The fictionalization of North America in the eighteenth century

From the sixteenth century onward, travel writing and works of fiction contributed to the creation of a discursive New France. While this colonial imaginary is evident in a few eighteenth-century comedies, this article addresses two minor works by Lesage and Prévost, Aventures de Monsieur Robert Chevalier (1732) and Voyages du capitaine Robert Lade... (1744), in which two captains (one Canadian, the other English) explore North America—including New France—in a spirit of adventure.