Manuscript Collection MS COLL 00069 - Contact Press Papers

Identity area

Reference code

CA OTUTF MS COLL 00069

Title

Contact Press Papers

Date(s)

  • 1960-1966 (Creation)

Level of description

Manuscript Collection

Extent and medium

2 boxes (0.3 metres)

Context area

Name of creator

(1952-1967)

Administrative history

The legendary Contact Press was founded by Raymond Souster, Louis Dudek and Irving Layton in 1952, and the first book to bear the Contact imprint was Cerberus: Poems, written by the three co-founders. For the next 15 years, Contact Press emerged as the most important poet-operated and self-financed small press in Canada. Between 1960 and 1967, it published important book-length collections by new and younger writers whose work had until then appeared in little magazines or may have been published in chapbook form. Its list of writers included Milton Acorn, Al Purdy, Gwendolyn MacEwen, John Newlove, Frank Davey, George Bowering and Margaret Atwood.

Archival history

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Content and structure area

Scope and content

The collection contains editorial correspondence, typescripts, translations and galley proofs for a variety of Contact Press publications. Among the works covered in the editorial files include Octavio Paz's Sun-stone, Margaret Atwood's The Circle Game (winner of the Governor-General's award), Anne Hebert's Le tombeau des rois, Alan Grandbois' Selected Poems and Gaston Miron's La vie agonique. It also includes a typescript of Miller's unpublished selection of poems, Afterimages.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling

Accruals

System of arrangement

Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access

Material may be requested in person at the Fisher Library Reference Desk, or in advance using our online stack retrieval request form: https://fisher.library.utoronto.ca/stack-retrieval-request

Conditions governing reproduction

Language of material

  • English

Script of material

Language and script notes

Physical characteristics and technical requirements

Finding aids

Uploaded finding aid

Allied materials area

Existence and location of originals

Existence and location of copies

Related units of description

Related descriptions

Notes area

Alternative identifier(s)

Access points

Subject access points

Place access points

Name access points

Genre access points

Description control area

Description identifier

CA OTUTF MS COLL00069

Institution identifier

Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto

Rules and/or conventions used

Dates of creation revision deletion

Language(s)

Script(s)

Sources

Accession area

Related subjects

Related people and organizations

Related genres

Related places