Search: pre-1840

One of Canada’s most important early newspapers, launched by its first publishing dynasty, the bilingual Quebec Gazette/La Gazette de Québec announced its impending establishment with a prospectus dated 1763, in which citizens of Quebec City were promised a publication that would become a “benefit” to their community. Preserved in the collections of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at University of Toronto, the prospectus and the newspaper are valued today as one of the treasures of Canadian cultural history.

A distinctive feature of early printing in Canada is the central role of newspapers. Often the first production at a new press, the modest four-page weekly sustained not just the community but the printer himself. This small book of receipts issued from 1793 to 1798 by John Neilson, heir to the Quebec Gazette/La Gazette de Québec, records payments to printers, newspaper carriers, a translator, an illustrator, and other members of the Quebec trade.