John Metcalf Books

'John Metcalf has written some of the very best stories ever published in Canada. He comes as close to the baffling, painful comedy of human experience as a writer can get.' Alice Munro

The book is a reproduction of a historical work, specifically designed in large print to enhance readability for individuals with impaired vision. Published by Megali, a company dedicated to making historical texts more accessible, this edition preserves the original content while ensuring that it is easier for readers to engage with the material.

For more than five decades, John Metcalf has worked tirelessly as editor, anthologist, writer, critic, and teacher to help shape our understanding of Canadian literature and imagine its potential. Metcalf looks back on a lifetime spent in letters; surveys, with no punches pulled, the current state of CanLit; and offers a passionate defense of the promise and potential of Canadian writing. Residence: Ottawa, ON.

First published in 1953, the year that saw thousands descend on London to watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, this is a lexicon of the city's curiosities, from the Achilles statue in Hyde Park 'erected by the women of England to honour (if not to resemble) the Duke of Wellington', to zebra crossings (relative newcomers to London in 1953).

John Metcalf is widely considered one of Canada's best writers. Standing Stones: The Best Stories of John Metcalf brings together three remarkable novellas and five critically acclaimed short stories."The Washington Post" has called his talent "generous, hectoring, huge and remarkable."This collection showcases Metcalf's celebrated elegance as well as his trademark fusion of comedy and sadness. We meet a shy student exposed to a grotesque landlady and her horrific family; a teacher in a Borstal school who allows an entire cricket team to escape; a middle-aged dreamer who may or may not have encountered Venus outside the railway station in Milan; a sex-starved father, his purple-haired punk son, a rock band called The Iron Guard, and a bronze statue of General Jose de San Martin, which is the silent recipient of a wildly comic and deeply moving monologue."Standing Stones: The Best of John Metcalf" demonstrates why Alice Munro has said, "John Metcalf has written some of the very best stories ever published in this country" and The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in English writes that Metcalf has an "abiding reputation as one of the finest prose stylists in contemporary Canada."