Background
Canby was born in September of 1878 in Wilmington, Delaware. He was the son of Edward Tatnall (founder and president of the Delaware Trust Company) and Ella Augusta (Seidel) Canby.
Canby was born in September of 1878 in Wilmington, Delaware. He was the son of Edward Tatnall (founder and president of the Delaware Trust Company) and Ella Augusta (Seidel) Canby.
In 1896, Canby graduated from the Quaker school. Canby then enrolled at Yale University, spending the better part of the next twenty years earning an undergraduate and graduate degree.
During his tenure at Yale, Canby’s fascination with literature grew. He was especially interested in establishing American literature as legitimately distinct from English literature. This goal led him to publishing, and in the early 1900s, Canby produced several textbooks, magazine articles, and essays. His subject matter ranged from research done on various works of fiction to composition style to basic literary criticism. He also wrote essays about the evolving roles of professor and student that were later published in book form in 1915 as College Fathers and College Sons, and in 1920, as Everyday Americans.
Canby called for the academics at Yale to respond to the changing needs of the students. However, when they failed to do so, Canby took matters into his own hands and published a pamphlet in 1902 called The Short Story. A book version followed in 1909, entitled The Short Story in English. In later years, The Short Story in English became a standard textbook for high school students.
Canby was determined to promote American literature not just in the classroom, but into the recesses of middle America. His means to do so would surface through a job offer to act as assistant editor of the Yale Review in 1911.
His boss, Professor Wilbur L. Cross, hired Canby with the hope of making the Yale Review a national review that would appeal to both educated and non-educated people alike. As it turned out, Canby was just the man for the job. He remained at the Yale Review for the better part of ten years, taking time out to help in the war effort, but returning to continue educating the public at large about new and exciting literature. He would later credit this post with shaping his career as a magazine editor and journalist.
In 1920, Canby was offered a job as editor of the New York Evening Post's new supplement, the Literary Review. Again, Canby had been hired to reach the masses. Since World War I, the Post was predominantly known for its financial reporting, and those in charge wanted to change that. Canby jumped at the chance to launch a new magazine, leaving academic life for the first time in more than twenty years to throw himself headfirst into the world of journalism.
As editor of the Literary Review Canby thrived. He filled the pages with poetry, essays, cartoons, and social commentary, as well as biographies of literary figures. The Literary Review became a hit, finding a wide following from all walks of life throughout the country. However, the success was short-lived, and in 1924, just four years after its inception, Canby and his editorial staff quit the paper in a creative dispute with the new owners of the New York Evening Post. Sadly, the Literary Review folded. Canby, on the other hand, could not be discouraged that easily. That same year, with the help of the New York Evening Post's former owner, Thomas W. Lamont, and former students turned Time magazine launchers Henry R. Luce and Briton Hadden, Canby established the Saturday Review of Literature.
For Canby, his most successful and influential years were about to happen. He took the format from his days at the Literary Review and transformed them into a more humorous, wiser, more literary, better-printed paper that contained the same will to further the cause of good thinking, good feeling, good writing, and good books. As the editor, Canby helped make the Saturday Review of Literature the most popular weekly of its genre.
In 1926, the Book-of-the-Month Club was founded. Naturally, Canby was asked to serve on its editorial board. As with all members of the editorial board, Canby was allowed to select books to be reviewed.
By the 1920s, Canby found himself, in a sense, going out of style. As communism and fascism found their way into America’s consciousness, Canby refocused his energies. He resigned from the Saturday Review in 1936, remaining active as a contributing editor and member of the editorial board. But Canby continued his work with the Book-of-the-Month Club well into the 1950s.
In his never-ending battle against censorship, Canby worked with various organizations to promote freedom of expression throughout his life. During the era of Mc- Carthyism, he blasted the American government, and in 1953, he signed a petition calling for the U.S. Supreme Court to declare the Internal Security Act unconstitutional.
(The book is a study of the short story from a historical ...)
Canby was raised in an Episcopalian family but educated at a Quaker school.
Canby was a firm believer that the best way to study literature, especially American literature, was to study it in relation to social history. He used the work of writers like Robert Frost to comment on the social climate of America. He also believed that the current curriculum was not fitting the needs of the day’s students.
Instilled with his beliefs that literature should be used as a commentary on the social climate as well as an educational tool, Canby introduced America to the newest and best writers. He also welcomed criticism from outside sources. His stance on freedom of speech never wavering, Canby published, regardless of the controversy, letters to the editor and rebuttals in response to previously printed articles.
With all his success, it would be impossible for Canby to escape the harsh eye of the critics. It was during his tenure at both the Saturday Review and Book-of-the-Month Club that he received a great deal of bad press. In an article titled “Has America a Literary Dictatorship?” an anonymous author suggested that perhaps Canby had too much power over what the country was reading. Never one to shy away from controversy, Canby responded by standing his ground, professing his continuing devotion to making literature a valued commodity in middle America. Other critics would follow suit, always blasting Canby for what was simply his true nature.
Quotes from others about the person
“Mr. Canby at least shows us that he has an active mind, capable of searching the underlying issues of the time in which he lives.”
“Let it be said at the outset that Professor Canby has performed with much tact and adroitness a pretty difficult task. But Professor Canby’s historical sympathy and imagination are at times distinctly defective.”
“In Canby, a trace of schoolmaster sticks. He tries to give his customers their honest money’s worth in light and leading.” - Engelman, H. L. Mencken
Canby married Marion Ponsonby Gause, on June 15, 1907. They had two children: Edward Tatnall and Courtlandt.