The Reading Warehouse

A collection of quotations from Canada's greatest literary theorist.

There is no Canadian writer of whom we can say ... that their readers can grow up inside their work without ever being aware of a circumference. Northrop Frye came to that conclusion after a detailed study of the imaginative achievements of Canada's writers from the earliest period to 1965, when that sentence from his study first appeared in print. Over the decades since then, the statement has come to be regarded as a benchmark of individual and national literary achievement.



The Northrop Frye Quote Book is a specialized dictionary of quotations on all subjects that is based on the thoughts and writings of one person. It is the handiwork of a single contributor, albeit the cogitations of a remarkable one. It is also evidence that there is a Canadian writer of whom it may be said that we can grow up inside his work without ever being aware of a circumference.

John Robert Colombo has written, translated, edited, or compiled over two hundred books, including seven dictionaries of quotations. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto and a Fellow of the Frye Centre at Victoria University.

Jean O'Grady, a graduate of the University of Toronto, served as the associate editor of The Collected Works of Northrop Frye. She is also the author of the biography of Margaret Addison, the first dean of women at Victoria College.

Northrop Frye (1912-1991) was Canada's leading literary critic and one of the world's leading theorists of society and the imagination. Among his twenty-three books, and more than three hundred articles and reviews, are classic studies such as Fearful Symmetry, Anatomy of Criticism, The Great Code, and Words With Power.

John Robert Colombo, the author of the best-selling Colombo's Canadian Quotations and Fascinating Canada, has written, translated, or edited over two hundred books. He is the recipient of the Harbourfront Literary Prize and the Order of Canada, and is a Fellow of the Frye Centre.

Jean O'Grady served as the associate editor of The Collected Works of Northrop Frye. She also worked for nine years as a post-doctoral fellow on The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, and is the author of the biography of Margaret Addison, the first dean of women at Victoria College.