Despite her trailblazing efforts to represent the work of Canadian writers to publishers in North America and abroad, Doris Hedges (1896-1972), the Montreal author who started Canada's first literary agency in 1946, is routinely excluded from Canadian literary histories. In Who Was Doris Hedges? Robert Lecker provides a detailed account of her remarkable career. Hedges published several novels, short stories, and books of poetry, moved in Montreal literary circles, did a stint as a radio broadcaster, and provided reports to the Wartime Information Board during the Second World War, possibly as an American spy. She lived a privileged life in the Golden Square Mile district of downtown Montreal with her husband, Geoffrey Hedges, a member of the Benson and Hedges tobacco empire. The more one uncovers about Hedges's life, the more one discovers a courageous figure who was exploring many of the conflicted issues of her day: the rise of juvenile delinquency, the suppression of female sexuality, the place of women in business and finance, and the difficulties confronting the publishing industry in the years leading up to and following the war. Mixing lively biographical commentary with literary analysis, Who Was Doris Hedges? is a vivid account of a writer's life and concerns during a period when Canada's literature was coming of age.

Robert Lecker is Greenshields Professor of English at McGill University. He is the editor of several anthologies, most recently Open Country: Canadian Literature in English, and the author of numerous books and articles, including On the Line, Robert Kroetsch, Another I, Making It Real, Dr. Delicious, The Cadence of Civil Elegies, and Keepers of the Code.

Robert Lecker's profile page

"Who Was Doris Hedges? takes a fresh approach to the literary, cultural, political debates and conditions of the mid-twentieth century in Canada, from the perspective of a figure who has barely been preserved in the literary archive. Hedges is worth preserving and thinking about because her career charts the narrative of a woman striving to establish herself within the English-Canadian literary culture and marketplace." Lorraine York, McMaster University, and author of Reluctant Celebrity: Affect and Privilege in Contemporary Stardom

"Lecker's deep knowledge of the history of Canada's publishing industry and his keen curiosity allows him a fascinating glimpse into a bygone era of Canadian writing and of Anglo Montreal life. This thoroughly researched and well-written book includes a wealth of information about the economic conditions under which writers, agents, and publishers labored in at the time." Patrick Coleman, University of California, Los Angeles, American Review of Canadian Studies

"Although the private woman continues to evade the scholar’s suspicious gaze, Lecker's reconstruction of her public record is an important reminder of the variety of figures who contributed to the literary landscape in Canada in the mid-century. While Hedges's presence in literary histories may have been erased because her agency failed and her own literary works did not fit within the modernist movements that have been favored by critics, her reappearance on these pages is a welcome contribution to the on-going re-evaluation of early and mid-twentieth century Canadian literary history." Kait Pinder, Acadia University, American Review of Canadian Studies

“Who Was Doris Hedges? tells us much about mid-century Canada: its cultural scene; its political and social atmosphere; its economic development. [Lecker] writes in his final chapter, "I have pursued her elusive story ... with a passion I cannot explain. Who was this enigmatic woman?" Intellectual passion is certainly evident in this book, along with skill, insight, and determination.” Times Literary Supplement

"Lecker is a lively and engaging narrator. Some of the most enjoyable moments in the book are the ones in which he narrates his own experience of researching (including the moving Coda in which he visits her grave). He balances his own speculations, close readings, and contextual asides with a significant emphasis on Hedges' own voice (in the book and also on the associated website that includes a recording of Hedges speaking on the radio and in which her particular cultural position is audible in the registers of her voice)." Claire Battershill, University of Toronto, American Review of Canadian Studies