Subseries 11 - Crime in Literature

0.8 m of textual records

Towards the end of 1984 I started thinking that it would be interesting to give a seminar on crime in literature. In early 1985 I had lunches with various members of the English department to discuss the project. These persons included Jack Robson, Michael and Jane Millgate, Dennis Duffy, and Brian Parker. (See file 1A.) I talked with the persons they suggested and read--or at least examined--some of the books they mentioned. A series of talks on a range of books in English developed. The series had the strong support of Dean Rob Prichard (file 2) and Tom Adamowski, the chair of English.

The seminar was given in the spring of 1986 and again in the spring of 1988 (files 3-8). At each of 13 sessions a member of the English department talked about the book or books selected for discussion. The students had been told before the summer what books would be discussed. Each student prepared a paper on an aspect of crime in literature. A sampling of these papers is in the files (files 15-18). The summer before the course was given, my summer research assistant, Richard Owens (file 11), gathered material that was placed in the library and gave a start to some of the students doing papers. Most, however, had a strong background in English literature and didn’t need much help (files 13-14).

From the beginning, it was anticipated that the papers would eventually be published. The first year was a trial run. The next year the seminar was given, the public was invited to attend. Arrangements were made to include the seminar as part of the Law Society of Upper Canada’s continuing education program (file 7). There was extensive correspondence with each of the participants to get various drafts of their papers and then to get the papers into publishable shape (files 20-32). I was greatly assisted in the editing and in writing the introduction by my summer research assistant, Doug Harris (file 12). The University of Toronto Press published the book in 1991 in paper and hard cover (files 37-40). The collection was originally to be called Different Voices (file 34) because of the well-known line in Our Mutual Friend, one of the books in the series: ‘ He do the police in different voices’. This was later changed to Rough Justice. The files contain various versions of the manuscript (files 41-43) and reviews of the book (file 45). A book launch was held at the top of the Park Plaza, every author’s dream (file 40).

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