbia where she taught her last group of high school students. During this year there was a crisis in the marriage trig-
gered by Wilfreds infidelity. Sheila would later move to Calgary from 1952 to 1954, and set out on her most intense period
of writing. Throughout her adult life, Sheila maintained a correspondence with Anne Angus, with whom she had lived during
her undergraduate years as an au pair. Anne Angus was a poet and the two
women formed a strong friendship. It is clear through their letters that
Sheila turned to Anne for advice and support during times of emotional
4 if
it - ..^
strain in her marriage.
j *. 'fi'i
£L^
Letters to Anne Angus, 28 November — 1
December 1953.
"Thank vou for your letter.
...I can not tell you what just being
able to write to vou at all and to hear
from you has meant to me in recent
months. Thete are so many problems
of "communication" that I have not yet
solved - or have solved so inadequately
that I have held on to the mere tact of
writing to you. It is a guy-rope that I
steady the load with when it seems in
danger of toppling. Do you mind very
much?"
\Ltu^__
Letter from Anne Angus, 3 January 1954.
"There are more ways than one, Sheila, of "letting others act". One
may refrain from action oneself, but one can maintain an atmosphere
of love, confidence and sympathy which cannot but help the "others
"who" "act" to perform more wisely and better. It is a state of active
inaction that [parents?] should cultivate, I think."
-* ^ UA f **- "•tLu^ n JL"**.+-
***. l4 tL of utM uOch^ -u^fc
?— ^ -^.a* L ^ t _, ltL ^
■u
m
Antigone
On 17 December 1953, Sheila wrote to Anne Angus, telling her of a short story she had just finished, which was tentatively
titled "The Funeral", but would later be called "On the right bank of the river" and "Haemon's Story," and was finally pub-
lished as "Antigone" in Hie Tamarack Review in 1959.
from Six :;uestionc .,.-■-■■■
■ atsor.
asylum, the walled ponetentiary. And above on the hill the
cemetery looking flown on the town and the river.
It la a world spread flat, tipped up Into the sky and
slanted down %to the river bo that men and women bend forward
walking G-3 men walk when they board a ship at low tide,
I see this world with ay eyes. I have felt it with oy foot.
How can a man walk straight In it?
I remember standing once with Antigone and lemons by
thexatstoRxal^Xha Explorer' ~ monument. His bust is set hig»s^
on a cairn in the square Just outside the asylum gates. It '
is set whore tho atone eyes look from the stone face over t
river which thoy found.
It's tho head that counta, Ismene said.
A man without a heart la like a funeral urn, Ant
And I don't know why I aald it but I did: All I,
a grave with a chain around it.
A chain won't keep out the doga, Antigone said.
And I remember thinking: I don't want to keep ou
anything. I want a chain for my aoul to awing on.
Like a bird, Ismene aald. Like a bird blown on a
in tho wind.
But Antigone rintrfl «iL Jmiithat rXiuza
said: The cat dragB its belly on the ground and the
sharpens its tooth «m the ivy"^ a|0*wK .
I should have loved Iaraene, but I didn't. It
Antigone I loved. I should have loved Ismene because,
although she walked the flat world with ub, ahe managed somehow
to see it round.
"1 start out with the idea of ■
Interwoven - interapeciei . '
I
My father ruled a kingdom on the right bank of the
river. He ruled it with-a-^firro hand and -a-stdut^heart,
Moses was
but he wao of tun nui e LruubluU " Lim n Moses-
A trying to bring a stubborn and moody people under God's
yoke; my father ruled men who thought they were gods
or the instruments of gods or, at very least, god-
afflicted and god-pursued. He ruled Atlas v/ho held up
the sky, and Hermes who went on endless messages, and
Helen who'd been hatched from an e^g, and Pan the gardener,
and Kallisto the bear, and too many others to mention
.-■reamed i.arch ??: c
i offers to read to
me frcr
tractor of
'■ she tells
me she has already read it to Daphne
Marlatt it Maureen Jew . before
that she proposes to read to me from a
little piece ahe has written called
,
order to show me now she is using
language to hinge from reference to ref-
erence in a dream oriented way. she
cites ah an example tne shift iron
jeor^ina to / v > ■ buried
■
r . .c starts to
read to me eta above from a hand-written
notebook it then stops & says "no, thi
an ear . read to you from
the 1« ', and begins to look for
it.
aosociatively the day before i had
Lchael
Ondaa - she read me tne title
of her ■ .:it--l's
antbem i.e. the aniota
. i had
■
of Brc; ... ' ' .-■■- .. .■ ■■.. i ..
