| Louis Fréchette (1839-1908) was Quebec's most important writer in the nineteenth century and the province's unofficial poet laureate. He wrote in many genres but especially poetry. His best known novel, La légende d'un peuple (1887), traces Quebec's history from Jacques Cartier to Louis Riel. His work was honoured by the Académie française and he received honorary doctorates from four Canadian universities. The Louis Fréchette Fonds, acquired from his granddaughter in 1965, contains a wealth of documents, including over 4,000 letters, handwritten and printed versions of his work, as well as a vast quantity of family papers. MG 29, D 40, vol. 5 |