Born in Prince Edward Island, Gallant began his academic journey at Collège Saint-Joseph in Memramcook.

His doctoral thesis, presented in 1970 at the University of Neuchâtel, Le Thème de la mort chez Roger Martin du Gard, was widely acclaimed.

Éditions d'Acadie closed its doors in 2000, and Gallant decided to publish new versions of Ti-Jean, this time with Bouton d'or Acadie.

His other works include the documentary La Cuisine traditionnelle en Acadie, co-written in 1975 with Marielle Boudreau, the poetry collection L'Été insulaire (1982) and the historical novel Le Métis de Beaubassin (2009).

Melvin Gallant was born on May 24, 1932 - other sources mention 1933[1] - in Urbainville, in the Evangeline region of western Prince Edward Island, Canada.

[2] One of his ancestors is Michel Haché dit Gallant, the main character in his novel Le Métis de Beaubassin, published in 2009.

After completing high school in Prince Edward Island,[1] he entered Université Saint-Joseph in Memramcook, neighboring New Brunswick, where he graduated in 1956 with a Bachelor of Commerce.

[2] He also prepared a doctoral thesis, Le Thème de la mort chez Roger Martin du Gard, which he defended at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1970.

[3] He also headed the French Studies Department from 1969 to 1973 and chaired the Comité d'équivalence entre les universités francophones from 1971 to 1975.

[3] Following a poetry contest launched in 1971 by master's students at the Université de Moncton, Gallant brought together a number of authors to found Éditions d'Acadie the following year.

[3] Under his leadership, Éditions d'Acadie became the largest French-language publishing house on the American continent outside Quebec until its closure in 2000.

[6] He was also chairman of the organizing committee for the Colloque international sur le thème de la mer in 1991.

[1] According to the Dictionnaire des auteurs de langue française en Amérique du Nord, Gallant's work focuses on the soul and life of his homeland, Acadia.

[12] Aimed at ten- to fourteen-year-olds, it was the first in a series of publications centered on the eponymous character,[1] an honest and courageous boy who sets off on adventures to save princesses in danger and fight evil beings.

[15] The tales are inspired by oral tradition, often beginning with a transgressed impediment, as when Ti-Jean goes off on an adventure of his own free will to help a family member.

[11] The last tale, La Quarantième chambre et les quatre murs (The Fortieth Chamber and the Four Walls), may allude to Ti-Jean's four journeys, which in fact include three stages: two returns to his parents' home, one missing from the story and three "safe" arrivals, thus repeating the triple repetition.

[1] Working with Marielle Boudreau, Gallant completes La Cuisine traditionnelle en Acadie in 1975,[5] a book of 175 recipes.

[7] Le Pays d'Acadie, published in 1982, is a text and photo album about Acadians, their environment, economy and leisure activities.

[1] In 1983, Gallant and Ginette Gould completed Portrait d'écrivain, a biographical dictionary of eighty-three Acadian authors, with excerpts from their works.

[7] It tells the story of Michel, a twenty-two-year-old man suffering from an incurable disease who decides to live out his last years to the full.

[22] In 1985, the Société historique acadienne published a new edition of Dière de Dièreville's account of his travels in Acadia from 1699 to 1670, with an introduction and annotations by Melvin Gallant.

[23] His novel Le Complexe d'Évangéline, completed in 2001, updates the Évangéline myth by attempting to find an end to it; the quest of Nathalie, the heroine, is above all a metaphor for the affirmation of modernity.

[2] The poem Evangeline, though written by American Henry Longfellow, had a fundamental influence on Acadian culture and renaissance in the 19th century.

Gallant is the first author to be published by Éditions de la Francophonie, lending credibility to the house.

[15] In response to popular demand, the stories were republished by Bouton d'or Acadie under the titles Ti-Jean-le-Brave (2005), Ti-Jean-le-Rusé (2006), Ti-Jean-l'intrépide (2007) and Ti-Jean-Tête-D'Or (2010).

[13] According to Daniel Long, Ti-Jean-l'intrépide suffers from a lack of narrative rigor and an overly neutral style, probably caused by "hasty writing", leading to abrupt endings, omissions and incomplete descriptions.

[24] This novel, the result of three years of meticulous research, explores the history of the village of Beaubassin, founded in 1677; its main character is the author's ancestor, Michel Haché dit Gallant (1663–1737), who was the right-hand man of seigneur Michel Leneuf de La Vallière and of Beaubassin.

[10] The novel ends in 1720, when the main character, tired of being pursued by the English, travels with his family to Île Saint-Jean, now Prince Edward Island.

Gallant’s novel unveils "less well-known aspects of Acadian life," including power struggles, everyday challenges, dike maintenance, witchcraft accusations, and conflicts with the English.