Published in four editions between 1907 and 1916, this book is a passionate statement on behalf of the Protestant farmers of Quebec — particularly those of the Eastern Townships — and remains to this day one of the most controversial politico-religious tracts ever circulated in Canada. Sellar opposed the gradual taking over of the Townships by Roman Catholic farmers and the subsequent ’English exodus.’To its detractors The Tragedy of Quebec represented the quintessence of Anglo-Saxon francophobia and Protestant bigotry. Its adherents saw it as a timely warning of the threat to Canada’s British integrity inherent in the power of the French-Catholic ecclesiastical establishment of Quebec. The Toronto Evening Telegram remarked: ’Mr Sellar has written a book that should be as deadly an enemy to ecclesiastical privilege in Canada as "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" was to slavery in the United States, ’ while the Montreal journal Canada dismissed Sellar’s anti-Catholic polemic as ’les "novissima verba" d’un homme fatigu de lutter, de penser, et d’esprer.’ But the Montreal Herald cautioned, as controversy over the book mounted, that ’possibly it should be read only by those who have the balanced judgement necessary to resist being carried away, whether into enthusiastic acceptance or into violent hostility, by the picture presented.’ That The Tragedy of Quebec should be read answer is fitting, for there is probably no better guide to the principles, prejudices, and passions that animated British-Protestant Canada in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Called ’the handbook of civil rights for Canadians, ’ its bigotry was that of the age, and requires understanding. This book gives the reader the necessary understanding and places in historical perspective the legacy of a conflict which still troubles Canada today.
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