J.-P. Frénais’s Sabotage of Frances Brooke’s Colonial Agenda in The History of Emily Montague: The “Province of Quebec” Viewed from Paris

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
J.-P. Frénais’s Sabotage of Frances Brooke’s Colonial Agenda in The History of Emily Montague: The “Province of Quebec” Viewed from Paris
Abstract
The author argues that critics and historians who have used J.-P. Frénais’s 1770 translation of Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague (1769) have not recognized how much he changed Brooke’s agenda for transforming French Canadians into loyal, English-speaking, Anglican subjects of George III. Her book, often considered the first Canadian novel, was published midway between the Royal Proclamation of 1763 that established the “Province of Quebec” and the 1774 Québec Act that formalized many of the accommodations that Governors James Murray and Guy Carleton had made in implementing the Proclamation. The author examines sensitive points where he argues that Frénais made cuts, additions, and rewrote passages to blunt Brooke’s agenda: the value of colonies, her boosterism for Canada, the loyalty of French Canadians to the new regime, political rights, and religious toleration. The author concludes that Frénais’s changes were apparently not based on any special knowledge of Canada but on tensions in France itself and censorship requirements, making them an unstudied witness to French reactions to the loss of Canada.
Publication
Québec Studies
Volume
Vol. 74
Issue
no. 1
Pages
117-137
Date
2022
Language
en
Citation
Carr, Thomas M. “J.-P. Frénais’s Sabotage of Frances Brooke’s Colonial Agenda in The History of Emily Montague: The ‘Province of Quebec’ Viewed from Paris.” Québec Studies Vol. 74, no. 1 (2022): 117–137.
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