The Travels and Sufferings of Father Jean de Brébeuf among the Hurons of Canada

1938

Special Collections F1030.7 BT72 1938

London: The Golden Cockerel Press

In 1933, Christopher Sandford, Owen Rutter, and Francis J. Newbery took control of the GCP. It was Rutter’s job to broaden the scope of books published, which by then was more of a publishing firm than a private press. Jean de Brébeuf’s Travels and Sufferings, which details the French Roman Catholic missionary’s experiences working amongst the Hurons in Quebec, was one work chosen. Completed in the Summer of 1938, it contained two illustrations and an engraved titling on the title-page by Gill. According to the Pertelote catalogue for GCP, ‘Gill never designed a finer title page and this is a narrative which fiction cannot beat’; a modern-day commentator has called Gill’s engravings ‘superb’ (Cave, 2002). Although well produced, the work was a flop sales-wise, with many copies remaining unsold after printing.