Series 5 - Publishing projects

This series includes records created and collected while editing and/or writing literary works. Files contain correspondence with publishers and often with the authors of the original work. There is also correspondence relating to primary sources and with other academics or people familiar with the work being edited as well as with contributors. Files also contain research notes, bibliographies, reviews, publishing contracts and draft manuscripts.

Of particular note is correspondence with poet James Reaney along with his originally designed Christmas cards from him and his wife Colleen Thibaudeau. Early correspondence relates to his book Poems edited by Germaine Warkentin in 1972 but continues well into the 1990s and is often of a personal nature. Photographs of James Reaney at John Warkentin’s retirement party can be found in B2002-0006/001P (01).

In 1976 Uof T Press reprinted The White Savannahs by W.E. Collin as part of the series Literature in Canada: Poetry and Prose in Reprint. Warkentin wrote the introduction and in doing so corresponded with Collin as well as with poets Al Purdy, Leo Kennedy, A.J.M Smith, Frank Scott and Dorothy Livesay.

In 2001 Warkentin’s edited work Decentring the Renaissance: Canada and Europe in multidisciplinary perspective, 1500-1700 was published. This book was based on papers presented at a conference in 1976, organized by Warkentin and sponsored by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at Victoria College. Records in this series document the conference along with the subsequent publication and include files on funding, correspondence with contributors, readers and the publisher.

Warkentin was also involved in the publishing project, The History of the Book in Canada. Included is correspondence, reports, drafts and planning documents.