Catherine Benincasa - "Letters of Catherine Benincasa"

Clemens Brentano - "Geschichte vom braven Kasperl und dem schoenen Annerl"

Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson - "Three Dramas"

Theodor Storm - "Von Kinder und Katzen, und wie sie die Nine begruben"

A  /  B  /  C  /  D  /  E  /   F  /  G  /  H  /  I  /  J  /   K  /  L  /  M  /  N  /  O   P  /  R  /  S  /  T  /  U  /  V  /  W  /  X  /  Y  /  Z

Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 by Samuel de Champlain

S >> Samuel de Champlain >> Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1




To Champlain even, although the expedition had been accompanied by hardship
and suffering and some disappointments, it was by no means a failure. He
had explored an interesting and important region; he had gone where
European feet had never trod, and had seen what European eyes had never
seen; he had, moreover, planted the lilies of France in the chief Indian
towns, and at all suitable and important points, and these were to be
witnesses of possession and ownership in what his exuberant imagination saw
as a vast French empire rising into power and opulence in the western
world.

It was now the last week in December, and the deep snows and piercing cold
rendered it impossible for Champlain or even the allied warriors to
continue their journey further. The Algonquins and Nipissings became guests
of the Hurons for the winter, encamping within their principal walled town,
or perhaps in some neighboring village not far removed.

After the rest of a few days at Cahiague, where he had been hospitably
entertained, Champlain took his departure for Carhagouha, a smaller
village, where his friend the Recollect Father, Joseph le Caron, had taken
up his abode as the pioneer missionary to the Hurons. It was important for
Le Caron to obtain all the information possible, not only of the Hurons,
but of all the surrounding tribes, as he contemplated returning to France
the next summer to report to his patrons upon the character, extent, and
hopefulness of the missionary field which he had been sent out to explore.
Champlain was happy to avail himself of his company in executing the
explorations which he desired to make.

They accordingly set out together on the 15th of January, and penetrated
the trackless and show-bound forests, and, proceeding in a western
direction, after a journey of two days reached a tribe called _Petuns_, an
agricultural people, similar in habits and mode of life to the Hurons. By
them they were hospitably received, and a great festival, in which all
their neighbors participated, was celebrated in honor of their new guests.
Having visited seven or eight of their villages, the explorers pushed
forward still further west, when they came to the settlement of an
interesting tribe, which they named _Cheveux-Releves_, or the "lofty
haired," an appellation suggested by the mode of dressing their hair.

On their return from this expedition, they found, on reaching the
encampment of the Nipissings, who were wintering in the Huron territory,
that a disagreement had arisen between the Hurons and their Algonquin
guests, which had already assumed a dangerous character. An Iroquois
captive taken in the late war had been awarded to the Algonquins, according
to the custom of dividing the prisoners among the several bands of allies,
and, finding him a skilful hunter, they resolved to spare his life, and had
actually adopted him as one of their tribe. This had offended the Hurons,
who expected he would be put to the usual torture, and they had
commissioned one of their number, who had instantly killed the unfortunate
prisoner by plunging a knife into his heart. The assassin, in turn, had
been set upon by the Algonquins and put to death on the spot. The
perpetrators of this last act had regretted the occurrence, and had done
what they could to heal, the breach by presents: but there was,
nevertheless, a smouldering feeling of hostility still lingering in both
parties, which might at any moment break out into open conflict.

It was obvious to Champlain that a permanent disagreement between these two
important allies would be a great calamity to themselves as well as
disastrous to his own plans. It was his purpose, therefore, to bring them,
if possible, to a cordial pacification. Proceeding cautiously and with
great deliberation, he made himself acquainted with all the facts of the
quarrel, and then called an assembly of both parties and clearly set before
them in all its lights the utter foolishness of allowing a circumstance of
really small importance to interfere with an alliance between two great
tribes; an alliance necessary to their prosperity, and particularly in the
war they were carrying on against their common enemy, the Iroquois. This
appeal of Champlain was so convincing that when the assembly broke up all
professed themselves entirely satisfied, although the Algonquins were heard
to mutter their determination never again to winter in the territory of the
Hurons, a wise and not unnatural conclusion.

Champlain's constant intercourse with these tribes for many months in their
own homes, his explorations, observations, and inquiries, enabled him to
obtain a comprehensive, definite, and minute knowledge of their character,
religion, government, and mode of life. As the fruit of these
investigations, he prepared in the leisure of the winter an elaborate
memoir, replete with discriminating details, which is and must always be an
unquestionable authority on the subject of which it treats.

