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Literary Criticism Canadian

Man Should Rejoice, by Hugh MacLennan

A Critical Edition

edited by Colin Hill

by (author) Hugh MacLennan

Publisher
Les Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa Press
Initial publish date
Apr 2019
Category
Canadian, Canadian
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780776627991
    Publish Date
    Apr 2019
    List Price
    $29.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780776628011
    Publish Date
    Apr 2019
    List Price
    $19.99

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Description

Man Should Rejoice is one of two hitherto unpublished novels by acclaimed novelist Hugh MacLennan. Completed in 1937 and left unpublished due to economic conditions during the Great Depression, it lay in the McGill archives until now.
This critical edition of Man Should Rejoice , which is also the first-ever publication of the work, is comprised of a critical introduction, a bibliography of published and unpublished sources, a fully-edited text based on a typescript of the novel, a list of textual emendations, and explanatory notes.
The introduction draws upon extensive research undertaken in three Canadian archival collections located in Montreal and Calgary. It provides relevant historical, cultural, and biographical context for the novel.
From hundreds of archival documents, Colin Hill reconstructs a textual history of the novel’s production that acknowledges the crucial contribution of Dorothy Duncan, who heavily revised the text and assisted MacLennan behind the scenes. Hill also explores the critical reception of MacLennan’s fiction from the 1930s to the present.
Published in English.

About the authors

Colin Hill is Associate Professor at the Department of English, University of Toronto. His research focuses on modernist Canadian fiction. He is particularly interested in modernist archives, aesthetics, literary histories, and editorial practices, and is working on a book about modernism and Canadian cities. He is also editor of the University of Toronto Quarterly.

Colin Hill's profile page

Born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Hugh MacLennan (1907-1990) taught at McGill University from 1951 to 1981 and wrote novels and essays that helped define Canadian literature. His novels include Barometer Rising (1941), Two Solitudes (1945), Each Man's Son (1951), The Watch That Ends the Night (1959), Return of the Sphinx (1967), and Voices in Time (1980). He also published several nonfiction works, including Cross Country (1949), Thirty and Three (1955), The Scotchman’s Return and Other Essays (1960), and The Colour of Canada (1967).

Hugh MacLennan's profile page

Excerpt: Man Should Rejoice, by Hugh MacLennan: A Critical Edition (edited by Colin Hill; by (author) Hugh MacLennan)

Like many better-known novels of its period from Canada and abroad, Man Should Rejoice exploits the dramatic potential inherent in the economic and social problems that arose in much of the world following the infamous Wall Street Crash of 1929.