当前位置: X-MOL 学术Book History › 论文详情
Our official English website, www.x-mol.net, welcomes your feedback! (Note: you will need to create a separate account there.)
Between Two Markets: Gordon Murray, Ryerson Press, and the Publishing of Medical Autobiography in the 1960s
Book History ( IF 0.5 ) Pub Date : 2020-10-22 , DOI: 10.1353/bh.2020.0006
Jennifer J. Connor

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Between Two MarketsGordon Murray, Ryerson Press, and the Publishing of Medical Autobiography in the 1960s
  • Jennifer J. Connor (bio)

Canadian surgeon Gordon Murray (1894–1976) envisaged his life story as a two-volume publication, up to 1949 in the first volume, and from 1949 to 1962 in its sequel. The Ryerson Press of Toronto produced both volumes, Medicine in the Making in 1960 and Quest in Medicine in 1963; the first volume was subsequently published in 1965 by Johnson Publications in Great Britain. Murray's correspondence shows that his two publishers shaped his manuscript for different readerships: Lorne Pierce of Ryerson Press cast Medicine in the Making as heroic and tried to orient the work as autobiography, while Donald McI. Johnson cut large, mostly autobiographical, sections for the British edition and re-titled it Surgery in the Making. Reviews of Murray's first book faulted its lack of a clear readership, and it sold poorly. Several publishers rejected Murray's second manuscript: it wasn't scholarly enough for the University of Toronto Press, while Macmillan judged that it fell "between" the scientific textbook and general markets. Undeterred, Murray achieved his aim of an autobiography-by-instalments by personally subsidizing the cost of publishing the second book through Ryerson Press.1

Rarely do records exist for a Canadian medical or scientific author about the experience of publishing a book; indeed, authors' records for earlier periods in Canada are often absent.2 For Gordon Murray, however, such evidence not only exists, but his extensive personal papers are also complemented by similarly comprehensive papers of Ryerson editor Lorne Pierce. This present study therefore considers the internal processes of publishing such an autobiographical book and its sequel in Canada in the 1960s through the evidence left by author.3 The review of Murray's two life story manuscripts by several publishers; Ryerson's editing, production, and publication; and the revision for and reception by a British audience of Murray's first book, all provide unusual insights into the experience of a medical [End Page 237] author within the Canadian book trade in the 1960s. This story illuminates how and why publishers undertook to make and re-make a surgeon's mediocre autobiographical account of his practice at a time when dramatic changes were occurring both in medicine and in the ways that medical authors represented themselves and their engagement with society.4 Finally, it exemplifies a pivotal period globally in the publishing of traditional medical autobiography: by the 1960s this form of life writing failed to satisfy readers in the book trade, medicine, and the public.

The Book Trade and Medical Biography in Canada

As Sandra Campbell observed in her biography of Lorne Pierce, until comprehensive histories of the book and of publishing appeared over the past twenty years, Canadian publishing history had been "a sadly anaemic field": there were few histories of publishing companies, fewer biographies of publishers, and records of publishing-related activities that exist are either "dauntingly voluminous or frustratingly absent."5 Nevertheless, Canadian scholars and those in the Canadian book trade recognize that publishing in Canada has always been a precarious business, with its survival often a struggle against the larger continental influence and market of the United States. George L. Parker noted in his essay for the History of the Book in Canada, for example, that for the period of Murray's books in the 1960s, the publishing industry expanded in English-language Canada, but it "faced domination by aggressive American subsidiaries." Moreover, "these subsidiaries initiated well-financed Canadian programs, launching into an area of publishing that had traditionally been the preserve of Canadian-owned firms."6 A monograph aptly entitled The Perilous Trade by Roy MacSkimming a few years earlier drew upon his experience in the English-language Canadian publishing industry along with over a hundred interviews of other industry professionals to demonstrate how publishing Canadian books (as opposed to publishing books in Canada) "has always been an experiment." As he indicated, publishing for a population less than a tenth the size of the American market is "an exacting and unforgiving business."7 The same situation applies to Canadian academic publishing. In his memoir God and Mammon...