.ions of place & family
remember you
■ .
float", hence, perhaps, theother references.
■
■
IX, '_-
■ .... ' ■
Letter from bpNichol, 31 March 1979.
Dr. C.E. Doherty at New Westminster Public
Hospital for the Insane, [before 1920].
Two excerpts from drafts of "By the Right Bank
of the River" and "Haemon's Story"
15
Journals
Sheila had started her journals soon after the arrival of a letter on the 14th or March 1955 from one
or Wilfred's 'friends'. Subsequent letters in early April led to Sheila's departure for Calgary, then Van-
couver, where she stayed with Ruth Humphrey. She struggled with the schism, trying to reconcile
Wilfred's fractious words with happier memories:
"...molded into the perfect chrysolite that I would hold as something not to be set down tor
Helen, or Heloise, or Eve — or Stella... So one joins the furious tribe."
Following the success of Fridays Child, Wilfred applied for and recieved a Royal Society of Canada
fellowship to study for a year in Paris. When his 'friend' declined to accompany him, he invited his
wife. In Paris, Sheila achieved something significant in the genre, tracing her emotional turmoil
about her marriage and her own literary ambitions, and documenting her immediate experiences and
surroundings, replete with ink and pencil sketches.
The journals, at their most clear and reflective, span the years of 1954 to 1957, beginning with the crisis and separation be-
tween the couple. The entries take on different themes and preoccupations after her return to Canada.
A/^^i^c /c.
Picture of Sheila Watson looking out window of Paris flat,
11955-1956?].
Excerpts from Paris journals, 1955-1956.
16
Marshall McLuhan
Upon the couple's return from France, Sheila went to Toronto, while Wilfred traveled on to Edmonton. For the next five years
the couple again lived apart during the academic year, maintaining a vigorous correspondence. In Toronto, Watson began
her Ph.D. about the artist and writer Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957), who had long been a figure of interest to her. Studying
under the controversial St. Michael's College professor of English, Marshall McLuhan, Sheila began the research that would
result in a remarkable thesis simply titled Wyndham Lewis and Expressionism. Sheila struggled with her subject, a frustrat-
ing and problematic figure in the Modernist and Vorticist movements in England,
and wrote of her loneliness at the University of Toronto in her journals, "with only
| i \f Lewis for company," and related in a letter to Wilfred "I groan under the weight of
B. - • the material where every detail is an issue [...] Wyndham Lewis immerses me in a
^k ' te Ai i> vi confusion worse than my own." She remarks in her journals how Lewis "taxes every
nerve," but later reflected in March 1958 that the writer "is at his best when he talks
of lions and tigers and bees — and the warm parts of pigeons' wings."
During her time in Toronto, Sheila became a close friend to Marshall McLuhan, his
wife Corinne and their children. In 1969 she and Wilfred lived in Toronto as visit-
ing scholars, where Sheila assisted McLuhan in the classroom following his surgery
for the removal of a brain tumour.
JW C yV> |r^W\,
University of Toronto
Toronto 5, Canada
CENTRE FOR CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
Marshall McLuhan. Director
October B f 1905
Dear She i la :
I found the 01 iver and Boyd reply most
encouraging. Don't you think it would be quite easy
to prune merely to alio*" your own voice to come through
more strongly? That is clearly what they wish. Much
of your citationai erudition was after all, t-or the
benefit of the Ph.D. committee. (Please send me a br i e 1
memo about the recently devised Ph.D. procedures at
Alberta. Because of the sudden jump from ten Ph.D.
candidates for the Generals to thirty-four this year,
a great light has dawned. Serious steps are under way
to reduce the Generals so as to stress the thesis
itself. Panic has enabled us to see the fotly of
wr itten exams. )
I think I had already mentioned Blissett's
backing down on Pound in favour of diverting Pound
material to the Canadian Forum.
