Search

In the introduction to this special issue of the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada, Karol'Ann Boivin and Mylène Fréchette underscore the limited visibility of book supply chain intermediaries in the public sphere. As these intermediaries become more and more interesting to researchers, we must take their relative erasure from the public imagination into account. Who are these unsung heroes? What is the scope of their impact on the book as an object, and how do their actions fit in with those of other intermediaries within the book supply chain? These are the questions that guided this special issue, which focuses on the nature of collective action in the world of literature. In closing, they introduce the three articles featured in the special edition, penned by Mylène Fréchette herself, Philippe Rioux, and Maxime Bolduc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his literary response to the articles recently featured in the special issue of the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada, "OEuvrer ensemble. Les rouages collectifs dans la chaîne du livre,"? Nicholas Giguère addresses the myth of the lone genius bearing sole responsibility for the production of their literary works" a myth that has persisted but is now considered untenable among book historians. On the contrary, Giguère suggests that the "I"? always writes in collaboration with other literary agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In post-war Quebec, the fascicle format experienced a meteoric rise in popularity. In order to draw all the heuristic potential from an analysis of this format, our article is based on a detailed study of the editorial peritext of some forty fascicles of sentimental novels published between 1945 and 1963 by the Éditions Police-Journal. On the one hand, these dime novels are comparable to "small books"--each issue generally contains a single story spanning 32 pages. The publisher's branding, ostensibly serves as a guarantee of its quality. On the other hand, these objects with their soft and colourful covers are in constant dialogue with the magazine, often emulating its fundamental mechanisms. Through a detailed analysis of these little-explored romance novels, we hope to inspire a reflection on the popular print formats of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From Renaissance collections to nineteenth-century print exhibitions, the "museumification" of literature calls for a redefinition of the traditional relationship between literature and books. Based on a sample of literary exhibitions in museums, this article examines the issues they bring to the fore on a period that extends from the end of the nineteenth century to today. It adopts a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the theoretical and practical underpinnings of the concomitant museumification of literature and books by observing the tensions that it creates on an institutional scale, both between libraries and museums and within certain literary paradigms (genres, "classics," etc.). This article thus explores the motivations that might explain the seemingly central place of the book in the literary exhibition as opposed to a multitude of objects a priori more spectacular. In this sense, the hyper-materiality of literature and its dissociation from the book (on which the very existence of the literary museum is paradoxically based) is the focus of detailed analysis here. The literary exhibition relies on the contextualization of the literary text and, especially in a time of emphasis on digital text, on its place in the history of the book. Museumification today tends to attribute additional value to literature that is on other platforms than paper as a way of adding a spectacular aspect to the exhibition. In this perspective, the contemporary "dematerialization" of the book poses an ultimate question - a question concerning digital literary collections and the use of digital platforms in the added value of literature. By facilitating and broadening the access to heritage, virtual exhibits (one example of the digital platform) offer the double advantage of protecting fragile collections and making their value more durable. They run the risk, however, of neutralizing the "aura" of paper books and the quest for tangible objects, which constitute the main reason for our society's attachment to paper books and the foundation of museums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses papers presented at a conference series titled "Emerging Trends in Book History and Print Culture," hosted by students from the Groupe de recherches et d'études sur le livre au Québec (GRÉLQ) at the University of Sherbrooke and from the collaborative program in Book History and Print Culture (BHPC) at the University of Toronto. Topics of papers included the Québec gay militant periodical press and the representation of literature in museums.

