Novel
The Golden Dog
William Kirby · 1877
Opening lines
“'See Naples, and then die!' That was a proud saying, Count, which we used to hear as we cruised under lateen sails about the glorious bay that reflects from its waters the fires of Vesuvius.
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Quebec, autumn 1748. The intendant François Bigot and his Grande Compagnie are plundering the colony, and Bigot keeps shut away at the château de Beaumanoir, in the forest, a young Acadian woman to whom he had promised marriage. In town, the merchant Philibert, champion of the colonists against the monopolies, has had a golden dog gnawing a bone carved on his house, beneath an inscription that announces his revenge. His son Pierre loves Amélie de Repentigny; Amélie's brother, Le Gardeur, an officer drawn to the intendant's table and gaming, has fallen for Angélique des Meloises, whose ambition turns her towards Bigot.
Context
The author set to work on it after a stay in Quebec in 1865, and wrote the last chapter in 1872, drawing on the antiquarian Le Moine's writings on the legend of the golden dog, the Bigot château and La Corriveau. The book appeared in February 1877 from Lovell, Adam, Wesson, in New York and Montreal, without the rights having been registered, and the author earned no royalties from it. Pamphile Le May's French translation appeared as a serial in 1884 and 1885, then in book form. An abridged version, published in 1969, long remained the only one available in paperback.
Who it is for
A long novel, peopled with historical figures of the French regime; French names and customs abound in an English text, and Le May's translation can also be read in paperback.
Prizes and reception
An immediate critical and popular success, a best-seller in the United States as in English Canada; the inscription it made famous can still be read on rue Buade, in Quebec City.
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