Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1960-1966 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
2 boxes (0.3 metres)
Context area
Name of creator
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 It also includes a typescript of Miller's unpublished selection of poems, Afterimages.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://aeon.library.utoronto.ca
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
Notes area
Alternative identifier(s)
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
- Miller, Peter (Subject)