The Manor House of De Villarai

Rosanna Mullins Leprohon’s The Manor House of De Villerai, A Tale of Canada Under the French Dominion is a literary milestone—it is the first Canadian historical novel, in English or French, to rewrite the conquest of the French Canadians from the perspective of history’s vanquished.

Its revisionary account of the fall of New France is framed around a love triangle between the heroine, Blanche De Villerai, her childhood betrothed, Gustave de Montarville, and Blanche’s servant, Rose Lauzon.

Popular in its original serial publication and once widely reprinted in French translation, but now out of print, The Manor House of De Villerai is a long-overlooked Canadian classic. In addition to the text originally serialized in the Family Herald magazine, this Broadview Edition includes extensive documents on the novel’s reception, Leprohon’s historical sources and literary precedents, and maps and art from the period.