[The following is the foreword to an e-book version of George Woodcock's collected editorials for Canadian Literature.]

George the Great

by Alan Twigg

For decades it was far easier for people to suggest George Woodcock wrote too much rather than to read everything he wrote.

Pierre Berton acknowledged as much when he came to Vancouver to participate in festivities to honour George in 1994.

Not a lot has changed since George's death. He remains a titanic asterisk in the realm of Canadian literature. Sure he was born in Winnipeg, sure he co-founded Canadian Literature, sure he lived most of his life in Canada, but wasn't he really, at heart, a transplanted Brit?

Sure he wrote and edited 150 books, sure he co-founded two ongoing charities that have benefited millions of people, sure he wrote the world's fundamental text on the philosophy of anarchism but, hey, can anyone seriously suggest someone from Vancouver could possibly be more accomplished than Northrop Frye or Marshall Mcluhan or Harold Innes or George Grant?

So it is I wish to begin this collection with a trumpet blast of didacticism to vanquish any and all negativity: George Woodcock was great. He remains great. And his greatness is unparalleled.

I hope the appearance of this posthumous volume can mark the onset of an endless period whereby we can enjoy and celebrate the artfulness and hard-won integrity of Canada's most remarkable man of letters.

*

Envy, they say, is one of the seven deadly sins. There has been no shortage of sinners when it comes to considering George.

First and foremost, there was that prodigious output. The joke was that George had succeeded in cloning himself and there must be several George Woodcocks clacking away on Underwood typewriters in the little house on McCleery Street, the house with the cherry tree in the backyard.

No, he just worked harder than everyone else.

When bookseller and anarchist Don Stewart assembled a public display of George's approximately 150-plus titles at the Robson Square law courts in 1994, in keeping with civic festivities to mark George Woodcock Day, it was akin to visiting Hay-On-Wie in Wales and seeing all those bookstores. THIS was the biggest array possible.

In accordance with George's 82nd birthday, the tenth annual B.C. Book Prizes gala summoned likely the largest gathering of Canadian writers in history, more than 600, but it went almost unreported in the national press. Toronto is Moscow; Vancouver is Vladivostock.

Our George was a committed Vladivostockian. He operated from the edge. He never courted the centre of power. Therefore the depth of his contributions-not just the breadth-has never been adequately gauged and championed outside of British Columbia by more than a few dozen people such as his biographer George Fetherling, former pupil Margaret Atwood and long-time cohort Bill New.

Others have envied George Woodcock's stalwart independence, his omnivorous intelligence, his close connection to Orwell, his consistent idealism (adherence to anarchism, foreign aid initiatives) and his unparalleled ability to function so well in so many genres (except fiction).

And, let's face it, there was also something intimidating about his egoistic claim that he was capable of writing a book on any subject. It sounds like something Samuel Johnson might have said; not something seriously suggested in the 20th century.

*

I envy that mellifluous style. Reading George's editorial contributions to Canadian Literature, I am struck by some of his sentences so obviously forged prior to the incursion of the computer. I respect his range. And I admire his valour.

I also appreciate his skill as a polemicist, invariably arguing on behalf of the underdog, the minority. Whenever I see someone on the street, outside a building, banished to the cold, smoking, I always think fondly of George defending the rights of persecuted smokers.

Most of all, I am inspired by his elegant egalitarianism, evident from his opening statement: "Canadian Literature wishes to establish no clan, little or large. It will not adapt a narrowly academic approach, nor will it restrict its pages to any school of criticism or any class of writers.";

His words could aptly serve as my credo for B.C. BookWorld. In 1987, George instinctively understood the concept of a non-elitist, educational newspaper about books by or about British Columbians-he considered himself a British Columbian first and a Canadian second-and so he happily consented to serve as a founding board member and poetry columnist.

This was before emails. If George wrote, you knew in one second that the envelope had to be from him. How I loved to receive those distinctively typed letters and reviews, even though we lived only five-minutes-drive apart. George wrote his poetry columns hastily but reliably; I rejigged every one of them; he never objected or mentioned it. He was not a fastidious 'artiste.' It was all about making progress.

Not long before he died, I made a little documentary about George for CBC. There is a still photo of us that I like. I'm escorting him on my sidewalk after interviewing him. He is a bit fragile. I am holding him up. This image is poignant to me because I am fully aware that George Woodcock held us up first. He uplifted us. He helped convince us that Canadian literature could exist.

This volume uplifts George Woodcock. Now it's our turn to pay him back, with respect, and with attention to the many fine things he had to say.

[George Woodcock bequeathed Alan Twigg his signed first edition of Animal Farm; Ingeborg Woodcock bequeathed him her Toyota Tercel, which he is still driving. He has written a book that contains some intimate recollections of the couple, Tibetans In Exile: The Dalai Lama & The Woodcocks (Ronsdale Press 2009), as well as fifteen other books.]