John Glassco Collection: Finding Aid

Abstract

The personal and working collection of John Glassco. John Glassco (1909-1981) was a Canadian poet, translator, essayist, editor, short story writer, and professional pornographer. "Styled as a dandy, fop, and Edwardian eccentric, he maintained an hermetic devotion to his own large talent. That talent cannot be ignored, for it functioned as a remarkable bridge. In Memoirs of Montparnasse, he linked the present day with the glorious Paris years of Joyce, Hemingway, and the surrealists. Through his many translations and anthologies, he helped English Canada understand Quebec better. His poetry combined conservative formality with a modern sensibility. In his erotic works, "his unfaltering good taste helped us unravel the tangled psychosexual world of Aubrey Beardsley and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch" (qtd. from The Word Bookshop catalogue description). The collection comprises 526 books and 88 periodicals collected throughout his lifetime. Because this was his working library, most of the works are signed and annotated.