ENDNOTES:

77. De Poutrincourt obtained a confirmation from Henry IV. of the gift to
him of Port Royal by De Monts, and proceeded to establish a colony
there in 1608. In 1611, a Jesuit mission was planted by the Fathers
Pierre Biard and Enemond Masse. It was chiefly patronized by a bevy of
ladies, under the leadership of the Marchioness de Guerchville, in
close association with Marie de Medicis, the queen-regent, Madame de
Verneuil, and Madame de Soudis. Although De Poutrincourt was a devout
member of the Roman Church, the missionaries were received with
reluctance, and between them and the patentee and his lieutenant there
was a constant and irrepressible discord. The lady patroness, the
Marchioness de Guerchville, determined to abandon Port Royal and plant
a new colony at Kadesquit, on the site of the present city of Bangor,
in the State of Maine. A colony was accordingly organized, which
included the fathers, Quentin and Lalemant with the lay brother,
Gilbert du Thet, and arrived at La Heve in La Cadie, on the 6th of May,
1613, under the conduct of Sieur de la Saussaye. From there they
proceeded to Port Royal, took the two missionaries, Biard and Masse, on
board, and coasted along the borders of Maine till they came to Mount
Desert, and finally determined to plant their colony on that island. A
short time after the arrival of the colony, before they were in any
condition for defence, Captain Samuel Argall, from the English colony
in Virginia, suddenly appeared, and captured and transported the whole
colony, and subsequently that at Port Royal, on the alleged ground that
they were intruders on English soil. Thus disastrously ended
Poutrincourt's colony at Port Royal, and the Marchioness de
Guerchville's mission at Mount Desert.--_Vide Voyages par le Sr. de
Champlain_, Paris ed. 1632, pp. 98-114. _Shea's Charlevoix_, Vol. I.
pp. 260-286.

78. Champlain had tried to induce Madame de Guerchville to send her
missionaries to Quebec, to avoid the obstacles which they had
encountered at Port Royal; but, for the simple reason that De Monts was
a Calvinist, she would not listen to it.--_Vide Shea's Charlevoix_,
Vol. I. p. 274; _Voyages du Sieur de Champlain_, Paris ed. 1632, pp.
112, 113.

79. _Vide Histoire du Canada, par Gabriel Sagard_, Paris, 1636, pp. 11-12.

80. _Carhagouha_, named by the French _Saint Gabriel_. Dr. J. C. Tache, of
Ottawa, Canada, who has given much attention to the subject, fixes this
village in the central part of the present township of Tiny, in the
county of Simcoe.--_MS. Letter_, Feb. 11, 1880.

81. _Cahiague. Dr. Tache places this village on the extreme eastern limit
of the township of Orillia. in the same county, in the bend of the
river Severn, a short distance after it leaves Lake Couchiching. The
Indian warriors do not appear to have launched their flotilla of bark
canoes until they reached the fishing station at the outlet of Lake
Simcoe This village was subsequently known as _Saint-Jean Baptiste_.

82. The latitude of Champlain is here far from correct. It is not possible
to determine the exact place at which it was taken. It could not,
however have been at a point much below 44 deg. 7'.

83. There has naturally been some difficulty in fixing satisfactorily the
site of the Iroquois fort attacked by Champlain and his allies.

The sources of information on which we are to rely in identifying the
site of this fort are in general the same that we resort to in fixing
any locality mentioned in his explorations, and are to be found in
Champlain's journal of this expedition, the map contained in what is
commonly called his edition of 1632, and the engraved picture of the
fort executed by Champlain himself, which was published in connection
with his journal. The information thus obtained is to be considered in
connection with the natural features of the country through which the
expedition passed, with such allowance for inexactness as the history,
nature, and circumstances of the evidence render necessary.

The map of 1632 is only at best an outline, drafted on a very small
scale, and without any exact measurements or actual surveys. It
pictures general features, and in connection with the journal may be of
great service.

Champlain's distances, as given in his journal, are estimates made
under circumstances in which accuracy was scarcely possible. He was
journeying along the border of lakes and over the face of the country,
in company with some hundreds of wild savages, hunting and fishing by
the way, marching in an irregular and desultory manner, and his
statements of distances are wisely accompanied by very wide margins,
and are of little service, taken alone, in fixing the site of an Indian
town. But when natural features, not subject to change, are described,
we can easily comprehend the meaning of the text.

The engraving of the fort may or may not have been sketched by
Champlain on the spot: parts of it may have been and doubtless were
supplied by memory, and it is decisive authority, not in its minor, but
in its general features.

