This thirteenth and final volume of previously unpublished writings by Northrop Frye gathers together autobiographical reflections, short stories, an unfinished novel, and commentary on a wide range of topics from Canadian culture to religion. Drawn from holdings in the Frye archives – holograph notebooks, typed notes, and typescripts – these writings have been largely inaccessible to Frye scholars until now.

Some of the contents of this volume, Frye’s early fiction, for example, will come as a surprise to those acquainted primarily with his published criticism. All of his fables and dialogues are included here, as are a half-dozen sets of notes in which he speculates on forms of fiction and various literary projects he planned to one day undertake. These miscellaneous writings offer further evidence of Frye’s fertile mind, quick wit, expansive imagination, and eloquence. Frye always claimed that the process of writing was for him a search for proper formulas through which to communicate. The material in this volume, which seldom fails to instruct and delight, discloses the process of that search.

Northrop Frye (1912-1991) was one of the twentieth century's most influential English scholars and literary critics. Northrop Frye was a professor in the Department of English at Victoria University in the University of Toronto from 1939 until his death. His works include Words with Power and Anatomy of Criticism.

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Robert D. Denham is John P. Fishwick Professor of English, Emeritus, at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. Before that he was Professor of English and Chair of the department at Emory & Henry College, and in the mid-1980s he served as Director of English Programs and Director of the Association of Departments of English for the Modern Language Association in New York City. Denham received his M.A. in religion and art and his Ph.D. in English (with honors) from the University of Chicago. He has devoted much of his professional life to writing about Northrop Frye and editing his work.

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Michael Dolzani is a professor in the Department of English at Baldwin-Wallace College.

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