Peel's Bibliography of the Canadian Prairies to 1953

The previous edition of Bruce Peel's Bibliography was hailed by authorities as the single, finest introduction to the literature of the Canadian Prairies ever compiled, and one of the pioneering monuments of Canadian bibliographic scholarship. It now appears in a greatly expanded and revised edition. For years prior to his death in 1998, Peel laboured, with the assistance of volunteers, to collect additional material. Although he had planned to issue only a separate supplement to the second edition, additional entries multiplied until clearly an entirely new edition was warranted. Sixty-five percent larger than its predecessor, this edition features almost 2000 new entries bringing the total to more than 7429. All entries are integrated into one continuously numbered sequence, and entry numbers are cross-referenced and indexed to the previous editions. As well, the annotations, source bibliography, author and title indexes, and biographical notes have been expanded and revised.

As F. Hedley Auld said in his foreword to the original 1953 edition, Peel's Bibliography 'pictures kaleidoscopically the occupation and development of a region of great agricultural importance which became in the course of a few decades the new home of a multitude, many of whom had previously been landless people.' Ingles and Distad's third edition proves even more invaluable to students and academics interested in the history of the prairie provinces, prairie writers, or even the pattern of immigration within Canada itself.

Ernest B. Ingles is the Associate Vice-President (Learning Services) and Chief Librarian at the University of Alberta and editor of the Bibliography of Canadian Bibliographies. N. Merrill Distad is the Associate Director of Libraries (Bibliographic Services) at the University of Alberta.