Selected letters of Margaret Laurence and Adele Wiseman / edited by John Lennox and Ruth Panofsky.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The correspondence between Margaret Laurence and Adele Wiseman covers a period of 40 years, from 1947-1986, and encompasses the professional and personal developments, accomplishments, disappointments, and satisfactions of that period.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

These letters between two 20th-century Canadian novelists reveal an enviable closeness of mind and spirit. The women talk about successes and frustrations, and Laurence discusses her writing: "A theme should be as simple as birth or death ... and yet whose ramifications are so wide that it can never be entirely said at all." The entire correspondence contains 306 letters from Laurence, 83 from Wiseman (Wiseman was a saver, Laurence not). The invaluable introduction points out that from 1947 to 1973, letters were the women's principal means of communication. Laurence--whose best-known novel A Jest of God (1966) was republished after being made into the movie Rachel, Rachel (1968)--"became the senior writer," reassuring Wiseman (known for The Sacrifice, 1956, and Crackpot, 1974) when her work was rejected. Notes are minimal. These wonderful letters will fascinate even readers not familiar with the novelists' work. Essential for creative writing libraries and very highly recommended for literature collections. Undergraduates through faculty. J. Overmyer emeritus, Ohio State University