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Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
Muses’ Company Fonds
General material designation
Textual record
Graphic material
Parallel title
Other title information
Title statements of responsibility
Title notes
- Source of title proper: Title based on the provenance of the fonds.
Level of description
Fonds
Repository
Reference code
CA RBD MSG 948
Edition area
Edition statement
Edition statement of responsibility
Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
-
1980-1995 (Creation)
- Creator
- Muses' Company
Physical description area
Physical description
3 m of textual records
207 photographs
Publisher's series area
Title proper of publisher's series
Parallel titles of publisher's series
Other title information of publisher's series
Statement of responsibility relating to publisher's series
Numbering within publisher's series
Note on publisher's series
Archival description area
Name of creator
(founded 1980)
Administrative history
Poet Endre Farkas founded the Montreal-based press known as Muses’ Company in 1980. While Farkas was both the primary publisher and editor from 1980 to 1995, the Muses’ Company board members included Ken Norris and Ruth Taylor. The company promoted the growth of English poetry in Quebec and contributed to the expansion of Montreal’s literary community. Also affiliated with Montreal's Véhicule Press, Muses' Company offered a literary home for poets with a broad multicultural and avant-garde vision that included new and other voices such as those of lesser-known and experimental poets. Seeking to move the poem from page to stage, Muses’ Company also created poetry performances with dancers, actors, and composers. Muses’ Company remained a small independent press headquartered in Farkas’ basement. With the support of government funding, the Muses’ Company published approximately 30 books from 1980 to 1995. Farkas’ own Face-off (1980) was the first of several book-length poems. While making space for new voices, it also published some well-known Montreal poets, such as Ken Norris, and fiction writers, such as Kenneth Rudu, whose book, The cost of living (1987), was nominated for the 1998 Governor General's Award. Like other writer-run presses, the Muses’ Company encouraged a community of poets to be involved in all phases of their own and each other’s publications. Muses’ Company was bought by Manitoba-based J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing Inc. in 1995. Farkas served as an advisor editor for a year after the purchase. Under its new umbrella, the Muses’ Company press publishes titles from poets with established publishing records.
Custodial history
Scope and content
The fonds chiefly consists chiefly of records related to the editing and publishing work of the Muses' Company press. The fonds consists of seven series: manuscripts; financial records; publications; correspondence; records related to the Association des éditeurs anglophone de Québec; records relating to the Association of Canadian Publishers; and records relating to the Literary Press Group. Most of the records were either created or accumulated by Endre Farkas in relation to the Muses’ Co. publications between 1980 and 1995. Records relating to publishing include manuscripts of works, page proofs with corrections, editors’ and authors’ notes, published books, and publicity materials. Other production records within the fonds include correspondence, pamphlets, photographs, layouts, and drawings for covers. These manuscripts also often have accompanying materials including photos and correspondence, in particular for the Dance Agenda project. There is also correspondence including exchanges with authors such as Ken Norris, Kenneth Radu, Katharine Beeman, Elias Letelier-Ruz, Ian Stephans, and Sharon H. Nelson as well as notes to Leonard Cohen. The company's financial records in the fonds consist income tax receipts, statement of earnings, reports of sales of books, buyers, quotes, invoices, funding applications, contracts and correspondence. Notable financial records include book sales from the McGill University Bookstore, as well as the universities of Toronto, Waterloo, Calgary, and Maine. Other records include materials from the Association des éditeurs anglophone du Québec (1991-1994), the Canada Grant Council, the Association of Canadian Publishers, the Literary Press Group. Also represented is the Quanglo Tour itinerary including posters, postcards, and advertisements (1994-1995).
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
McGill Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections received ten boxes of archival material from Endre Farkas in December 1995.
Arrangement
Materials have been preserved in the order in which they were received and original file titles retained.
Language of material
English
French
Hungarian
Slovenian
Spanish
Script of material
Language and script note
Records primarily in English, with some French, Spanish, Hungarian, and Slovenian. Some documents are bilingual (French-English and Slovenian-English).
Location of originals
Availability of other formats
Restrictions on access
Open.
Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication
Finding aids
File-level listing. Also described in the McGill Libraries catalogue.
Associated materials
Accruals
Alternative identifier(s)
Wikidata Q identifier
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q63986295
Standard number
Standard number
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
- Radu, Kenneth (Subject)
- Beeman, Katharine, 1945- (Subject)
- Nelson, Sharon H., 1948- (Subject)
Genre access points
Control area
Description record identifier
Institution identifier
Rules or conventions
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Finding aid prepared by Rachel Harris, Kimberly Beaufils, Raphaëlle Brousseau-Paradis, Rigel Rafuse, Kristen Frame, Felicia Pulo, Sasha Sanscartier and David Walker for McGill's GLIS 641 course, November 2017, and edited by Gordon Burr, August 2018.