“FEAST OF STEVENSON”: THE LIONEL STEVENSON COLLECTION OF CANADIANA AT DUKE UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT

The late Canadian critic and academic, Lionel Stevenson, has bequeathed to Duke University his rich collection of Canadiana dating from the 1860's to the 1960's: works of poetry, fiction, literary criticism, essays, travel, and history. Many are items unknown outside of Canada; some are apparently unavailable even in Canada. Individual volumes are supplemented by sets of volumes, poetry chapbook series, privately printed ephemera, and provincial poetry chapbooks. Fifteen prominent authors are represented by between six and twenty-four books apiece.

Duke is as well the repository of the substantial collection of letters Stevenson received from 1920 until his death in 1973. His correspondents ranged from Theodore Dreiser and Albert Einstein to the knowns and unknowns of Canadian literature, criticism, history, politics, and philosophy. Letters from Charles Mair, the Confederation poets, F. P. Grove, Stephen Leacock, Robert Service, E. J. Pratt, and Earle Birney, among others, will particularly interest the student of Canadian literature, while sources as diversified as William Lyon Mackenzie King and Roland Mitchener will appeal to scholars of many disciplines. A descriptive catalogue presently being written by Professor Armitage will make these materials far more accessible.