Memorial University Libraries  |  Archives & Special Collections

Memorial University's Irving Layton Collection was acquired in 2010 from Canadian writer and critic John Metcalf. The Collection contains approximately 260 items, including every English Language edition of Layton's work, among them the important early editions from First Statement Press and Contact Press. Among the inscribed first editions and early editions are Here and Now (1945); Now is the Place (1948); The Black Huntsmen (1951); Cerberus (1952); Love the Conqueror Worm (1953); In the Midst of My Fever (1954); The Long Pea-Shooter (1954); The Blue Propeller (1955); The Cold Green Element (1955); Music on a Kazoo (1956); and The Bull Calf and Other Poems (1956). The Collection holds signed states and a number of extremely rare proofs, including those for Nail Polish (1971), The Pole-Vaulter (1974), as well as blue-line proofs for Dance With Desire: Selected Love Poems (1992). There are inscribed copies associated with many different writers, including William Carlos Williams, John Newlove, Raymond Souster, Frank Scott, Louis Dudek, Miriam Waddington and, of course, many works bearing the ownership signature of John Metcalf. Many of the books are warmly inscribed by the author to family members or friends. A couple even have on-the-spot sketches of the author in his own hand.

As well as first editions and early editions, there are also foreign language editions, reprints, scarce limited editions, broadsides, anthologies (trade and workshop), and books owned by Layton, some of which have been annotated or corrected by him. In addition to personalized copies, several works in the Collection contain poems hand written by Layton, either on the endpapers or on loose leaf that was subsequently laid into the book; a number of these poems have not been collected. Finally, the Collection also contains Layton's prose works, books that he edited or contributed introductions or forewords to, collected letters, books about Layton, as well as a number of periodicals, photographs and audio recordings.

The Collection is not yet catalogued. A bibliography of the titles held in the Collection may be viewed from the Digital Archives Initiative website. The Collection is not open for browsing. To see physical copies of items in the collection, or to find out more about the collection, please contact Special Collections Librarian, Patrick Warner, at pwarner@mun.ca.