The sketches in this volume are now published for the first time. They were left to me by Emily Carr as part of the contents of a large box or trunk. The trunk contained a great many letters, a number of sketch books, several single sketches in oil and water colour, account books, Emily’s journals, a number of manuscripts, and a great many miscellaneous personal items. In a letter, Emily directed me to dispose of the contents of the trunk in any way that seemed right to me, saying that little in it had any value, and reminding me that fire takes care of accumulated possessions “cleanly and decently”. Her estimate of the contents was, of course, too modest—there was much in the box which has great interest and value. Everything has been carefully preserved.
These sketches deal with a great variety of subjects reflecting Emily Carr’s various interests in life. There are two stories of West Coast Indian life; there are sketches, amusing and sometimes pathetic, of birds and animals that Emily had known, and that had taken an intimate part in her existence. There is an unusual story (unusual for Emily) dealing with a simple human situation. There are a number of sketches dealing with Emily’s childhood as seen through the eyes of “Small”.
I knew of the existence of most of these sketches before Emily’s death—indeed we had worked over most of them during the years after the publication of Klee Wyck. The two Indian stories I had never seen before, but “The Life of Woo”, the sketches of birds and animals, I was very familiar with.
Some of these sketches, notably “In the Shadow of the Eagle”, “The Hully-up Paper”, and “Woo’s Life”, exist in more than one version. In preparing them for publication I have selected what seemed to me the superior version. In a very few cases I have grafted a passage from one version into the other where I felt the passage added something really striking. Otherwise I have done only ordinary editorial work (punctuation, paragraphing, etc.). For instance, in the “Shadow of the Eagle” there is an apparent discrepancy which makes Martha stumble over the base of the eagle which had already fallen. I have not tampered with this. Emily herself told me that Wragge had intended, as part of his honouring of old Susan, to put the eagle back in its place in the cemetery. This, I believe, was in Emily’s mind as she wrote—she thought of the eagle as back in its place.
That Emily Carr should in her later life have become known as a writer of distinction has seemed strange to many people. The story of the development of this talent has never been completely or accurately told. Indeed some of the facts concerning it may never be known. Undoubtedly she had a great initial gift in the use of words. Some critics have gone so far as to say that her talent in writing even outran her talent in painting.
It was not until late in 1938 that I came to know that Emily Carr had for a long time been preoccupied with writing. The information came to me from her friend, Miss Ruth Humphrey. In conversation with me at that time, Emily gave me the impression that she had taken up writing quite recently, indeed after her serious illness only a few years before. This is partially true, but it is not the whole truth. Her interest in writing most certainly increased, and her work on her writing was intensified after her illness, which made it impossible for her to go on long trips sketching in the woods. But there is now ample evidence that her preoccupation with the use of words went back almost as far as her preoccupation with drawing and painting.
As a young girl she had great facility in rhyming, as is illustrated by a number of amusing jingles and limericks which survive. In an article in The Week (Victoria, 18 February 1905) Arnold Watson described Emily Carr’s studio where she was teaching painting. He says there were many sketches on the walls: “. . . some of these are serial and nicely bound together. Supplemented by verses (which she calls jingles) they illustrate amusingly some of her experiences in English student life.”
In 1927, an important year for Emily Carr the painter, she was encouraged by Lawren Harris and the late Eric Brown, Curator of the National Art Gallery, to write about her life and the interesting experiences that had befallen her as an artist, and she began the first of her journals, which have survived. In this year, too, she was taking a correspondence course with an American school of journalism. This fact, which Emily never mentioned to me, is proved by the existence of a letter from one of the readers of the school’s staff. He was returning a manuscript which Emily had submitted, with comments and criticisms. The manuscript was “The Nineteenth Tombstone”. This must have been an earlier version of the sketch published now in this volume as “In the Shadow of the Eagle”. The manuscript of “The Nineteenth Tombstone” I have not been able to find.
In the years between 1927 and 1938 Emily’s journals make many references to her writing, although she has nothing to say about formal training until we come to the year 1934. In that year she took a course in short story writing at the Victoria Summer School. There is an interesting item in one of the Victoria papers of that year describing the closing exercises of the summer session: “Real literary style was shown in Miss Emily Carr’s ‘Hully-up Letter’, the prize-winning story produced by N. De Bertrand Lugrin Shaw’s short story writing class. Read by the author, this human interest story recounted an incident in B.C. Indian life, and held the rapt attention of the audience”. Emily described this ordeal herself in her journal, as she described most amusingly some of her other experiences in the short story class.
During these years, when Emily was working hard at both her painting and writing, she had the habit of reading her stories to her family and friends, asking for criticism, hoping for encouragement. She worked very hard at her writing. Her sister Alice once said to me, “Emily always worked hard at anything she undertook.” During this period she received considerable encouragement and help from her friends, notably from Lawren Harris, Flora Burns, Ruth Humphrey, then on the staff of Victoria College in Victoria, B.C., and from the late Fred Housser.
Following the year 1938 we did a great deal of work together on manuscripts which already existed. Some of them were prepared for broadcast, and were read on the air by the late Dr Garnett Sedgewick. The first collection of sketches, Klee Wyck, was published by the Oxford University Press in the late autumn of 1941. It was immediately acclaimed by critics and book reviewers, and Emily Carr emerged as a writer of importance in Canada.
A great part of Emily Carr’s writing has been autobiographical. It recalls all sorts of people and incidents from her own life, particularly from her childhood. These memories of her early years are brought back through the eyes of Small. Who was Small? She was the embodiment of Emily’s childhood—but I had better let Emily describe her herself, as she did in a letter to me dated 9 August 1943, and left in the trunk where I found it after her death. She said in part: “Do not be too sad when you and Small unpack the box, let her giggle a bit . . . she has been a joy to us, hasn’t she? . . . and if there should be an et cetera [Emily’s designation of my hypothetical wife] who questions ‘Who is Small?’ say ‘Oh, she’s just a phantom child, made up of memories and love’. Small’s adult outgrew her (as every adult must or remain an imbecile) but the child Small learnt the trick of coming back to cheer what used to be her . . . .” Small was full of gaiety and laughter, reacting to joy and sorrow, quick-tempered, tender, devoted, and loyal. Emily often called her a scallywag. Her memory was, perhaps, not always absolutely accurate, particularly in situations where emotion was a prominent factor. For instance, it is quite unlikely that Emily’s eldest sister ever punished her with a riding whip, as Small tells us again and again. There was punishment certainly, and deep hurt and sorrow on the part of the child, as is evident in the vivid memory which comes out in such sketches as “One Crow”.
I have kept you too long from what I think will be a pleasure—the reading of the sketches that follow. My excuse can only be my hope that the facts given above may help to increase your pleasure as you read.
Ira Dilworth
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