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Hitherto, however, those who wished to be informed on the literary history of Canada and the status of Canadian Literature, had to depend on Anthologies, summary annalistic Sketches, and biographical Compendia. The earlier anthologies comprise verse either chronologically or topically arranged, but some of them contain, in an Appendix, biographical notes on the authors represented in the volumes. The later anthologies, as, for instance, Garvin’s Canadian Poets, contain, besides the ‘selections,’ biographical and critical introductions. These anthologies, though comprehensive, informing and delightful ‘source-books,’ do not, by themselves, disclose the development of Canadian Literature. The annalistic sketches or compendia, on the other hand, are too sketchy, too annalistic. They do not tell the story of the development of Canadian Literature with any attempt at perspective or at disclosing its social and spiritual origins.

There was, therefore, pressing need for a comprehensive Synoptic History of Canadian Literature. Such a work would furnish the teacher, the student, and the general reader with a ‘method’ of reading Canadian Literature with philosophical insight or with historical and critical perspective. It would distinguish certain ‘epochs’ and ‘movements’ in the literary history of Canada, and make clear how Canadian poets and prose writers are related to one another and have influenced one another, and how, gradually, they expressed in literature the slowly emerging consciousness of a national spirit and a national destiny in the Dominion.