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Dorothy Livesay fonds
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- Textual record
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16.5 m of textual records
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Name of creator
Biographical history
Dorothy Livesay was a Canadian poet who work spanned over five decades. She was born in Winnipeg in 1909 and moved to Toronto with her parents at the age of ten. Her father, J.F.B. Livesay, was the first general manager of the Canadian Press, a war correspondent during World War I, and author of Canada's Hundred Days (1919). Her mother, Florence Randal Livesay, was a poet of distinction and a pioneer in the field of translating verse from Ukrainian into English. Dorothy Livesay studied at the University of Toronto and the Sorbonne, afterwards becoming a welfare worker, then a newspaper reporter, and finally a teacher. She taught Canadian Literature at the University of Victoria for two years. At the University of Alberta, she taught Canadian Literature and Creative Writing. She also taught in the United States and Zambia, the latter as a UNESCO field specialist. Known chiefly as a poet, Dorothy Livesay won the Lorne Pierce Medal in 1947 for distinguished service to Canadian literature. During the 1940s, she was twice honoured with the Governor-General's Award for Poetry. Some of her best-known poetry publications include Green Pitcher (1928), Call My People Home (1950), Ice Age (1975), Right Hand Left Hand (1977), The Woman I Am (1977), The Phases of Love (1983), and Journey With My Selves: a Memoir, 1909-1963 (1991). She died on December 29, 1996.
Custodial history
Scope and content
The collection consists of biographical material, correspondence, drafts, and versions of Livesay's writings of all genres. Over half of the Livesay collection consists of papers that are strictly non-literary yet directly related to her life and work. This material is divided into five categories: autobiographical, biographical, bibliographical, business papers regarding her writing and her personal business papers. The remainder of the manuscript collection consists of plays, reviews, poems, short stories, essays, talks and addresses, and memoirs.
Notes area
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This collection is organized into 17 series.
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A finding aid can be downloaded by clicking on the “Download’ link under “Finding Aid” on the right hand side of the screen.
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Status
Draft
Level of detail
Partial
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Finding aid created by staff of the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections (1986). Finding aid encoded by Brett Lougheed and Julianna Trivers (March 2002). Revision History: July 26, 2005 - MSS 37 converted from EAD 1.0 to 2002 by v1to02.xsl (sy2003-10-15). Revised by N. Courrier (July 2019).