Arnold Edinborough 12 holograph letters
Place Published: Kingston
Publisher: Arnold Edinborough
Date Published: 1947 to 1954
Binding: No binding
Arnold Edinborough was a British-born Canadian who taught English at Queen's University and the Royal Military College in Kingston; edited the Kingston Whig-Standard and Saturday Night; been contributing editor on culture to the Financial Post; and founded the Council for Business and the Arts. In the midst of a busy life he has served on the councils of the Anglican Church, as a columnist in its official journal, and as a delegate to the World Council of Churches.
Edinborough immigrated to Canada from England in 1947 at 25 years old to teach Elizabethan drama at Queen's University in Kingston and eventually launched a successful career in journalism, while pursuing a passion for the arts.
A remarkable series of 12 early autograph letters to his close friend, Douglas Eves ; 29-pages, approx. 5 x 7 inches and 60-pages 8 x 10 inches, dating from 1947 through to 1954:
#1) 1947 Aug. 12, 7pp. West Pincbecke, Spalding, UK
#2) 1947 Dec. 23, 16pp. 20 Lower William St., Kingston
#3) NY, ND, 16pp. 20 Lower William St., Kingston
#4) 1948 May 13, 8pp. 9 Aberdeen St. Kingston
#5) 1948, Dec. 22, 10pp. 9 Aberdeen St. Kingston
#6) 1949 Feb. 20, 16pp. 9 Aberdeen St. Kingston
#7) 1949, Jun.1, 3pp. 9 Aberdeen St. Kingston
#8) 1949, Jul. 9, 9pp. 9 Aberdeen St. Kingston
#9) 1950, Apr. 12, 9pp., 95 Nelson St., Kingston
#10) 1950, Aug. 8, 13pp., 95 Nelson St., Kingston
#11) 1951, Nov. 8, 14pp., 132 Earl St, Kingston
#12) 1954, Mar. 20, 4pp., 230 Collingwood St., Kingston
The first letter 1947 Aug. 12th is written shortly before sailing: ”... I now languish in the deep heart of the Lincolnshire harvest country-side with tonsillitis ravaging my throat my wife (God bless her) struggling with all the final arrangements..."
The following extracts from a 16-page letter written from Kingston, Ontario, on 20th Feb. 1949 will give an idea of content although the bulk of the correspondence remains unread: ”...this winter has been exceptionally mild .... ..warm blustery rainy weather of the sort which made rowing at Cambridge a superficially uninviting but actually exhilarating pastime ....... ..this last year would have provided nostalgia -this year it makes me more amenable to my surroundings. And perhaps it is for this reason basically that we are both much more settled, for I nd physical conditions affect me considerably, and I have still not outgrown the incurably romantic idea that Chaucer should be read in December, Keats in the spring, Yeats in the windy season, and the ‘modems’ on a train amongst that pullulating ant-hill of humanity which they purport to show. First, I have been unbelievably (to myself) successful at bursting into print.
The Ontario Library Review have agreed to publish the text of a fairly long speech l delivered in November at a banquet of Librarians soundly swinging the apathy to literature and unthinking adherence to materialism that is so common in America both in the States and here. Which has had further repercussions in that l have also been invited to stir up a little more cultural sediment ... the Queen's Quarterly, which is Queen's ‘learned journal’ has accepted for publication ...an article on ‘Sartre and the Existentialist Novel’. Existentialism, you may remember, interested me a great deal in my last year at Cambridge... All of which, my dear Douglas encourages me a good deal and makes me want to make me scratch a furrow, the furrow a fertile field. But there are more things too which are gradually breaking down my nostalgia for a Cambridge which quite obviously does not exist anymore anyhow. The first one is a man called Robertson Davies ... editor of a small town newspaper in a town some two hundred miles away, a writer of plays and a humorous diarist who makes me laugh weekly in his syndicated column ... He produced yesterday...in the Dominion Drama Festival a completely uncut version of the ‘Taming of the Shrew’ using an apron stage, ordinary lighting and an unparalleled invention he produced an absolute work of genius ...the effect on a staid Canadian audience was such that it gave applause for a good five minutes... I would like to see this play sent throughout the length and breadth of the Dominion to show Canadians that there is a man called Shakespeare, and that he is a man who could write good plays ...There are so many things I want to talk about, not the least of which is tea chez Masefield. I feel that he is a good poetic mentor for you, too, because your verse is more in his tradition than that of, say, C. Day Lewis. But to meet him must be like speaking to Hardy or Shaw ..."
Edinborough was a long time a columnist on the arts for the Anglican Journal, founding president of the Council for Business and the Arts in Canada, editor of the Kingston Whig Standard, editor and publisher of Saturday Night magazine, and long-time columnist of the Financial Post Magazine. Edinborough immigrated to Canada from England in 1947 to teach English at Queen's University in Kingston and eventually launched a successful career in journalism, while pursuing a passion for the arts.
In an autobiography published in 1991, Mr. Edinborough described himself as an "activist" in the Anglican Church of Canada. He was a columnist for the Journal, and its predecessor, Canadian Churchman, for 14 years (1976-1990).
Very Good. Item #8282
$750.00 USD
$999.21 CAD