Turvey

by Earle Birney, Al Purdy (Afterword)

Overview

Private Thomas Leadbeater Turvey is nobody’s idea of a capable recruit. Shifted from regimental pillar to post, Turvey tries and fails at every odd job in the army with a remarkable genius for mishap.

A casualty before he has a chance to see action, Turvey watches the maimed and dying return from the front; thus Earle Birney’s comic masterpiece becomes an unforgettable indictment of war.

Turvey won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 1949.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781551995021
Publisher:	McClelland & Stewart
Publication date:	12/03/2010
Series:	New Canadian Library
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	396
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

EARLE BIRNEY was born in Calgary, Alberta, in 1904. He took his B.A. (1926) in English literature from the University of British Columbia and his M.A. (1927) and Ph.D. (1936) from the University of Toronto. He complemented his distinguished teaching career with his poetry, fiction, criticism, and editorial work.

During the Second World War, Birney served in the Canadian army as a personnel selection officer in Britain and in Holland, and his wartime experiences furnished him with material for his first novel, Turvey, which won him the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. Birney’s reputation as a poet was established with his first two volumes, David and Other Poems and Now is Time, both of them winning Governor General’s Awards. As a chronicler and interpreter of Canadian life, Birney responded openly and carefully to the many developments in poetry during his life.

From 1946 until 1965, Birney was Professor of English at the University of British Columbia, where he founded Canada’s first department of creative writing.

Earle Birney died in Toronto, Ontario, in 1995.

Read an Excerpt

Turvey Is Enlisted

Number Eight was a drawing of an envelope addressed to Mr. John Brown, 114 West 78th., New York, N.Y. It had a New York postmark but no stamp. The squeaky sergeant had told them to draw in the missing part of each picture. Turvey licked his pencil point and tried to recall whether King George had a beard.

He had finished the stamp, except for one edge of perforation, when he remembered the American postmark. It ought to be George Washington.