Morley Callaghan

The four letters from Morley Callaghan to Raymond Knister, and the one to his wife, Myrtle Gamble, are linked above under the main menu.

Photo of Morley Callaghan. He is looking at the camera over his black glasses and holding a wooden pipe in his right hand.

Morley Callaghan, 1983.

“One day a shy, prematurely balding man with a bad stutter, named Raymond Knister, came in the bookstore…”

From That Summer in Paris by Morley Callaghan. (Toronto: Exile Editions, 1963)

 

In late 1926, Knister met Morley Callaghan at the Viking Lending Library, in Toronto. Much to their mutual delight, they shared a similar desire in wanting to establish Canada as a place of great writing in the way of France or America. As Callaghan later remarked, “there were no writers we were in sympathy with. So we were isolated to that extent but it was fine because we had each other to talk to about writing.” (qtd. In Boire 44). Their friendship can be characterized by a strange combination of support and rivalry. As Callaghan recalls, their friendship began to dwindle, perhaps because “it seemed to [Knister] that I shot into some kind of a quick success which had been denied him, and I think that sort of embittered him” (qtd. In Boire 44). Callaghan’s negative criticism of Knister’s “Introduction” to Canadian Short Stories may have caused an even further decline in their relationship, as he remarked in a letter: “You had a chance to point the way in that introduction, andyou merely arrived at the old values that have been accepted here the last fifty years” (15.8.28). In the years to follow, Callaghan moved to Paris for a now infamous summer, in which he boxed Ernest Hemingway. Knister, having a new wife and daughter, preferred to remain in Canada, and moved about until settling in Port Dover. During the years before Knister’s death, he and Callaghan rarely contacted each other, save a few letters from Knister asking for legal advice, followed by Callaghan’s humourously arrogant response, for which he would later become known.

From Morley Callaghan: Literary Anarchist by Gary Boire. (Toronto: ECW, 1994)

 

“As you know, Callaghan had some training as a boxer so when he and Raymond Knister were arguing about whether the government should help writers, he challenged Knister to a fight. Knister has said our gov’t helps all kinds of industries, why not writers? Callaghan knew absolutely nothing about farmers, or he might have realized that all that work, ploughing with horses, pitching hay, manure, grain, etc., and endless other jobs gave a man a lot of muscle, if nothing else. Knister proved hard to beat, but as they were indoors with their wives looking on, they finally slipped on a “scatter rug or mat” and fell in a heap, and called it a draw.”

- Imogen Knister Givens, recounting a fist fight between Raymond Knister and Morley Callaghan.