The new Quebec publishers that emerged in the early 2000s present themselves in their discourse as having close ties with their authors, but also with other actors in the book chain, such as booksellers and printers. Without reducing this element to simple positioning, I would argue that the promotion of this outreach work, presented in the form of privileged interpersonal relationships, is a nodal point in the ethos of new publishers, who use it to set themselves apart from their elders, such as Boréal and Leméac. I will show how this “publication of proximityâ€? can be seen in the discourse of “emergingâ€? authors and publishers, particularly at Le Quartanier, Alto and Marchand de feuilles. Collaboration and proximity are at the foundation of the ethos of these publishing houses, these values being part of their collective image. Their camaraderie is embodied, for example, in pictures that show authors and their publishers participating in events or activitiesâ€"whether literary or not. Beyond the expected couple of the publisher and the author, we also highlight the proximity of many people involved in the book chain: booksellers, graphic designers, distributors, etc. In short, new publishers seem to be polishing their image by relying on multiple close collaborations as well as on editorial structures on a human scale, which seems central to the positioning of emerging publishers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Les Correspondances d'Eastman, a literary festival held in the Estrie region of Quebec, offers a varied program that includes public readings, author interviews, literary performances, and writing workshops. The festival specifically aims to offer visitors the opportunity to write letters in writing gardens laid out by the citizens of Eastman village. On the one hand, by encouraging all visitors to write, the festival encourages the democratization of literature and creative writing. On the other hand, the festival supports the professionalization of recognized writers by compensating them for their participation in activities and offering them a platform to promote their works and increase their visibility. Based on the tensions underlying these two aspects of the festival, this article aims to explore the roles festivalgoers play in Les Correspondances d'Eastman and to compare them with those of professional writers. The analysis will focus primarily on the interactions between visitors and professional writers, which constantly oscillate between proximity, intimacy, and distance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since their first appearance in the 1930s, American comic books have been presented as collective works dependent on collaboration between a variable number of actors, namely writers, illustrators, inkers, colorists, letterers, and publishers. In the fast-moving world of serial comic book publishing (new works are generally released monthly), this teamwork-based approach is necessary for ensuring continuous productivity. This work method, having proven effective, was also adopted by the majority of Quebec comic book publishers from the early 1980s onward. However, in these cases, collaboration sometimes moves beyond the sharing of work between creators employed by the same publisher. In fact, correspondence between publishers and the peritexts of their published works reveal that a spirit of collegial solidarity unites rival producers, who exchange both ideas and advice about their respective series, and in doing so, contribute indirectly to the content of comic books published by their competitors. Nevertheless, the reasons giving rise to this mutual aid between publishers may be worth questioning. From a sense of friendship between colleagues to pure commercial opportunism, what issues specific to the field of comic book publishing in Quebec does this apparent sense of fraternity reveal? What are the conditions that contribute to the exchange of services between publishers, scriptwriters, and illustrators? In short, how can this sense of solidarity between competing producers evolving within the same competitive market be explained? This article will answer these questions in an effort to shed more light on the social dimension of serial comic book production in Quebec and Canada. It will reveal that collaboration among actors evolving in the québécois field of comic book publishing (and sometimes also in the Anglo-Canadian and American spheres) serves to consolidate the position independent publishers occupy in the constrained market in which they are attempting to invest themselves. The sense of fraternity that unites them is welcome and necessary in that it fosters interpersonal relationships that are more transactional than conflictual in nature, which can transform potential competitors into advertising or legitimating entities, and perhaps even into creative partners. This dynamic creates an alliance in which all parties benefit from a collaborative approach, which acts as a collective defence against the threat of market domination by comic book publishing industry giants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the first-ever study on the Quebec novel L'âne de Carpizan ou L'évêque volant and its author, Raymond Goulet (1931- 1991), a performance artist, dancer, and choreographer originally from Rivière-du-Loup. The novel was self-published by Goulet in 1957 and had fallen into obscurity until recently. In contrast with other literary works of its time, L'âne de Carpizan stands out as a brazen satirical piece that imagines homosexuality and transidentity positively and is, as far as we know, the first Canadian literary work in which the protagonist undergoes gender affirming surgery. In their study, the authors examine Goulet's life and the circumstances surrounding the publication of his first and only novel, as well as the novel's editorial history. In the first part of the article, following a synopsis of L'âne de Carpizan, they present the results of their investigation into the novel's publication, distribution, and reception. In the second part, they recount the events of Raymond Goulet's life and all-too-brief writing career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1923, Édouard Garand founded a publishing house in Montreal whose main purpose was to promote Canadian literature among the Francophone working classes across Canada. Gérard Malchelosse, member of the editorial committee, bore witness to the nationalist leanings of the press, explaining at the time that it was “a Canadian publishing house of Canadian novels, written for Canadians by Canadians and printed in Canada by Canadians. It’s a national enterprise intended to provide an injection of patriotism while helping our authors by distributing their works.” Even though these affirmations might lead one to believe that publishing house of Édouard Garand is exclusively aimed at a local audience, through studying the distribution of the collection “Le Roman canadien” we can learn more about the enterprise’s particularly