Founded in Montreal by a coterie of friends and acquaintances, Preview published many of Canada's most famous modernist poets. It ran for a total of 23 issues, from 1942 to 1945. The magazine’s most active and prolific founding member was Patrick Anderson, but F.R. Scott, Margaret Day, Bruce Ruddick, Neufville Shaw, and P.K. Page all made important contributions, editorial and otherwise. For example, positioning themselves against a persistent Romantic strain in Canadian literature, Anderson and other figures central to the operation of the magazine called for the modernization and increased politicization of Canadian society and culture. Even so, today Preview is perhaps known best for its contributions to Canadian modernist poetry, not for its fiction or editorials (although it also featured several noteworthy examples of each).
In 1945, Preview merged with First Statement to form Northern Review (1945-1956).
Dates: 1942-1945
Place: Montreal, QC
Issues digitized: 23/23
Editors: Patrick Anderson, with F.R. Scott, Margaret Day, Bruce Ruddick, Neufville
Shaw, P.K. Page
University of New Brunswick
Read, download, and explore every digitized issue in a variety of file formats.
(Note: in the project's next stage of development, as time and funding allow, we will be adding hand-corrected .txt-file transcriptions and TEI-XML editions of each issue.)
All texts by A.M. Klein have been reprinted here with permission of the publisher, University of Toronto Press, and the A.M. Klein Estate. We are grateful for their cooperation. The texts by A.M. Klein in these issues can also be accessed in A.M. Klein: Complete Poems, edited by Zailig Pollock and published by University of Toronto Press.
"Letter to the Editor," "Accept This Day," "April," "Day," "De Bullion Street," "The English Lesson," "Forecast," "A Game of Chess," "Gents' Furnishings," "Gonorrhea Racetrack," "House to Let," "Jewish Main Street," "A Jewish Rabbi," "Let's Win the Peace," "The Modern Poet," "1943," "Obstacle Course," "A Parasite," "Petawawa," "The Philistine," "Piety," "Politics and Poetry," "Providence," "Review of At the Long Sault by Archibald Lampman," "Review of This England by James Edward Ward," "Review of The Hitleriad by A.M. Klein," "Review of The Night is Ended by J.S. Wallace," "Review of Poems by A.M. Klein," "Review of Who Dare to Live by Frederick B. Watt," "Say It Again, Brother," "The Swimmer," "Upper Water Street," "Vigil," "We Have Taken the Night," and "Words Without Music" from COLLECTED WORKS by Irving Layton, Copyright © 1971 Irving Layton. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. All rights reserved.
Note: Every effort was made to contact the copyright holders for the materials digitized as part of this project (in cases where the material is still protected under Canadian law). If you live outside of Canada, please check the copyright laws of your own country before downloading any of these magazines. If you believe you are the rights holder for any material on this website for which you have not given permission, please contact us.