In Ballast to the White Sea (Canadian Literature Collection)

In Ballast to the White Sea is Malcolm Lowry s most ambitious work of the mid-1930s. Inspired by his life experience, the novel recounts the story of a Cambridge undergraduate who aspires to be a writer but has come to believe that both his book and, in a sense, his life have already been written. After a fire broke out in Lowry s squatter s shack, all that remained of In Ballast to the White Sea were a few sheets of paper. Only decades after Lowry s death did it become known that his first wife, Jan Gabrial, still had a typescript. This scholarly edition presents, for the first time, the once-lost novel. Patrick McCarthy s critical introduction offers insight into Lowry s sense of himself while Chris Ackerley s extensive annotations provide important information about Lowry s life and art in an edition that will captivate readers and scholars alike.