Léo-Paul Desrosiers was born in Berthier-en Haut, Quebec, son of Louis and Marie Olivier Desrosiers, and the youngest of the boys in a traditionally large Quebec family numbering fourteen. His childhood was spent happily in a house dating back to 1798 that had known three generations of hardworking, plain-living farmers. His parents were simple, loyal Quebeckers, and while it was his mother who developed his taste for works of imagination, it was Louis Desrosiers who awakened his love for history and storytelling. Many family tales eventually found their way into his novels and short stories.

His formal education, too, was true to the tradition for the sons of well-to-do Quebeckers of the times. He attended the Séminaire de Joliette where he showed no vocation for the priesthood but read literature voraciously, while at the same time displaying his already independent cast of mind, as he...