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William Arthur Deacon: A Canadian Literary Life
Based on his correspondence, books, and review columns, the biography views Deacon's life in terms of this involvement and in the context of the cultural and political forces of his time.
400 pages, Paperback
Published December 15, 1982
2 people want to read
About the author
Clara Thomas
29 booksClara Eileen McCandless studied English literature at the University Of Western Ontario. After graduating in 1941, she married Morley Thomas, a meteorologist. They lived in Manitoba, where Clara taught university courses to military servicemen in Dauphin. She returned to Western's library while completing her master's degree.
She decided to study Canadian authors for her thesis, an idea so radical at the time that William Arthur Deacon, the books editor for The Globe And Mail, offered his support.
After completing her master's, she published "Canadian Novelists", a biographical dictionary of 150 Canadian writers, in 1946.
The University Of Toronto declined her doctorate application because she was married!
She reapplied later and was accepted. Her academic supervisor, Northrop Frye, supported her interest in Canadian literature and encouraged her to publish her thesis on Anna Brownell Jameson. She completed her doctorate in 1962.
At York University in 1961, Clara was the first woman ever hired as a faculty member by the English department and only the second female academic hired by the entire university. When she and Eli Mandel introduced the university's first dedicated Canadian literature course in 1969, interest was so high that within a week of the announcement, they had received double the number of registration requests they had expected.
Her published work during her career at York included an essay on Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill for the anthology "The Clear Spirit"; "Ryerson Of Upper Canada", a biography of Egerton Ryerson; "The Manawaka World Of Margaret Laurence", a critical study of Margaret's Manawaka sequence of novels; contributions to the omnibus "Literary History Of Canada"; "Love And Work Enough: The Life of Anna Jameson"; and "William Arthur Deacon: A Canadian Literary Life", a biography coauthored with colleague John Lennox. It was a finalist for the Toronto Book Awards in 1983.
Clara retired from full-time teaching in 1984 but remained a professor emeritus and research fellow in Canadian Studies. She was named a fellow of the Royal Society Of Canada, received honorary degrees from York, Trent University and Brock University, and served on literary award juries. She continued to write literary criticism and biographical work for academic journals, as well as the afterwords for the New Canadian Library editions of works by Anna Brownell Jameson, Margaret Laurence, Catharine Parr Traill, and Philippe-Joseph Aubert De Gaspé. She published the autobiography "Chapters In A Lucky Life" in 1999.
In 2005, York University's library system renamed its archival division the Clara Thomas Archives And Special Collections in her honour.
Clara's & Morley's youngest Son, John David, predeceased them in 2007. They were married 71 years when she ascended at age 94 in 2013. Their eldest Son is Stephen Morley, bringing into their family Daughter-in-law Mary Attfield and Grandson Tyler.
She decided to study Canadian authors for her thesis, an idea so radical at the time that William Arthur Deacon, the books editor for The Globe And Mail, offered his support.
After completing her master's, she published "Canadian Novelists", a biographical dictionary of 150 Canadian writers, in 1946.
The University Of Toronto declined her doctorate application because she was married!
She reapplied later and was accepted. Her academic supervisor, Northrop Frye, supported her interest in Canadian literature and encouraged her to publish her thesis on Anna Brownell Jameson. She completed her doctorate in 1962.
At York University in 1961, Clara was the first woman ever hired as a faculty member by the English department and only the second female academic hired by the entire university. When she and Eli Mandel introduced the university's first dedicated Canadian literature course in 1969, interest was so high that within a week of the announcement, they had received double the number of registration requests they had expected.
Her published work during her career at York included an essay on Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill for the anthology "The Clear Spirit"; "Ryerson Of Upper Canada", a biography of Egerton Ryerson; "The Manawaka World Of Margaret Laurence", a critical study of Margaret's Manawaka sequence of novels; contributions to the omnibus "Literary History Of Canada"; "Love And Work Enough: The Life of Anna Jameson"; and "William Arthur Deacon: A Canadian Literary Life", a biography coauthored with colleague John Lennox. It was a finalist for the Toronto Book Awards in 1983.
Clara retired from full-time teaching in 1984 but remained a professor emeritus and research fellow in Canadian Studies. She was named a fellow of the Royal Society Of Canada, received honorary degrees from York, Trent University and Brock University, and served on literary award juries. She continued to write literary criticism and biographical work for academic journals, as well as the afterwords for the New Canadian Library editions of works by Anna Brownell Jameson, Margaret Laurence, Catharine Parr Traill, and Philippe-Joseph Aubert De Gaspé. She published the autobiography "Chapters In A Lucky Life" in 1999.
In 2005, York University's library system renamed its archival division the Clara Thomas Archives And Special Collections in her honour.
Clara's & Morley's youngest Son, John David, predeceased them in 2007. They were married 71 years when she ascended at age 94 in 2013. Their eldest Son is Stephen Morley, bringing into their family Daughter-in-law Mary Attfield and Grandson Tyler.
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