Ellul is a practical Catholic, a Professor
of Law at the University of Bordeaux. I doubt that he
has any Zeitgeist ideas in mind whatever. He would be
more inclined to regard man as participating in an on-
going creation that extends him physically into the
universe. Of course, -^ou are right so far as the
Spenglers are concerned, but for that camp there can
be no special meaning in human identity. Was Yeats in
this position when he spoke of art and technology as
"self-born mockers of man's enterprise?"
Shall keep your South African matter in
mind. I know of no native South African literature
whatever. It is the sort of item that Ted Carpenter
wou Id 1 eap at.
Thanks for the point about thunder ami
Oorner. In Finnegan, page IS, line 23, there is a
marvellous gradatio that begins: "The ignorance that
implies impression". tt concerns the thunder directly
I
rf& '
V (5^
.. •«... .p.- .<*•'- reac
ti „„ of closure th.t resul
existential ity. „„„derful letter
«*y*
Illustrated letter from Wilfred Watson, [c. 1961/.
Letter from Marshall McLuhan, 1965.
Sheila Watson with < orinne and Marshall McLuhan, [between 1970 and 1980?].
17
dham Lewis
Sheila Watson's thesis on Wyndham Lewis was well received by
McLuhan and her examiners and there was encouragement to
publish. She even travelled to England in June 1961 to explore the
possibility of writing Lewis' biography.
In the course of her research, Sheila acquired numerous repro-
ductions of Lewis family photographs and works of art and an
impressive collection of Lewis first editions (now part ot the Univer-
sity of St. Michael's College's Special Collections). She also acquired
two small collections of original letters: a small batch of correspon-
dence by Vorticist artists and others belonging to the English sculp-
tor Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939); and, a sustained correspondence
between Lewis himself and Felix Giovanelli, an American doctor,
admirer, sometime agent of Lewis' and a triend of McLuhan.
.
i
-
.
,
. . .. f
-
-
s
■
-
\ -
.
z t
I 1
I .xz
u
. ,
.
,
■
■
.
Portrait ofWL by George Charles Beresford, [ca. 1913?].
Letter to Felix Giovanelli, 14 January 1948.
In this letter Wyndham Lewis is disparaging Henry Wallace,
a former editor of Hie New Republic, turned Progressive Party
candidate for President during the 1948 election. Lewis' jibe
regarding the Doukahbors may be an allusion to Wallace's
opposition to the Cold War, advocacy for full voting rights
for blacks and universal health insurance, and rumoured af-
filiation with communists. The parcels which Lewis is so con-
cerned about are care packages sent by Giovanelli to supple-
ment Lewis' post-war English diet.
18
The Professor
"In the winter, on very cold days, you can see her small figure, wrapped up in a huge,
yellowish fiir coat of indeterminate ancestry, walking across the snow-covered campus
of the University of Alberta. She seems vulnerable, fragile almost. A strong gust of
wind might blow her away. But that's an illusion. The small figure creates a space of
its own, asserts itself, and yet seems an integral part of the landscape..."
Henry Kreisel "Sheila Watson in Edmonton". Sheila Watson and the Double Hook. ed. George Bowering.
Critical Views on Canadian Writers. Ottawa : V>e Golden Dog, 1985 : 7.
Sheila was hired to teach in the Department of English at the University of Alberta in
1961. She remained at the university in Edmonton until her retirement in 1975, su-
pervising many thesis candidates, not without some controversy along the way. Here
is a collection of increasingly formal correspondence from fellow professor of English,
Dorothy Livesay regarding her opinions, both professional and personal, of a student
of Sheila's and the suspicious nature of his master's manuscript.
A. rll 13/ 70
Dear Sheila i
It seems I still have reservations about that novel
as thesis. a ot for the writing In it.. bat t wonder when it was
written, and where ? the typing paper is D rttish, so Is the
type. And if you say you never saw any of it as work-in-progress,
how then was it written here, in one academic year ?
