Fly-by-night: Canadian Authors Part III

Thursday, 5 May 2011

Canadian Authors Part III

A(lfred) E(lton) van Vogt (1912-2000) was born in Canada and lived the first 32 years of his life here, the rest in the US. He became a US citizen in 1952. He was a published author (in the American SF pulps) before he left Canada but his greatest success was found in the US.

In part I of this post I talked about the potential for disagreement as to who is a Canadian author. Was van Vogt a Canadian author? My answer is no. He wrote SF - nothing unique to Canada. He was published in the US where he lived most of his adult life, the last 48 years as an American citizen.

Van Vogt's one book published by the early Canadian mass market publishers was The House that Stood Still by Harlequin Books. The Dusty Bookcase has posted a detailed discussion about the book so I'll just show the covers.

How many Canadian authors were published by Harlequin between 1949 and 1959? The answer is 22 (of 259) with 28 titles (of 489). Another three were Canadian books but anonymous authors/editors. Below is one of the 28 titles with a very Canadian pedigree.

Allan, Tony
Allison, Carlyle
Brown, Joy
Cooke, Ronald J.
Doyle, Richard J.
Kelley, Thomas P.
Lacroix, Rose (translator)
LeBourdais, D.M.
MacMillan, Don
McCrea, E.R. + W.J. Young
Montrose, David
Moore, Brian
Percival, Lloyd
Philips, Bluebell S.
Raddall, Thomas H.
Rasky, Frank
Robertson, Dr. Alan Brown + Dr. Elizabeth Chant
Ryberg, Dr. Percy E.
Sinclair, Gordon
Walker, Joan
Wallace, Clair
Watson, Ken