The Storied Province of Quebec Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 - Full set.

$30.00

Cat No.:   CA0031-S:

Originally published as a four volume set by the Dominion Publishing Company in 1931, a fifth volume was added in 1932. The binding and format of the fifth volume is identical to that of the previous four and no explanation is offered for the delay in its release. It is however, just like volumes 3 and 4, solely a collection of additional biographies, so the possibility exists that it contains submissions which were received too late to be included in the previous year’s issue.

The History:

According to Col. William Wood, the editor in chief of this book, This is, … the first which has ever taken the whole Province, Past and Present, as its theme. This claim is even more surprising considering the relatively recent publication date of 1931. On the other hand the magnitude of the task which William undertook with such spectacular results may well have defeated previous attempts. The History section of this book runs to almost 1300 pages of text and illustration and has been packaged as two volumes - although it reads as a single contiguous work.

I should hasten to add that William did not attempt this mammoth task on his own but called for contributions from tens of expert historians and authors, many of whose contributions can be found as chapters carrying their own by line. This has resulted in a history written by the experts in the particular subject of their speciality. In his editing William has been at pains to present the story from both the British, French and Quebecois perspective so that the reader can obtain a complete and rounded view of the events forming the Province.

* Quebecois is used here to identify someone who considers Quebec to be his home as opposed to someone living in Quebec but considered himself an immigrant or visitor from some other nation.

There might be a tendency while writing such a work to concentrate only on the overall story of the Province's development but this is certainly not the case here. In addition to the big picture history there are separate, detailed, accounts of the history of both Quebec City and of Montreal, of the Regions and of many individual subjects such as Banking, Church and State, Business, the Churches, Education, etc. The list of the individual topics covered is best explored by reviewing the Table of Contents which we have placed in a sampler and made available on our web site for your review.

The written details of the history are bought to life by many clear and detailed illustrations, nearly all taken from photographs and beautifully reproduced. If you are looking for a comprehensive history of the Province of Quebec then look no further, you have found it!

The Biographies:

The biographies comprise fully 3 of the total five volumes in this set and the complete index of biographies in volume 5 provides guided access to over 9,000 individual names - being members of more than 1,500 families. We have, however, noticed that the index is not exhaustive. It provides entries for only those having the same family name as the main subject, but not for others related to the family by marriage, and so appear in the biographies bearing their own family name. Use of the computer search facility is strongly recommended, although human reading is always also suggested as a final resort.

While the words “biographies” and “families” have been used above, to be strictly correct there are a few entries which carry the history of prominent organizations and companies. The overwhelming majority of entries are, however, of families and individuals.

In addition to the written biographical / historical details there are approximately 350 full page, high quality, portraits of the biographical subjects.

It is impossible to categorize in a few words those families whose biographies appear in this great resource. They come from many walks, professions and backgrounds. It would seem evident however that they were families proud of their position in society and of their success. We have abstracted the names from the book's composite index and listed them in a file which you may freely access from our web sites Downloads page so you can check for the presence of your ancestors. Don't forget, though, that there are many names in the text that do not appear in the index so check for pre-marriage names as well.

The history section of this book contains both a Table of Contents and an Index while the biographies section contains an index of the primary family names. Both these features of the original book make the contents accessible but our CD reproduction has made access even more convenient because it is now completely computer searchable, and even this access has been enhanced because we have enabled out FastFind technology so your searches can be completed in mere seconds.

We have provided a free downloadable names list and sampler of this book on our Quebec Downloads web page. You can also reach the names list by clicking on the following link Names Index, and the sampler using this link Sampler. You can return to this page by closing the Sampler Page when you are ready to purchase.

Review all our Free Samplers by clicking on FREE DOWNLOADS.

No. of CDs is:  1 ;   Format is:  PDF ;   Searchable?:  YES;

FastFind:  YES;  ISBN No.:   978-1-897405-05-5 ;