In view of the hard going that people doing the
academic thesis have to face — with a Dlan. an abstr ot and
usually a chapter by chapter
unethloal to let a student oo
and simply present work done
V 5
7
Now this nay not
at all approve of the rlgidit
lot I feel It woul.i have to t
la to present work In ereitiv
that done In academic writing
One way out th*t
students * know who want to d
offer a graduate course to (i
would combine the writing wit
tempor ry poetry and fiction
and discussion. I suggested t
It would be too much like "tt
do not myself think* so. as t
submissions and a complete cc
the Fifties and^lxtles. "o*
The alternative f
to audit Uo? or koB -nd subrai
ln-progress if he so wished.,
with the person who was his :
him more cloeely to the patte
Dear Sheila i
I read this between ? and 9 a.m. ..so some skimming.
I think * know this i
Anne, one of my poet-students 7 '.
several wa7s (he eats women ?) 1
which he showed me when he first
The novel is full of
observed detail. ne sense Knut 1
and DH L ver the other.. but an i
There*!* too much obsessiveness aj
phi 1 ado phi zing, .but that oould bi
was presented for publication. A <
Because of the be^u'
not because of the halr-shittedn*
this for an M.A. thesis.
i- sL&
i .^
n
)nr
T^ T
■
of mine
1 hope you don t
"V-.7 X
"Gulliver and Ghtmdalelitch" caricature by Juliet Sutton, n.d.
Three letters from Dorothy Livesay. 12-13 April, 1970.
19
shores of the Polar Sea."
The first issue of Whi te Pel ican you have in your hand.
The second issue, in April, will be edited by Douglas Barbour
and Stephen Scobie. It will have in It an article by
Michael Ondaatje about making a film on the work of bp Nichol.
There will be poetry by Ondaatje and Nichol. There will be
work by the concrete poet Ian Hamilton Flnlay and a review
article by Stephen Scobie on Flnlay's most recent publications.
The third issue. In July, will be edited by John Orrell, who
is involved in radio, television, theater, and the myth of his
Immediate environment, and Norman Yates, the painter and
stage designer who made our cover. In the fourth Issue,
October, Dorothy Livesay will look at the culture of the
Canadian North.
Sheila Watson
hue Pelican
White Pelican was a short-lived but influential arts journal conceptu-
alized by Watson, issuing quarterly issues from 1971 to 1976. Four
issues were edited by Sheila, one of which she co-edited with the artist
Norman Yates. Other issues were edited by Stephen Scobie, Doug-
las Barbour, John Orrell, Dorothy Livesay and Wilfred. The jour-
nal published established and upcoming Canadian writers, includ-
ing Diane Bessai, Roy Kiyooka, Elizabeth McLuhan, bpNichol and
Michael Ondaatje. The little magazine also published two stand-
alone collections of poetry, Wilfreds The Sorrowful Canadians in
1972, and Miriam Mandels Lions At Her Face in 1973, which won
the Governor Generals Award for best poetry.
ABOUT PEL I CAMS
Perhaps I should begin by saying that I speak here as a
person not ai a group. When the s I » editors of White Pelican
decided to act they were drawn together by proxlmi ty not by
policy, by concern not by consensu*. The f I de I commi ssum was
there. Person by person or person with person, each would
bear witness to the fact. It would be absurd then for any one
of us to assume Corlolanus's napless vesture of humility or to
speak 1n the neutered voice of the unl-form. the un1-sexed, or
the un1 -what-you-wt II . As it happens we are oe facto a multi-
ple of three. Under the sign of the white pelican, 1e pelican
blanc, pelecanus erthrorhvnehps . we find It possible to co-
ist.
The white pell
of Canada
W.Earl Godfrey's more recent The Birds of Canad a will show,
nests and breeds 1n southwestern Canada . Taverner says that
pelicans are communists, Godfrey merely that they live In
colonies. He Interpret this Information In our own way Just
as we respond Individually no doubt to this ancient symbol of
piety and pity. If you look at the Alberta Atla s, published
in 19G9 by the University of Albei
the University of Toronto Press, :
pelican has Its own uplands and I
and Its portage In this province.
