Graphic Publishers Limited

Graphic Publishers Limited

Graphic Publishers Limited (1925-32), also referred to as Graphic Press, was established by Henry C. Miller, a printer in Ottawa, who was determined to create a Canadian publishing house with an exclusive commitment to Canadian authors and "Well-Made Canadian Literature." The press had a tangled corporate history, partly because of the great financial difficulties it experienced from undercapitalization and also because of the Depression, which overtook the latter period of its history. However, it managed to publish some 71 titles under its imprint, in addition to an associated vanity list called RU-MI-LOU publications. Although there does not appear to have been a consistent editorial policy, Graphic produced fiction and poetry as well as some history and criticism. Frederick Philip GROVE, who served briefly as its editor from late 1929 to early 1931, was one of a number of well-known Canadian literary personalities connected with Graphic. Others included Lawrence J. BURPEE, William Arthur DEACON, Raymond KNISTER, who won the First Prize Award in the Graphic Novel Contest with his manuscript of My Star Predominant (later published by Ryerson), and Madge MacBeth, Graphic's most prominent author, who helped to launch the press by providing it with its first book and who wrote under her own name and the pseudonyms of Gilbert Knox and W.S. Dill. Alan B. Beddoe, an Ottawa artist, did much of the designing for Graphic and created its distinctive thunderbird logo which appears on the title pages and the spines of Graphic books. Graphic published both in a hardcover and a paperback format.