The Second Scroll, the only novel by poet A.M. Klein, is an ambitious and complex work that interlaces prose, poetry, drama, and commentary. The narrative follows a Canadian Jew to the newly established state of Israel on a double mission - to collect the emerging national literature and to search for his Uncle Melech Davidson, a Holocaust survivor. Klein creates a modern Torah out of the uncle's crises of faith as he attempts to come to terms with the atrocities of the Second World War. The five chapters of The Second Scroll mirror the books of the Pentateuch (the 'first scroll') and the...

In the final volume of the Collected Works of A.M. Klein, Elizabeth Popham completes the process of restoring the public voice of one of Canada's most respected authors. A.M. Klein: The Letters is the first compilation of a significant body of Klein's correspondence. Using his communications to construct a compelling narrative, Popham traces Klein's career from his apprenticeship to great critical success and his tragically premature silence.

The content of Klein's letters gives new resonance to his works, most notably to his critically acclaimed novel The...

This edition of E.J. Pratt's letters is the final volume in the Collected Works series. Because of Pratt's role in the making of Canadian culture between and after the World Wars, his correspondence highlights key moments in our cultural history and provides a view of the enterprise from its very centre.

The letters take us into his "workshop," illuminating the research behind his distinctive documentary long poems and the social nature of his creative production. They also reveal the complex network of writers, critics, artists and political figures of which Pratt was a part, the...