Le livre et la politique au Bas-Canada, 1791-1849

The author provides a descriptive overview of the social, cultural and political life of Lower Canada. He also provides a history of the first libraries in the colony, the various forms of printed material available in Lower Canada, the organization of official printing and the political place of the press, and the reading habits of some members of the Legislative Assembly. He notes that in Lower Canada, political action closely followed the development of publishing, the press and the bookstore. But, he argues, it is especially through the collections of parliamentary libraries, that of the Legislative Assembly and that of the Legislative Council that he was better able to judge the roots of books in parliamentary life. By reconstructing the catalog of these libraries, he was able to identify the functional and symbolic dimensions of the book in the formation of the Quebec state.

PhD dissertation

Université Laval

Québec

1989

xii-599p.

fr