The Letters of Malcolm Lowry and Gerald Noxon, 1940-1952 placeholder

The Letters of Malcolm Lowry and Gerald Noxon, 1940-1952

Edited by Nancy Strobel & Paul Tiessen
Categories: Literature & Language Studies, Literary Criticism, Auto/biography & Memoir, Canadian Literature
Publisher: UBC Press
Hardcover : 9780774802871, 180 pages, January 1988
Ebook (EPUB) : 9780774844796, 180 pages, November 2011
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774854818, 180 pages, October 2007

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

Chronology

Introduction

The Writers

The Text

Sources and Editions Used

The Letters

Part I: August 1940 to May 1944

Part II: June 1944 to June 1945

Part III: December 1945 to Spring 1952

Index

Description

The eighty letters, cards and other messages in this correspondence --
produced mainly by Lowry and Gerald Noxon but also by Margerie (Bonner)
Lowry -- offer a fresh introduction to Lowry, a certain
'Canadian' Lowry. At the same time they give insight into two
writing careers (Bonner and Noxon) closely intertwined with his and
vigorously championed by him in the 1940s. The letters observe the mind
of Lowry at play on questions of literary technique, on films, and on
the beauties and rigors of life in his Dollarton shack on an inlet near
Vancouver. They reveal a warm, supportive, enormously sensitive and
intelligent man, modifying somewhat the image of him now available.

Reviews

The definitive account of a small but significant part of Lowry's life . . . Tiessen's canvas is small, but it is beautifully worked, and his exquisite summary of the past makes me look in anticipation for what is yet to come.

- Chris Ackerley

The letters as a whole contain the relaxed observations and spontaneous flashes of wit and honesty only letters can show.... Noxon was the best of all possible friends to a man like Lowry: able to be detached without indifference, supportive without collusion, loyal without enmeshment. This volume of letters is as much a tribute to Noxon's wisdom as it is to Lowry's vulnerability.

- Sharon Thesen

This correspondence is well worth reading by everyone who is interested in Lowry. The letters to Gerald Noxon lead into Lowry's private existence as only letters to a dear friend can.

- Stefan Haag