Louis Dantin

Louis Dantin was the pen name of Eugène Seers (November 28, 1865 - January 17, 1945), a Canadian writer and editor from Quebec. He is historically most noted as the original editor and publisher of the poetry of Émile Nelligan, although he also published numerous works as a poet, novelist and essayist in his own right.

Originally from Beauharnois, Quebec, he studied at the Collège de Montréal and later attended seminary to become a Roman Catholic priest. Associated with the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, he wrote religious poetry and short stories during this era. He was later associated with the École littéraire de Montréal, becoming acquainted there with writers such as Nelligan and Arthur de Bussières. He subsequently left the priesthood in 1903, marrying Clotilde Lacroix and moving to Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked as a printer for Harvard University Press. He resided in Boston for the remainder of his life, although continuing to publish French language literary work in Quebec. Most of his published work was as an essayist and critic, including volumes such as Poètes de l’Amérique française (1928) and Gloses critiques (1931), although he also published a volume of poetry (Le Coffret de Crusoé, 1932) and a posthumous novel (Les Enfances de Fanny, 1951). Several volumes of his correspondence with other Quebec writers were also published.

Two writers, Claude-Henri Grignon in his 1936 Les Pamphlets de Valdombre and Yvette Francoli in her 2013 Le Naufragé du Vaisseau d'or, have alleged that Dantin was the actual author of most of the poetry credited to Nelligan. Dantin denied Grignon's claims in several of his letters to other writers. In 2016, the University of Ottawa's literary journal @nalyses published an article by Annette Hayward and Christian Vandendorpe which rejected the claim, based on textual comparisons of the poetry credited to Nelligan with the writings of Dantin.

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