Response By
Vanessa Brown & Jason Dickson
James Reaney (creator and editor) Alphabet Magazine, 1968
paper Gift of Hilary Bates Neary, London, Ontario, 2003
Alphabet was a London-based experimental literary periodical created and edited by James C. Reany (1926-2008). Operating from 1960 to 1971, contributors to Alphabet included Margaret Atwood, Northrop Frye, Bill Bissett, B.P. Nichol, and George Bowering.
Response
Guided by the late publisher Winston Schell, we discovered Alphabet at the old Central Branch of the London Public Library. Compared to the Scholastic paperbacks we were used to, it was astonishing. How could something this beautiful be made in London, Ontario? This is an independent publishing masterclass! It spoke to us. It said, “make beautiful things yourself.” To us, Alphabet remains an approachable marvel, haunting the banks of the Antler River, inviting us all to admire the strange, little world of our local lives.
Vanessa Brown and Jason Dickson are co-owners of Brown & Dickson Bookstore, which opened in London in 2013. Vanessa is a local historian, and the author of The Grand Old Lady: A History of Hotel London and The Forest City Killer, among other books. Jason has been an antiquarian bookseller for 20 years. His column “The Antiquarium” appears regularly in the magazine CNQ. He is also the author of Michael Bidner: Raw.