Selected Poetry And Essays

by William Wilfred Campbell (Editor), Laurel Boone

This is a representative collection of the writings of a neglected Canadian author, William Wilfred Campbell (1858-1918). Among the 112 poems in William Wilfred Campbell: Selected Poetry and Essays are the familiar "Indian Summer" and "How One Winter Came in the Lake Region," along with many less well-known love poems, patriotic songs, and occasional poems. Some twenty manuscript pieces are published here for the first time.

The notorious "Mermaid Inn" essay in which Campbell refers to the mythical nature of the cross is included, and so is the letter of self-justification that Campbell wrote--but never sent--to the editor of the Globe. Here, too, are speeches, essays published in The Week and the Ottawa Evening Journal, and significant sections from Campbells unfinished treatise on evolution, "The Tragedy of Man."

By the time Campbell died on New Year's Day 1918, shifting values had begun to turn critical opinion against his work. Now William Wilfred Campbell: Selected Poetry and Essays will enable Canadians to appreciate Campbells art and to recognize his place in the development of Canadian thought.

254 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1987

About the author

William Wilfred Campbell was a Canadian author and poet. He is often classed as one of the country's Confederation Poets and was considered the "unofficial poet laureate of Canada" by the end of the 19th century.