English Bibliographical Resources and Canada
In 1965 Foxon left the British Museum to take up a post as professor of English at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. The Museum was not proving an encouraging environment for his work, and two Canadians, Kathleen Coburn and George Whalley, who had met him through their work on the Bollingen Coleridge edition, persuaded him to think of a move to Canada. Foxon's divorce had been finalized in 1963, and a new job in a new country had a self-evident appeal. He accepted a post in Whalley's department at Queen's, but before going to Canada he made a tour of British libraries in an attempt to draw his catalogue towards a conclusion by inspecting as many further copies as he could.
Foxon could afford his British trip only because he had become involved in a facsimile-publishing enterprise. When he returned from the States in 1961, Foxon had brought back microfilm of a large number of broadsides, and his first thought was that it would be a good idea to publish them in facsimile. But attempts to get good quality photographic enlargements failed through lack of adequate equipment. Nevertheless, Foxon had become persuaded of the value of xerox reproduction during his time in America, and the arrival of the Museum's first proper machine in 1963 confirmed his view that a book could be reproduced well enough to provide publishable copy. He found that
this view was shared by his Hampstead neighbour, Peter Elstob. Elstob was a man with an unusual and varied career: novelist, balloonist, recorder of the Spanish Civil War (in which he had fought), manager of the Arts Theatre Club, and secretary of International PEN. Elstob had been in touch with Gregg International of America about photolitho publishing, and, with Foxon's advice, the project emerged of publishing
English Bibliographical Resources. There were three series: 1. Periodical lists of new publications; 2. Catalogues of books in circulation; 3. Printers' manuals. Foxon had discovered many of the facts about the editing and publishing of early book lists through his work on dating for his catalogue, and he had published some of the information in an article in
The Library in 1963. These catalogues were now made available in facsimile and formed the basis of the first series. Foxon's role was that of editor; he found the materials and wrote the introductions. Gregg were responsible for production, and Elstob for sales. The series was offered for subscription, with considerable success, and Foxon's share of the subscription financed his tour of British and Irish libraries from March to August 1965. He worked through the Bodleian and Cambridge University libraries, the major Irish and Scottish libraries, and as many provincial libraries as he could, especially hoping to find locally printed materials.
Though he left for Canada with no thought of returning, Foxon's stay there was short. He relished the informality of Canada—returning to Oxford, he found it formal and stuffy by contrast—and he enjoyed both his teaching and the social life of the department at Queen's. The post in North America made him eligible to apply for a Guggenheim Fellowship, and he was successful in being given an award for 1967-68, spending the time in Oxford preparing English Verse for publication. During this period the Readership in Textual Criticism became vacant (it was perhaps the only post that would have tempted Foxon to return to Britain); he applied and was appointed.
