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Fonds RBSC-ARC-1403 - Eric Nicol fonds
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Title and statement of responsibility area

Title proper

Eric Nicol fonds

General material designation

  • Textual record

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Level of description

Fonds

Repository

Reference code

CA UBCSP RBSC-ARC-1403

Edition area

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Statement of scale (cartographic)

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Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)

Dates of creation area

Date(s)

  • 1944-2005 (Creation)
    Creator
    Nicol, Eric Patrick

Physical description area

Physical description

7.84 m of textual records
140 photographs
1 audio cassette

Publisher's series area

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Archival description area

Name of creator

Nicol, Eric Patrick (1919-)

Biographical history

Eric Patrick Nicol was born on December 28, 1919 in Kingston, Ontario of English parents. He moved at an early age to Vancouver and attended the University of British Columbia, where he started his writing career as a contributor to the student newspaper, The Ubyssey, with a humour column written under the pseudonym Jabez. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honours in French in 1941. From 1942 to 1945 he served with the ground crew of the Royal Canadian Air Force, contributing to service publications such as Wings and Torch. He returned to UBC after the war as an instructor in English and obtained a Master of Arts degree in French in 1948. After spending one year at the Sorbonne, he moved to London to write radio and television comedies for the British Broadcasting Corporation. He also wrote occasional columns for the The Vancouver Province. In 1948 his first book, Sense and Nonsense was published. He returned to Vancouver to become a columnist for The Province and to freelance in radio and television. His career covers a wide range of writings such as stage plays, radio and television plays, revues, radio and television variety shows, humour books, magazine articles, and historical books. He received the Leacock medal for humour three times for The Roving I, Shall We Join the Ladies, and Girdle Me a Globe. To many people, he is best known as a columnist for The Vancouver Province, 1951-1985. His columns included comments on many contentious issues such as capital punishment and fluoridation.

Custodial history

Scope and content

The fonds consists of Eric Nicol's business correspondence, drafts (handwritten notebooks and typescripts) for various writings, finished scripts for plays and shows, drafts and newspaper clippings of his columns, reference materials, reviews of his work, printed materials featuring his articles, photographs of Eric Nicol, and subject files. The fonds also contains a file of his correspondence with The Vancouver Sun, which was kept by the Sun and later given to Nicol. His writings are categorized into radio scripts, television scripts, stage scripts, books, articles, short stories and other writings. Drafts and related materials of each category comprise a series.

A second accession was added in 2007, and described in 2008 which consists mainly of manuscripts for books, short stories, articles, stage plays and radio plays which were written by Nicol but never published. It also includes some early drafts of books that were eventually published. The accession also includes Nicol's business correspondence from 1971 to 1978.

Notes area

Physical condition

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Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication

Finding aids

Inventory available.
Online Finding Aid

Associated / related material

Accruals

Other notes

  • Alpha-numeric designations: BCAUL control number: UBCSP-695

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Control area

Description record identifier

Institution identifier

University of British Columbia Rare Books and Special Collections

Rules or conventions

Rule for Archival Description

Status

Revised

Level of detail

Partial

Dates of creation, revision and deletion

Revised July 2, 2010.
Revised by BCANS Coordinator, July 21, 2010.

Language of description

  • English

Script of description

Sources

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