PHOTO: Nicolas Morin

Europe in the 1950s allowed low-budget living, "and nobody had much money," Weintraub points out. "Also, Canada then was an uptight, almost puritanical place to be, and Paris or Spain had a great feeling of freedom, as well as the literary tradition left behind by the previous generation of Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. It seemed to be a good place to write, have some fun, and drink a lot of booze very cheaply."

But even the inexpensive Europlan posed challenges, both fiscal and corporeal. As Gallant wrote in 1950, "All our problems seem to be very basic in [Paris] -- how to keep warm, where to get the most to eat for the least money, and how to get rid of a cold.... I can now understand why the French never sleep alone. They aren't any sexier than any other race, but it's the only way of keeping warm."

And early letters from Richler -- who resisted the typewriter's shift key -- were sprinkled with pleas for loans. An August 1951 letter opens, "Dear Bill: You don't really deserve a long letter. after all i'm still starving and writing on the cote while you are able to drop into ben's for a sandwich every night," and ends, "p.s. can you lend me $25?"

For Moore, responsibilities binding him to Montreal occasionally prompted epistolary flights of envy, as in his March 31, 1956, letter to a wandering Weintraub: "Dear Baedeker: Please do not, repeat NOT, continue this insidious listing of pleasure trips. Let me explain: I have a wife, a two-year-old boy, and a house." He also had published, in 1955, his first "serious" novel, the much-lauded Judith Hearne.

Mordecai Richler (centre) joins Weintraub and his wife, Magda, on the occasion of their wedding in 1967. 74-year-old prospector Albert Faille, cameraman Don Wilder, and William Weintraub in the Northwest Territories for the filming of his NFB documentary, Nahanni.

And, of course, there are the literary (and related) endeavours. Says Murray, "That's what's so endearing about the correspondence -- this unvarnished view of life, the raw ambition of four talented people who want to make it in the world of literature -- and the kind of signal moments that you can see in the letters." Such as Gallant's lament at the New Yorker's "heartbreaking" response that a story she had sent them was thematically too similar to others they had run. "Fine words butter no croissants," she sighs, little knowing that later years would see her become the New Yorker's preferred stylist. Or Richler's 1952 letter, beginning "christ, it's hot! but now that i'm sober i must answer your letter. i've been fornicating somewhat earnestly since i finished my book, abt a wk ago. Kina and others have been around to lend a helping hand.... i'm sending the lousy book off today. (and really that's just the way i feel abt it right now!)" The "lousy book" was his first novel, The Acrobats -- and he maintained his faith in its lousiness, never allowing it to be republished.

While the letters thoroughly engage the twenty-first-century voyeur, Weintraub insists they were not written with any thought of publication: "I kept them because I have a compulsion to keep things, and also with the belief that in later years I could read them through and get an idea of what we were doing. If they were witty, it's because we kept wanting to amuse each other. When you sat down to write a letter, it wasn't just to send a telegram, it was to get a laugh or make the other guy wince a little bit."

As Gallant forged her art in the short story and Moore and Richler gained reputations as novelists, Weintraub veered toward documentary film. "I did a story in 1954 for Weekend magazine on the National Film Board and was so captivated that I asked to freelance for them."

He worked with the NFB as a writer, producer and, occasionally, a director, on freelance contracts and from 1966 to 1986 as a full-time employee. Among the 150-plus films bearing his name are classics such as Between Two Wars, a 1960 series of three half-hour films about Canada between 1918 and 1939. Its format -- a collage of newsreels, with a narrative both witty and perceptive -- was unique. "At the time you just didn't see things like that, and those film clips were all hard to find, so that gave me some satisfaction." Nahanni, too, was "quite an adventure." The 1962 documentary of 74-year-old prospector Albert Faille, who each spring journeyed alone 400 miles up the Nahanni river in search of a lost gold mine, and each year was thwarted, won numerous awards. Weintraub wrote the commentary, researching the story while riding downstream with Faille after the prospector had been defeated yet again on his quest. Nahanni made Faille a folk celebrity, and prompted hardy outdoorsfolk -- including Pierre Trudeau -- to explore the river; the remote region was eventually declared a national park.