With these observations, we are prepared to examine the evidence that
points to the site of the Iroquois fort.

When the expedition, emerging from Quinte Bay, arrived at the eastern
end of Lake Ontario, at the point where the lake ends and the River St.
Lawrence begins, they crossed over the lake, passing large and
beautiful islands. Some of these islands will be found laid down on the
map of 1632. They then proceeded, a distance, according to their
estimation, of about fourteen leagues, to the southern side of Lake
Ontario, where they landed and concealed their canoes. The distance to
the southern side of the lake is too indefinitely stated, even if we
knew at what precise point the measurement began, to enable us to fix
the exact place of the landing.

They marched along the sandy shore about four leagues, and then struck
inland. If we turn to the map of 1632, on which a line is drawn to
rudely represent their course, we shall see that on striking inland
they proceeded along the banks of a small river to which several small
lakes or ponds are tributary. Little Salmon River being fed by numerous
small ponds or lakes may well be the stream figured by Champlain. The
text says they discovered an excellent country along the lake before
they struck inland, with fine forest-trees, especially the chestnut,
with abundance of vines. For several miles along Lake Ontario on the
north-east of Little Salmon River the country answers to this
description.--_Vide MS. Letters of the Rev. James Cross, D.D., LL.D._,
and of S. D. Smith, Esq._, of Mexico, N.Y.

The text says they, continued their course about twenty-five or thirty
leagues. This again is indefinite, allowing a margin of twelve or
fifteen miles; but the text also says they crossed a river flowing from
a lake in which were certain beautiful islands, and moreover that the
river so crossed discharged into Lake Ontario. The lake here referred
to must be the Oneida, since that is the only one in the region which
contains any islands whatever, and therefore the river they crossed
must be the Oneida River, flowing from the lake of the same name into
Lake Ontario.

Soon after they crossed Oneida River, they met a band of savages who
were going fishing, whom they made prisoners. This occurred, the text
informs us, when they were about four leagues from the fort They were
now somewhere south of Oneida Lake If we consult the map of 1632, we
shall find represented on it an expanse of water from which a stream is
represented as flowing into Lake Ontario, and which is clearly Oneida
Lake, and south of this lake a stream is represented as flowing from
the east in a northwesterly direction and entering this lake towards
its western extremity, which must be Chittenango Creek or one of its
branches. A fort or enclosed village is also figured on the map, of
such huge dimensions that it subtends the angle formed by the creek and
the lake, and appears to rest upon both. It is plain, however, from the
text that the fort does not rest upon Oneida Lake; we may infer
therefore that it rested upon the creek figured on the map, which from
its course, as we have already seen, is clearly intended to represent
Chittenango Creek or one of its branches. A note explanatory of the map
informs us that this is the village where Champlain went to war against
the "Antouhonorons," that is to say, the Iroquois. The text informs us
that the fort was on a pond, which furnished a perpetual supply of
water. We therefore look for the site of the ancient fort on some small
body of water connected with Chittenango Creek.

If we examine Champlain's engraved representation of the fort, we shall
see that it is situated on a peninsula, that one side rests on a pond,
and that two streams pass it, one on the right and one on the left, and
that one side only has an unobstructed land-approach. These channels of
water coursing along the sides are such marked characteristics of the
fort as represented by Champlain, that they must be regarded as
important features in the identification of its ancient site.

On Nichols's Pond, near the northeastern limit of the township of
Fenner in Madison County, N.Y., the site of an Indian fort was some
years since discovered, identified as such by broken bits of pottery
and stone implements, such as are usually found in localities of this
sort. It is situated on a peculiarly formed peninsula, its northern
side resting on Nichols's Pond, while a small stream flowing into the
pond forms its western boundary, and an outlet of the pond about
thirty-two rods east of the inlet, running in a south-easterly
direction, forms the eastern limit of the fort. The outlet of this
pond, deflecting to the east and then sweeping round to the north, at
length finds its way in a winding course into Cowashalon Creek, thence
into the Chittenango, through which it flows into Oneida Lake, at a
point north-west of Nichols's Pond.

If we compare the geographical situation of Champlain's fort as figured
on his map of 1632, particularly with reference to Oneida Lake, we
shall observe a remarkable correspondence between it and the site of
the Indian fort at Nichols's Pond. Both are on the south of Oneida
Lake, and both are on streams which flow into that lake by running in a
north-westerly direction. Moreover, the site of the old fort at
Nichols's Pond is situated on a peninsula like that of Champlain; and
not only so, but it is on a peninsula formed by a pond on one side, and
by two streams of water on two other opposite sides; thus fulfilling in
a remarkable degree the conditions contained in Champlain's drawing of
the fort.