1s more extensive. Taverner list
Sl2e of the bird. Its colour (whi
1 ts enormous gular pouch, the Irn
a rifle sight on its long flat b1
ner tells us since he 1s sensltlvi
dlgenous birds, is worth the prlc
upon. However its Inoffensive ha
persecution by those who find It >
when it flies within gunshot. Un
crane, the snow goose, and the ga
with Its neck doubled back agalns
The noun 'pelican'. Dr. Klein
Late Latin pellcanus . pelcca~nu
from pe'lechy
"Tate
entry i
twelfth-century Latin pr>
at the Cambridce Un1 vers
PELICAHUS the Pelican
of the River Ki le, wh
that, in Greek, Egypt
hich tog
fro
BSti
The
cill
excessively devoted to Its chl
Long before T.H.White's scrt
1st had used the pelican as a cen
(Ps. CI 1n the Vulgate of Clement
sum pel Icano desert l . "For my da
Page proofs for White Pelican, volume 1, issue 1, lea. 1971?].
Includes the final page of Sheilas inaugural essay for the journal, "About
Penguins ", featuring an original ink sketch by artist Norman Yates.
Cover design for journal cover and Miriam Mandels
Lions At Her Face by Norman Yates.
20
IGRATION WEST
/fT5
**^ «. , ^i.uo- cla:
CSS. ■ "
«.^.
<*~,
"Are you more or less serried vet? I dream of you settled on the
coast-line of Vancouver Island — even you Sheila — a small,
brown sea-gull sitting on a rock writing telegrams to Ottawa on
a tiny typewriter perched on the rocks next to you."
— Letter from Miriam Mandel. —August 1980.
In 1980, Wilfred and Sheila moved back to British Columbia,
settling in Nanaimo, on the east coast of Vancouver Island, on
a stretch that separated the Gulf of Georgia from the lagoon
on their property, affectionately known as The Spit. Although
retired, the couple continued to work within the creative com-
munity, as readers for Canadian publishers, jurists on award panels, and encouraging active artists, poets and writers.
Through correspondence and indeed the households extensive phone bills, Sheila's continued advice and encouragement to
writers and poets and fellow scholars is documented. A whole network of Canadian scholars and writers can be traced through
her incoming correspondence: Timothy Findley wrote her in his capacity as a fellow jurist tor the Governor General's Awards;
the Bowerings as colleagues and concerned friends; while Daphne Marlatt and Michael Ondaatje wrote as writers seeking
reactions to works-in-progress.
1 don't know if I explained to you when X saw you in the spring that
I was working on a book th,t had two stories (with no connection) that I hoped
to interweave together. When I started wMjTta them in earnest in May however*
I realised that they were two totally separate books and they couldnt really go
together without tai taking away from each other and forcing me into an A-Z
plot line. This is the one that got finished. I'm going to need longer and more
thought for the Ambrose book and right now I'm exhausted.
impunity. Once
in terms of the
she/he is aboard, however
written exploration process,
the cat - Mrs Noah. I've
found the most
and through her, if I can just write
vision frustrating the act - eluding the act
y ou Know. Still - this is what writrng rs: an
o have time, I would like to get some reactions from
My favorite character, cr iticisns, advice, would be truly appreciated. I'm
„ ,-.„, ack in Toronto on the 1st of September so if you could
be best. Also, I am going on this North .est ttoAtewyt*
12th. I think I will be stopping in Edmonton on
•obably stay with the Earbours that night — if I get
an get together that afternoon and talk?
wonderful things about her
them. The old bugbear: the
the dreadful in-
every morning
before breakfast !
Letter from George Bowering. 22 August 1983.
Letter from Michael Ondaatje, 21 August 1975.
Letter from Timothy Findley, 1 November 1983.
Letter from Daphne Marlatt. 8 April 1988.
SXu^TdJi 11 ^ la " nisht in a dre *" '• i ""-at u
he'd taken in the 60's, vi io„-photog Is ,Z T" " phot0 ^^
blurred or unrecognizable but t ! ces " ^JZll V** ""' eitter
remarkably clear human masks (actual v hi • ' the trees a11 had
* animal faces) , he shZd tlTl^ZTlZlT^
contraption with a shutter like a beak that
he'd used,
part of the actual grain of
a most extraordinary
opened and closed. Tbe masks were
the rock or wood but had been seen very clearly
21
Deep Hollow Creek - Coning Full Circle
Deep Hollow Creek was one of Sheila's first creative efforts. Written around 1938, she revised elements of the manuscript in
the early 1950s while working in Mission City, British Columbia, and Calgary. The rejection of the novel for publication was
difficult, and in part led to Watson's ruthless elimination of a narrative personality in JJ)e Double Hook.
