One Zero Zero     A Virtual Library of English Canadian Small Press 1945 - 2044 Timeline     Books     Authors     Presses     Resources     Search     home Presses First Statement (1942-1952) Montreal John Sutherland et al Publishers of periodicals First Statement & Northern Review; first books by Layton, Souster, Anne Wilkinson; anthology, Other Canadians (1940-46). First Statement was founded by John Sutherland and his sister Betty in Montreal in September 1942 after John's submissions to Patrick Anderson's Preview were initially rejected. They were joined in their endeavor by Robert Simpson, Keith MacLellan and Audrey Aikman, and together their initial fifteen issues consisted of 8-10 mimeographed pages circulated to a core group of about 75. Simpson and MacLellan were replaced, in 1943, by Irving Layton and Louis Dudek and Sutherland acquired a printing press, which allowed the magazine to grow and eventually turn into a book publisher with the publication of Layton's first book, Here and Now (1945). Ironically, after much rivalry (and 33 issues of their periodical), First Statement merged with Preview to form Northern Review in 1945, with Sutherland as managing editor. It was still active in 1952 when Contact Press was founded. Between August 1942 and March 1943 (according to Dudek) [A Letter re 'First Statement', Open Letter Series 4, #8/9, Spring/Summer 1981] John Sutherland's First Statement was published twice monthly (#s 1 thru 15). In an editorial from Vol. 2, No. 8 (Aug. 1944[??]), 'Literature and Society' Sutherland best described his conservative view of literature: 'The final criterion of judgment is still the standard of art itself - good taste, which derives its authority from a long tradition, and from a sense of what is significant and close to human nature.' 1945     Here and Now, Irving Layton 1945     A Tent for April, Patrick Anderson 1945     Green World, Miriam Waddington 1946     When We Are Young, Raymond Souster 1947     Other Canadians An Anthology of the New Poetry in Canada 1940-1946,                edited by John Sutherland 1948     Now Is The Place, Irving Layton 1951     Footnote to the Lord's Prayer and Other Poems, Kay Smith 1951     Counterpoint to Sleep, Anne Wilkinson