If the reader has carefully examined and compared the evidences
referred to in this note, he will have seen that all the distinguishing
circumstances contained in the text of Champlain's journal, on the map
of 1632, and in his drawing of the fort, converge to and point out this
spot on Nichols's Pond, as the probable site of the palisaded Iroquois
town attacked by Champlain in 1615.

We are indebted to General John S. Clark, of Auburn, N.Y., for pointing
out and identifying the peninsula at Nichols's Pond as the site of the
Iroquois fort.--_Vide Shea's Notes on Champlain's Expedition into
Western New York in 1615, and the Recent Identification of the Fort_,
by General John S Clark, _Pennsylvania Magazine of History_,
Philadelphia, Vol. II. pp. 103-108; also _A Lost Point in History_, by
L. W. Ledyard, _Cazenovia Republican_, Vol. XXV. No 47; _Champlain's
Invasion of Onondaga_, by the Rev. W. M. Beauchamp, _Baldwinsville
Gazette_, for June 27, 1879.

We are indebted to Orsamus H. Marshall, Esq., of Buffalo, N.Y., for
proving the site of the Iroquois fort to be in the neighborhood of
Oneida Lake, and not at a point farther west as claimed by several
authors.--_Vide Proceedings of the New York Historical Society_ for
1849, p. 96; _Magazine of American History_, New York, Vol. I. pp.
1-13, Vol. II. pp. 470-483.




CHAPTER IX.

CHAMPLAIN'S RETURN FROM THE HURON COUNTRY AND VOYAGE TO FRANCE.--THE
CONTRACTED VIEWS OF THE COMPANY OF MERCHANTS.--THE PRINCE DE CONDE SELLS
THE VICEROYALTY TO THE DUKE DE MONTMORENCY.--CHAMPLAIN WITH HIS WIFE
RETURNS TO QUEBEC, WHERE HE REMAINS FOUR YEARS.--HAVING REPAIRED THE
BUILDINGS AND ERECTED THE FORTRESS OF ST. LOUIS, CHAMPLAIN RETURNS TO
FRANCE.--THE VICEROYALTY TRANSFERRED TO HENRY DE LEVI, AND THE COMPANY OF
THE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES ORGANIZED.

About the 20th of May, Champlain, accompanied by the missionary, Le Caron,
escorted by a delegation of savages, set out from the Huron capital, in the
present county of Simcoe, on their return to Quebec. Pursuing the same
circuitous route by which they had come, they were forty days in reaching
the Falls of St. Louis, near Montreal, where they found Pont Grave, just
arrived from France, who, with the rest, was much rejoiced at seeing
Champlain, since a rumor had gone abroad that he had perished among the
savages.

The party arrived at Quebec on the 11th of July. A public service of
thanksgiving was celebrated by the Recollect Fathers for their safe return.
The Huron chief, D'Arontal, with whom Champlain had passed the winter and
who had accompanied him to Quebec, was greatly entertained and delighted
with the establishment of the French, the buildings and other accessories
of European life, so different from his own, and earnestly requested
Champlain to make a settlement at Montreal, that his whole tribe might come
and reside near them, safe under their protection against their Iroquois
enemies.

Champlain did not remain at Quebec more than ten days, during which he
planned and put in execution the enlargement of their houses and fort,
increasing their capacity by at least one third. This he found necessary to
do for the greater convenience of the little colony, as well as for the
occasional entertainment of strangers. He left for France on the 20th day
of July, in company with the Recollect Fathers, Joseph le Caron and Denis
Jamay, the commissary of the mission, taking with them specimens of French
grain which had been produced near Quebec, to testify to the excellent
quality of the soil. They arrived at Honfleur in France on the 10th of
September, 1616.

The exploration in the distant Indian territories which we have just
described in the preceding pages was the last made by Champlain. He had
plans for the survey of other regions yet unexplored, but the favorable
opportunity did not occur. Henceforth he directed his attention more
exclusively than he had hitherto done to the enlargement and strengthening
of his colonial plantation, without such success, we regret to say, as his
zeal, devotion, and labors fitly deserved. The obstacles that lay in his
way were insurmountable. The establishment or factory, we can hardly call
it a plantation, at Quebec, was the creature of a company of merchants.
They had invested considerable sums in shipping, buildings, and in the
employment of men, in order to carry on a trade in furs and peltry with the
Indians, and they naturally desired remunerative returns. This was the
limit of their purpose in making the investment. The corporators saw
nothing in their organization but a commercial enterprise yielding
immediate results. They were inspired by no generosity, no loyalty, or
patriotism that could draw from them a farthing to increase the wealth,
power, or aggrandizement of France. Under these circumstances, Champlain
struggled on for years against a current which he could barely direct, but
by no means control.