Dear Mrs. Watson:
Ohder separate cover, registered mail, I am returning to you Deep Hollow
Creek and the excerpt of the new novel. I finally heard from Falcon & Grey Walls
Press, and they felt that they could not place the Deep Hollow Creek in England.
Then, 'in the meantime, I was trying CBC on some of this materia], thinking that
if it were well enough read it might make an excel! ent. Wed. Night programme. They
felt that the new( excerpt) was excellent, but a Uttle^bubstantial as it now
stands. I would be very much interested to see this corapT eted/nyse] f .
The editor of Clarke, Irwin & Co. on the 2 nd of April
1951 ultimately declined Deep Hollow Creek. "Up
to a point we all liked your story tremendously," he
opened. "Your theme transcended a region and was
universal in its scope. Your people and your places
were written of with sympathy and perceptiveness.
Your theme was highly original and the style effec-
tive. It was, all in all, a very remarkable effort for a
first novel, which I presumed this to be. What both-
ered us all, then, was our feeling that the story started
on one theme and that halfway through it switched
over to another." The editor suggested revisions, to ei-
ther emphasize the story of Mamie Flower or Stella.
McC LE LL A
ST E WA RT
LIMITED
LOOR STREET WEST . TORONTO,
CANADA
PUBLISHERS
January 26, 1949
■>nr Mrs. dataon:
I enjoyed, very much reading your menuocrlr* Deep Hollow Creek .
It is the Bert of manviaorlpt which I like myself, but which doesn't
sell irell here In Canada. I have written to Morpurgo of Falcon 4 Qrey
Walls Press, England, about It, easing if he would like to see It. Be
told me In the fall thnt he w?s interested Id not too long manuscripts
of non-fiction, Canadian setting. I have not heard from him yet.
Then, It occurred to me that CBC use short atories bo* h In the Fri.
night progimme and on »ed. nirtit. I let Mr. leaver of CBC Talks Dep't.
see your mnnuacrlpt. Be thinks, like I do, that the transitions are too
sharp , etc., but he would be iatere-ted in talking over the possibility
of a radio script to be done from this with you. Be hes tee mnnuacrlpt
«t present, hut I wish to see it again myself. Perhaps vou would call him
9t W1.B481 ?
I will Ipt you know when I h"er from Morpurgo. But I think you should
expand this manuscript, eventually, and simplify lte style. That oould be
done without aacrifiolng good writing, auraly. It reeda very authentically
acd the idiom is excellent. Bowerer. if Mrs. Bcdlcott had not told me the
clrcumst«ncs of the experience I think I would have b^en confused in many
placea. There is very little about t>e school in it for « person who went
there tc be the teacher. There la a curious contrast between this manuscript
and trat -f Child for Cleone {Chrlstlne van der Mark). Miss van der Hark
tan -it lo tlr- ::«T, ell 8ree Indlisn cMldren. She travelled 75 miles in e
wagon to Peace Hlver. to come 'Outside*. But she had loved those little
Indian children and the manuscript was very sympathetic I am not meaning
b this that people should write in the same way, nor be impressed by the
sane things. I was only impressed, as I always continue to be. Witt the
differences in people. Bemember, the manuscript was loaned to Mr. *eaver,
who is a very discreet peroon, and it Is to be returned to oe by him.
Sincerely yours,
\Jt 1<LJ
f,
Letter from Sybil Hutchinson. 26 January 1949.
22
I hadn't gone to the Cariboo especially to write about
it and at that particular time I wasn't really writing.
