Georges Boucher de Boucherville
Georges Boucher de Boucherville was a notable Canadian writer and lawyer known for his contributions to literature and public service in the 19th century. He is best remembered for his two novels, particularly "Une de perdue, deux de trouvées," which is recognized as one of the earliest Canadian adventure novels, first serialized between 1849 and 1851 and later published in book form in 1874. Boucher de Boucherville had a diverse career that included early involvement in revolutionary politics, which led to a brief exile in the United States after he was charged with high treason. After returning to Canada, he resumed his legal practice and began publishing articles and stories, gaining acclaim for his writing that explored various settings including Louisiana, Canada, and the Caribbean.
Educated at the Petit Séminaire de Montréal, he showed early talent in mathematics and writing, producing his first short story at just twenty years old. His later years were marked by a shift to public service, where he held several government positions despite his earlier radical stance. In 1889, he introduced a unique concept—a dictionary for a number-based language aimed at facilitating communication across cultures, reflecting his lifelong interest in bridging language barriers. Boucher de Boucherville's work remains significant in the context of Canadian literature and cultural history.
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Georges Boucher de Boucherville
Fiction and Nonfiction Writer
- Born: October 21, 1814
- Birthplace: Quebec, Canada
- Died: September 6, 1894
- Place of death: Saint-Laurent, Île d'Orléans, Quebec, Canada
Biography
Georges Boucher de Boucherville published two novels in his lifetime, both of which first came out in serial form. His first novel,Une de perdue, deux de trouvées (serial 1849-1851, book in 2 volumes, 1874) is generally understood to be one of the earliest Canadian adventure novels. A lawyer by trade, Boucher de Boucherville was involved in revolutionary politics early in his life, but later he served in various government offices and authored reports on legislative matters. Toward the end of his life he developed a number- based language, which he hoped would ease communication between people of different cultures.
Boucher de Boucherville was educated at the Petit Séminaire de Montréal, where he showed particular promise in mathematics, history, and English. He showed early promise as a writer and published his fist short story at the age of twenty. He began his work as a lawyer in 1837, but by the end of that year he was in court himself, charged with high treason for his activities in support of independence. He fled to the United States briefly, but returned to Montreal in 1838, resuming work as a defender for those charged with murder. His moved again the next year, to Louisiana, were he remained for seven years.
Boucher de Boucherville returned again to the practice of law in Quebec in 1846, and it was back in Canada that he also began publishing in earnest. He published articles on economic matters under a pseudonym, and began the serialized stories—published anonymously at first—that would become his best-known work, Une de perdue, deux de trouvées, a sequence of popular adventures set variously in Louisiana, Canada, the Caribbean, and South America. This collection is regarded by some critics as the most popularly interesting Canadian novel of the nineteenth century. Boucher de Boucherville published a second novel in 1889.
During the latter part of his life, Boucher de Boucherville served in various government posts despite his erstwhile radicalism. In 1889, he published his Dictionnaire du langage des nombres that proposed a universal language based on numbers which was easy to learn, free of ethnic word roots, and ideal for transmission over telegraph lines.