Champlain made voyages to New France both in 1617 and in 1618. In the
latter year, among the Indians who came to Quebec for the purpose of trade,
appeared Etienne Brule, the interpreter, who it will be remembered had been
despatched in 1615, when Champlain was among the Hurons, to the
Entouhonorons at Carantouan, to induce them to join in the attack of the
Iroquois in central New York. During the three years that had intervened,
nothing had been heard from him. Brule related the story of his
extraordinary adventures, which Champlain has preserved, and which may be
found in the report of the voyage of 1618, in Volume III. of this work.
[84]

At Quebec, he met numerous bands of Indians from remote regions, whom he
had visited in former years, and who, in fulfilment of their promises, had
come to barter their peltry for such commodities as suited their need or
fancy, and to renew and strengthen their friendship with the French. By
these repeated interviews, and the cordial reception and generous
entertainment which he always gave them, the Indians dwelling on the upper
waters of the Ottawa, along the borders of Lake Huron, or on the Georgian
Bay, formed a strong personal attachment to Champlain, and yearly brought
down their fleets of canoes heavily freighted with the valuable furs which
they had diligently secured during the preceding winter. His personal
influence with them, a power which he exercised with great delicacy,
wisdom, and fidelity, contributed largely to the revenues annually obtained
by the associated merchants.

But Champlain desired more than this. He was not satisfied to be the agent
and chief manager of a company organized merely for the purpose of trade.
He was anxious to elevate the meagre factory at Quebec into the dignity and
national importance of a colonial plantation. For this purpose he had
tested the soil by numerous experiments, and had, from time to time,
forwarded to France specimens of ripened grain to bear testimony to its
productive quality. He even laid the subject before the Council of State,
and they gave it their cordial approbation. By these means giving emphasis
to his personal appeals, he succeeded at length in extorting from the
company a promise to enlarge the establishment to eighty persons, with
suitable equipments, farming implements, all kinds of feeds and domestic
animals, including cattle and sheep. But when the time came, this promise
was not fulfilled. Differences, bickerings, and feuds sprang up in the
company. Some wanted one thing, and some wanted another. Even religion cast
in an apple of discord. The Catholics wished to extend the faith of their
church into the wilds of Canada, while the Huguenots desired to prevent it,
or at least not to promote it by their own contributions. The company,
inspired by avarice and a desire to restrict the establishment to a mere
trading post, raised an issue to discredit Champlain. It was gravely
proposed that he should devote himself exclusively to exploration, and that
the government and trade should henceforth be under the direction and
control of Pont Grave. But Champlain was not a man to be ejected from an
official position by those who had neither the authority to give it to him
or the power to take it away. Pont Grave was his intimate, long-tried, and
trusted friend; and, while he regarded him with filial respect and
affection, he could not yield, even to him, the rights and honors which had
been accorded to him as a recognition, if not a reward, for many years of
faithful service, which he had rendered under circumstances of personal
hardship and danger. The king addressed a letter to the company, in which
he directed them to aid Champlain as much as possible in making
explorations, in settling the country, and cultivating the soil, while with
their agents in the traffic of peltry there should be no interference. But
the spirit of avarice could not be subdued by the mandate of the king. The
associated merchants were still, obstinate. Champlain had intended to take
his family to Canada that year, but he declined to make the voyage under
any implication of a divided authority. The vessel in which he was to sail
departed without him, and Pont Grave spent the winter in charge of the
company's affairs at Quebec.

Fidel and Che: a revolutionary friendship

After last week's fairly open theme, I thought I'd go with something a bit more structured this time. As I type this, I'm listening to Steeleye Span and thinking about the great ballad traditions of Britain and Ireland. What is a ballad? I suppose the most inclusive definition would be that it's a singable narrative poem: that covers a multitude but will do for the moment.

Ballads in English stretch back to the middle ages, with fine examples to be found among the Scottish border ballads and the English Robin Hood poems. These early ballads are among the best-known poems and stories in the language, and form part of the common heritage of English speakers everywhere. They gave rise to a tradition of ballad-making that endures down to the present day.