I was thinking about it. But I did write t+wrs novel called
f-h-e. Hollow Creek and sent it to Macmillan and it came
back, and I was glad it came back because I realized
there was something wrong with it and felt that somehow
or other I had to get the authorial voice out of the
novel.] So many Canadian novels were always somebody
writing about Indians or somebody going into a village,
somebody recalling their own ethnic past. |l wanted ■fete*
Despite repeated solicitations from various publishers for new material following the publication of Jlje Double Hook, Sheila al-
lowed her first novel to languish tor almost fifty years. Encouragement from Fred T. Flahiff led to McClelland and Stewart editor
Ellen Seligman taking a second look. The role of editors in the publishing
history or Deep Hollow Creek is key: initially with the encouragement and
criticism of Sybil Hutchinson in 1949 and 1950, and ending with Ellen
Seligman in 1990, who shepherded the manuscript to its final publishing
in 1992.
J>6
«** St*,/*
'*****- ',*■•.*
Deep Hollow Creek was published in 1993, resulting in considerable criti-
cal acclaim. It was nominated lor a Governor General's Award for fiction
but lost out to Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient.
C/««-<
-_ t^^^^t
tt-.-Xt
,« +'
-A-. t.fte
-Vo— ■* **- <-<
U*^- •— '
X w. t •* - ■*£>
, ^- 1 <**^
\Y\ (/««S
L. ^tvki
*-. r~-
A- , °~- * 1
Uo^
.«„._i , '
-rv\_ r^
o««.« '■«. "\.
^—i ■*t.ie\
'—I
. r^-
fc^ v-v~»
'1
M'
""1
1
/.,=.-^>,,_
v
Manuscript of unpublished interview of Watson by Bruce Meyer and Brian O'Riordan, 1984.
Letter from George Bowering, 17 August 1993.
Letter from Michael Ondaatje, June 1992.
23
The eye closed. It opened and closed again.
"And the Four Animals..." was published as part of Coach House Press' Manuscripts Series in 1980. The series was
promoted by the press as 'works in progress' by various Canadian authors. The content and material evidence of the typed
manuscripts of Sheila's work infer that the story was composed at a much earlier date. This story is very similar in tone and
subject matter to the Dog Creek material and the paper and type similar to the Deep Hollow Creek manuscript of the late
1940s. It seems fitting that one of Sheila's final published works was most likely one of her first.
Sheila Watson died on the I s ' of February 1998 at the age of 88.
r«T rook " Eaoh tims th,y -** th ° *— - *- -* -'"
agaln.t the uny.il dlng earth.
J" *- U the 6nd _, cu „ b lack _ iustre ^ ^ reat<
.;;, th. fourth and the tall of the fourth to ^ ^ ^ ^
jg. - - «~ - - u, ., the second and ^ third _ ^^
5« »at their eyes on hie mouth.
l I i T ^ " *" ° ff - htad " - - - — " - the other;
S^JH . 1_. ^ ,„ ^ and ^^^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ *
£- h^h and „ rlght a „ d eaoh dog bo>ed ^^ ^
» S ap--jpwas offered. " nat
";•--*- — *» U, on the hin e„ d hefore the, the „ .too,
. iu. *. Mb er eye. 1„ h l. he.. and *... he ^ ^
^o, the eecona to the third. « ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
^ e e d tooth , tooth ^ _ tooth ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
belly.
Excerpt from "And the Four Animals. . . ", [before 1980].
Sheila Watson, [199-?].
2H
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the Following:
Fred T. Flahiff, Estate of Sheila Watson
George Bowering
Bill Whitehead, Estate of Timothy Findley
Jay Stewart, Estate of Dorothy Livesay
Suzanne Drinkwater, Estate of Jack McClelland
McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
Michael McLuhan, Estate of Marshall McLuhan
Rowland and Juliet McMaster
Evie and Charles Mandel, Estate of Miriam Mandel
Daphne Marlatt
Eleanor Nichol, Estate of bpNichol
Michael Ondaatje
Shirley Neuman, Estate of Wilfred Watson
Efforts were made to contact the executors of Anne Angus
(who passed away in 1991) without success. It is hoped
that the family will not object to the brief quotation from one
of her many letters to her friend.
Sheik Watson, [199-?].
Opposite Page: Selection of ephemera from Paris, [1955-1956?].
25
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