far-reaching commercial distribution networks: the major cities of French and British colonies, as well as South and North America, from New York as far as to Buenos Aires. This article proposes the study of these networks in terms of their colonial, political, and commercial positionings, while also placing in context this distribution system with the export of Canadian books during the period. The analysis of the documents held in the Fonds Édouard-Garand (Université de Montréal) reveals the existence of two distinct networks. From 1926 onwards, the publishing house announces that its Canadian novels were sold in depots located in France, Great Britain, but also, more surprisingly, in Saigon, Algiers, and Cape Town. The publisher appears thus to have been making use of the commercial networks of French and British colonial depositories in order to participate in the overseas distribution, via different Francophone bookstores, of Canadian literature. Secondly, after 1944, while France was under Occupation, Montreal became the global centre of Francophone publishing, a new state of affairs that Garand took advantage of by using a variety of Canadian diplomatic and political channels in order to open new distribution networks in Latin America. His “Roman canadien” was promoted to middlemen in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, and Peru, via commercial representatives and attachés from Canada’s Department of External Affairs. However, Garand did not intend to participate in the network of North-South cultural and intellectual exchanges, studied notably by Michel Lacroix and Michel Nareau. The system set in place by the Montreal publisher was less concerned with the economy of knowledge and more concerned with turning a profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the modalities of the intersection between magazines and literature in Quebec, a meeting that must be examined through a systematic lens that takes into account the entire ensemble of forms, discourses, and practices that compose the modern media regime while at the same time addressing the historicity of literary phenomena. The article pays particular attention to the actors and practices underlying discursive economy, and focuses on La Revue moderne in the 1950s, a decade that, in magazine studies, has been rarely examined and on which this article seeks to cast an illuminating light. From three groups of texts, the article seeks to show how La Revue moderne may be understood as a crucible for literature, inscribed in middlebrow culture, in which discursive practices and a variety of poetic experimentations interact with, influence, and question one another in the characteristic polyphony of the media matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces that Canadian historian of medical print culture Jennifer J. Connor received the 2015 Marie Tremaine Medal and the Watters-Morley Prize by the Bibliographical Society of Canada for her scholarship.

This article analyzes two noteworthy examples of new theatre-related publishing practices in Quebec in the last decade: Robert Lepage, a pioneer of stage writing that makes use of sound, images and modern technology, and Wajdi Mouawad, an inheritor of Lepage's practices who embraces a more deliberate literary approach. Both offer crystallized moments of their shifting reflections as authors and men of the theatre with their respective works, Le projet Andersen and Seuls. These texts claim a unique authorial status for the authordirector, one that distances itself from traditional literature but that reclaims the book by reintroducing it into the multimedia arena of the contemporary stage. Complex, hypertextual, multimedia objects, their books extend the transcribed and reinvented show before us. Mouawad invites the reader to explore the origin of the show, following its fleeting (and fictional?) trace back through the phases of artistic genesis into the author's own psyche. Lepage indicates what happens behind the scenes and lays bare the theatrical machine. The two stage directors nevertheless seem to share an explicit or unavowed desire to find their voice as theatre authors through a polyphonic text. They solicit the help of a patient but by no means passive reader who, by reading the documents bequeathed to him, reconstructs the meaning of a stage writing that is both multifaceted and doomed to fade away. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author analyzes the periodical Le Berdache (1979- 82), the official journal of the Association pour les droits des gai(e)s du Québec (ADGQ), an organization that fought for the legal and social recognition of homosexuals. While gay journals multiplied in Quebec after the publication of Le Tiers (1971-72), none enjoyed as much success and popularity as Le Berdache. The latter became a space for reflection and a tool to claim a gay identity, both individually and collectively. The journal was heavily politicized and attracted renowned collaborators such as Jean Basile, Jeanne d'Arc Jutras, and Pierre Vallières. This article reviews the ephemeral existence of Le Berdache, Le Petit Berdache (1983-86), and the bulletin À Propos (1986-87), as well as the causes that led to their disappearance. Following a short explanation of the context that led to the foundation of Le Berdache, and by examining its in-depth articles and editorials, the author throws into relief the central role played by the journal in the evolution of the gay liberation movement in Quebec. He then demonstrates that the withdrawal of the ADGQ from the printed press can be attributed to three important factors: first, its inability to represent homosexuals in rural areas, which led to its indictment as too Montreal-centred; second, the steady decline of activism at the beginning of the 1980s and the generational gap that heralded a younger generation of gays who were less concerned with political action; finally, the internal strife among the members of Le Berdache, who were divided between the production of an activist journal and the idea of a more commercial journal, one that would advocate gay lifestyles and contain articles that appealed to a wider public. In fact, the analysis of Le Berdache is the gateway to a theoretical reflection on the nature and problematic uses of the activist press, often torn between militant content and economic imperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the presentation of the Marie-Tremaine Medal to Professor Pierre Hébert at the Bibliographic Society of Canada's annual conference at Brock University (Ontario) on May 26, 2014 and includes Hébert’s response to receiving the award. The medal recognizes the value of his research on books in Canada, particularly in the fields of publishing and censorship. It also provides an overview of his work and professional activities since the late 1980s.

The article announces that one of the goals of the Bibliographical Society of Canada is to promote the study of bibliography and the publication of works of bibliography.