In fact, most poets since have tried their hand at the ballad at one time or another, and the result has been to deny any definition more specific than the one I ventured in my first paragraph. If you look around the internet, you'll come up with a wide selection of poems that are called ballads but have little in common formally. Stanza length varies from two to 10 or more lines, and all sorts of metrical and rhyming patterns are used. A good number will be singable in only the loosest possible sense, and at times the narrative tends to get lost in a mesh of more-or-less successful verbal embroidery.

So, what should a ballad be? Well, "proper" ballad stanzas are quatrains in which the first and third lines have four stresses and the second and third have three. The lines will rhyme A-B-C-B or A-B-A-B. It's as simple, and as difficult, as that. Here's an example, from Robert Burns's extremely singable Comin Thro' the Rye:

Gin a body meet a body
          Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body –
          Need a body cry.

Burns wrote a good number of ballads, and his lead was followed by many 19th-century poets. Two examples that I particularly like are Robert Browning's Confessions and Christina Rossetti's Up-Hill, but you can find ballads by just about any Romantic or Victorian poet if you look for them.

There is a long, strong tradition of ballads and ballad singers in Ireland, too. It is hardly surprising, then, that the great appropriator of tradition, WB Yeats, tried his hand at the form. At least four of his poems have the word "ballad" in the title; the pick of the bunch, for my money, is The Ballad of Father Gilligan, which may have benefited from having been written with a specific tune in mind.

Ballads continued to be written in the 20th century; perhaps the most unexpected exponents were Ezra Pound, with his Ballad of the Goodly Fere, and WH Auden. In fact, the ballad The Quarry is probably my favourite Auden poem.

And so, this week I invite a chorus of balladeering. You may choose to go the whole hog and write in ballad stanzas or you might prefer to take a more liberal view of the formal requirements. Either way, sing up and – as they say at all the best Irish sessions when calling for a bit of hush for the singer – one voice please.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Obituary: Donald Westlake

The disputed Holocaust memoir, written by Herman Rosenblat, which was dropped from Penguin Group's publication schedule at the end of December is now set to appear as a work of fiction.

Rosenblat's memoir - which Oprah Winfrey called "the single greatest love story" she had heard in two decades in television - recounted how as a teenage boy in a Nazi concentration camp, he was kept alive by the food which was thrown to him by a young girl, Roma Radzicky. Penguin's US imprint Berkley Books had planned to publish the story, which sees Rosenblat reunited with Radzicky on a blind date years later, as Angel at the Fence: the True Story of a Love That Survived, next month.

But a Holocaust historian said it would have been impossible to approach the fence in the Schlieben concentration camp to throw food over it, concluding that this part of the story was made-up. Berkley initially defended the book, saying it was a work of memory, but then decided to cancel its planned publication, and demanded the return of the advance it had made to Rosenblat. A $25m film based on the book, to be called The Flower of the Fence, is still going ahead, with production due to start this year.

Publisher York House Press based in White Plains, New York, has entered into a tentative agreement with the film production company to publish a novel based on the film script early this spring. It said the book would be "grounded in fact", and would rise "to the proper levels of artistic value, ethical conduct and social responsibility".

A spokesperson for York House Press condemned the attacks which were made on the 80-year-old Rosenblat after the veracity of his story was questioned, describing them as a "savage" response to what was otherwise "a credible, heart-wrenching, and verifiable account" of his time in the concentration camp.

"No deliberate untruth is permissible, but beneath any fabrication is motivation and intent. We believe Mr. Rosenblat's motivations were very human, understandable and forgivable," the spokesperson said. "It is beyond our expertise to know how Holocaust survivors cope with their trauma. Do they deny, try to forget, rationalise or fantasise and promote fiction along with truth? Perhaps the coping mechanisms are as individual as the survivors themselves."

The president of the company producing the film, Harris Salomon from Atlantic Overseas Productions, said the book, "regardless of its shortcomings", would "challenge, educate and enlighten" readers about the horrors of the Holocaust. "The documented fact, acknowledged by his critics, is that Herman is a survivor of concentration camps," he said.

But Rosenblat's agent, Andrea Hurst, said that neither she nor Rosenblat were involved with this version of his story. "Usually book rights from films come out after the movie is released," she told guardian.co.uk. "I think the timing on this is very insensitive."

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Theatre review: Three Women / Jermyn Street, London
Obituary: Prolific crime novelist, Oscar-nominated screenwriter and man of many pseudonyms