George-Édouard-Amable Desbarats (April 5, 1838 - February 18, 1893) was a Canadian lawyer, printer, inventor, and publisher. He was born in Quebec, the son of a Montreal printer with a crown mandate. From 1846 to 1851, he attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1852, he transferred to the Collège Sainte-Marie, Montreal, to finish his secondary studies. He then studied law at Université Laval. After attaining his degree, he took a Grand Tour of Europe. Returning to Canada, he began working under his father in the Ottawa firm of 'Desbarats et Derbishire'. His partner Malcolm Cameron, who replaced Stewart Derbishire after his 1863 death, became the new Queen's Printer. The firm produced a rich corpus of literary, historical, religious, biographical, and scientific works. The Ottawa firm suffered arson in 1863, and the Desbarats Block building, containing the firm's precious printing and engraving equipment, burnt to the ground. In 1864, upon his father's death, he inherited the business and became co-queen's printer for the Province of Canada. Around this time, Desbarats relocated to Montreal, where he partnered with William Augustus Leggo (1830 - 1915). In 1869, he was made the first official printer of the Dominion of Canada. Finding it challenging to run businesses in both Ottawa and Montreal, he gave up the Ottawa portion of the business and settled fully in Montreal. Inspired by U.S. publications like Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's Illustrated News, he founded the Canadian Illustrated News. The graphic magazine benefited from Leggo's photo-engraving process (leggotype), which allowed for the fast reproduction of line drawings. In 1873, having found some success, the duo went on to found the New York Daily Graphic, the world's first illustrated daily. The expensive venture proved financially disastrous, driving Desbarats into insolvency. He never fully recovered but did open a small boutique press in Montreal, which he eventually passed on to three of his sons.