Marc Lescarbot

Born around 1570, Marc Lescarbot was a French author, poet, and lawyer whose name is closely tied to the earliest French colonial writing about North America. He traveled to Acadia in 1606 and spent time at Port-Royal, an experience that gave him material for the work he is remembered for most.

His best-known book, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (first published in 1609), brought together observation, research, and storytelling to describe French exploration and settlement efforts in the region. He also wrote Le Théâtre de Neptune en la Nouvelle-France, a pageant prepared in Acadia in 1606 that is often noted as an important early work in the history of theatre in what is now Canada.

Lescarbot died in 1641. Today he remains an important figure for readers interested in early colonial history, travel writing, and the literary record of New France.