中文翻译:

在两个市场之间:戈登·默里(Gordon Murray),瑞尔森出版社(Ryerson Press)和1960年代的医学自传出版

代替摘要,这里是内容的简要摘录:

  • 在两个市场之间戈登·默里(Gordon Murray),瑞尔森出版社(Ryerson Press)和1960年代的医学自传出版
  • 詹妮弗·康纳(生物)

加拿大外科医生戈登·默里(Gordon Murray,1894–1976年)设想了自己的生平,分为两册,第一册至1949年,续集从1949年至1962年。多伦多的瑞尔森出版社(Ryerson Press)出版了两卷,分别是1960年的《医学在制造》和1963年的《医学探索》。第一卷随后由约翰逊出版社(Johnson Publications)于1965年出版。默里(Murray)的来信表明,他的两个出版商为不同的读者群塑造了他的手稿:瑞尔森出版社(Ryerson Press)的罗恩·皮尔斯(Lorne Pierce)将《医学中的医学》(Medical in the Making)塑造为英雄,并试图将其定位为自传。约翰逊(Johnson)削减了大部分的自传部分,以改写英国版,并将其重命名为《外科手术》。。对默里的第一本书的评论指责它缺乏清晰的读者群,并且销售不佳。一些出版商拒绝了默里的第二篇手稿:这对多伦多大学出版社来说还不够学术,而麦克米伦则认为这是介于科学教科书和一般市场之间的。穆雷不为所动,通过亲自补贴通过Ryerson Press出版第二本书的费用,实现了分期自传的目的。1个

很少有加拿大医学或科学作者关于出版书籍的经验的记录。确实,加拿大早期的作者记录经常不存在。2然而,对于戈登·默里(Gordon Murray),不仅存在这样的证据,而且他广泛的个人论文也得到了瑞尔森(Ryerson)编辑洛恩·皮尔斯(Lorne Pierce)的类似综合论文的补充。因此,本研究通过作者留下的证据考虑了1960年代在加拿大出版这种自传书籍及其续集的内部过程。3几家出版商对穆雷的两本生活故事手稿的评论;瑞尔森(Ryerson)的编辑,制作和出版;以及英国读者对穆雷(Murray)的第一本书的修订和接受,所有这些都为1960年代加拿大图书行业中一位医学[End Page 237]作者的经历提供了非同寻常的见解。这个故事阐明了出版商在医学上以及医学作者代表自己和与社会互动的方式发生巨大变化之时,如何以及为什么对外科医师进行平庸的自传体描写,以及对其进行重新描写。4 最后,它例证了全球传统医学自传出版的关键时期:到1960年代,这种形式的生活写作未能满足图书贸易,医学和公众的读者的需求。

加拿大的书籍贸易与医学传记

正如桑德拉·坎贝尔(Sandra Campbell)在其洛恩·皮尔斯(Lorne Pierce)的传记中所观察到的那样,直到过去20年来该书和出版的全面历史出现为止,加拿大的出版历史一直是“一个令人遗憾的贫血领域”:出版公司的历史很少,而传记的历史则更少。出版商以及存在的与出版相关的活动的记录“非常庞大或令人沮丧地缺乏”。5然而,加拿大学者和加拿大书业界人士认识到,在加拿大出版一直是不稳定的业务,其生存常常是与美国更大的大陆影响力和市场作斗争。乔治L.帕克在他的文章在指出本书在加拿大历史例如,在1960年代默里(Murray)的著作时期,出版业以加拿大英语发展,但它“面临着进取的美国子公司的统治”。而且,“这些子公司发起了资金充裕的加拿大计划,进入了传统上一直由加拿大拥有的公司保留的出版领域。” 6专着标题为《危险贸易专着几年前由Roy MacSkimming撰写,他借鉴了他在加拿大英语出版行业的经验以及对其他行业专业人士的一百多次采访,以展示如何出版加拿大书籍(与在加拿大出版书籍相对) 。” 正如他指出的那样,出版人口不到美国市场规模的十分之一是“一项严苛的工作”。7同样的情况也适用于加拿大学术出版。在他的回忆录中,上帝和玛蒙...

更新日期:2020-10-22
down
wechat
bug