Lasting Impressions: A Short History of English Publishing in Quebec

In 1751 Bartholomew Green set up Canada’s first printing press in Halifax. It wasn’t until after the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which brought the Seven Years War to an end and saw control of New France pass officially from France to Great Britain, that a printer came to Quebec. William Brown and his partner Thomas Gilmore arrived in Quebec City from Philadelphia in 1764. And so began a long tradition of publishing in Quebec – in both English and French. On June 21, 1764, Brown and Gilmore published the first issue of the bilingual Quebec Gazette/ La Gazette de Quebec, the first Quebec newspaper. With illustrations and text, Lasting Impressions chronicles the history of publishing and printing (since “no publisher could make ends meet by publishing only books”- at least until the mid-nineteenth century). Spanning 230 years from Brown and Gilmore to May Cutler’s Tundra Books, Bruce Whitman captures the history and excitement of English publishing in Quebec.