Desmond Pacey
William Cyril Desmond Pacey (1917-1975) was a prominent New Zealand-born Canadian literary scholar, critic, and writer. He spent his early years in New Zealand and England, before moving to Canada in 1931, where he excelled academically and earned a B.A. from the University of Toronto. Pacey married Mary E. Carson in 1939 and had seven children. His academic career began at Brandon College and later flourished at the University of New Brunswick, where he held several leadership roles, including head of the English department and dean of graduate studies.
Pacey was a prolific writer, contributing to various journals and establishing himself as a significant literary historian and critic in Canada. His notable works include "Creative Writing in Canada" and "Essays in Canadian Criticism." In addition to scholarly texts, he also authored children's poetry and edited numerous anthologies. His contributions to literature were recognized with his election as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the receipt of the Lorne Pierce Medal. After his passing, a scholarship was established in his honor, reflecting his lasting impact on Canadian literature and academia.
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Subject Terms
Desmond Pacey
Writer
- Born: May 1, 1917
- Birthplace: Dundedin, New Zealand
- Died: July 4, 1975
- Place of death: Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
Biography
William Cyril Desmond Pacey was born on May 1, 1917, in Dunedin, New Zealand, the son of William and Mary Pacey. He never knew his father, who was sent to France in 1916 with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and was killed in action on March 27, 1918. Pacey and his mother moved to England in 1924, where he attended Magnus Grammar School in Newark. In 1931, mother and son moved to Canada, where his mother remarried and the family lived on a farm in Glanford Station, Ontario.
An excellent student, Pacey won several entrance scholarships to Victoria College at the University of Toronto, earning a B.A. with first class honors in English and philosophy in 1938. He was editor in chief of the college magazine, Acta Victoriana. In 1939, he married Mary E. Carson, and the couple had seven children. Pacey received a Massey Traveling Fellowship and completed his doctorate degree at Cambridge University in1941.
In 1941, Pacey began teaching English at Brandon College, University of Manitoba. In 1944, he moved to the University of New Brunswick, where he taught until his death, serving as head of the English department until 1969, dean of graduate studies from 1960 to 1970, and academic vice president in the early 1970’s.
Pacey began writing in the 1930’s and contributed short stories, articles, reviews, poems, and encyclopedia entries to numerous journals and publications. His fictional work, about thirty short stories, appeared in such periodicals as Farmer’s Magazine, Queen’s Quarterly, Herald and Weekly Star, Canadian Forum, Northern Review, Dalhousie Review, Atlantic Advocate, and in several European publications.
In the 1940’s, Pacey began establishing himself as one of Canada’s leading literary historians and critics with the release of a number of scholarly works, including Creative Writing in Canada: A Short History of English-Canadian Literature, Ten Canadian Poets: A Group of Biographical and Critical Essays, and Essays in Canadian Criticism: 1938-1968. His nonscholarly works include three illustrated books of children’s poetry and two collections of short stories. Pacey was an editor or coeditor of numerous books, most notably A Book of Canadian Stories, New Voices: Canadian University Writing of 1956, Literary History of Canada, and Our Literary Heritage: An Anthology of Literature in English. From 1950 to 1966, he was fiction editor of Fiddlehead, a literary journal.
For his contributions to Canadian literature, Pacey was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1955, and in 1972 he received the society’s Lorne Pierce Medal. Mount Allison University and the University of New Brunswick conferred honorary degrees on Pacey in 1973. After his death at Fredericton, New Brunswick, on July 4, 1975, a French scholarship was established in his name.