Where the book ends and the album begins: Extra-illustrating the work of James MacPherson LeMoine1 in nineteenth-century Quebec

Abstract

This article is a case study of photographs as extra-illustrations using as an example the third volume in the series of Maple Leaves books by Sir James MacPherson LeMoine (1825‐1912), published in 1865 under the subtitle Canadian History and Quebec Scenery, which was the first literary work in Canada to be commercially illustrated with photographs. Original albumen photographs made by photographer Jules-Isaïe Benoît dit Livernois (1830‐65) depicted many of the country villas described by the author in the section referred to as ‘Our Country Seats’. The readers of Maple Leaves turned this work into a complex and intimate record of a community by liberally augmenting the official photographs with individual prints selected independently for their copies. The surviving books collectively serve as a kind of regional album, preserving the tastes and aspirations of some of the 500 subscribers living in and around Quebec City in the mid-nineteenth century.