Julia Catherine Beckwith Hart (March 10, 1796 – November 28, 1867) is credited for being Canada's first Canadian-born fiction novelist and romance author.

Early life

Born in

Fredericton Fredericton (; ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of New Brunswick. The city is situated in the west-central portion of the province along the Saint John River (Bay of Fundy), Saint John River, ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

, she spent much of her early life in

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

and

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. Her mother Julie-Louise Le Brun, daughter of Jean Baptiste Le Brun de Duplessis, came from a wealthy French family who immigrated to Canada during the 17th and 18th century. Hart's father Nehemiah Beckwith (U. E. L.), was from

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

and settled in New Brunswick in 1780, where he owned a successful ship building company.Jones, Donald. "Canada's First Novel Written by a Woman : A2 Edition" Toronto Star 25 Feb. 1989: M4. Print. It was through her travels to

and

that she incorporated her experiences through her novels. Two years after Hart wrote her novel, her father died in a drowning accident and in 1820 and she was sent to live in

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada () was a Province, part of The Canadas, British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of the Province of Queb ...

(Kingston) with family where she would establish a boarding school for girls and meet and then marry George Henry Hart (between 1822 and 1824).

Career

Hart's mother had renounced her

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

faith and shared her husbands

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

views, yet it was her mother's religious background that would provide the subject matter of Canada's first novel ''St Ursula's Convent'' (or ''The Nun of Canada'') at the age of seventeen. It took over ten years for Hart to find someone who would publish her work. In 1824, Hugh C. Thomson agreed to publish ''St. Ursula's Convent or, The Nun of Canada; Containing Scenes from Real Life,'' and as Hart wished, as an anonymous author. However, only 165 copies were made. After Hart's romantic novel was criticized as "too complicated", almost all copies were lost. Later, Hart and her husband moved to the United States where she would write her second novel ''Tonnawanda ; or, The Adopted Son of America ; an Indian Story'' and was published in Rochester, N.Y., as "By an American." In 1831 Hart, along with her husband and six children, moved back to Fredericton, where she would write her third novel in manuscript ''Edith'' (or ''The Doom'') that was never published.

Later life and death

In 1831 Hart returned to

Fredericton, New Brunswick Fredericton (; ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of New Brunswick. The city is situated in the west-central portion of the province along the Saint John River (Bay of Fundy), Saint John River, ...

. On November 28, 1867, Hart died in Fredericton, New Brunswick at the age of 71.

Genealogy

Research by Christine Lavallée revealed that Hart's brother ( John Adolphus Beckwith) was the grandfather of Premier John Douglas Hazen and that Hart's extended family married into President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

's family through Hart's uncle, Samuel Beckwith.Lavallée, Christine
Meet Canada's First Romance Author
" Hart and Company (2024): Substack. 24 Dec 2024. Web.

Posthumous recognition

Hart was not recognized until at the end of the century when Canadian writing became of interest. In 1904, chief librarian of the Toronto Public Library, James Bain, obtained a copy of ''St. Ursula's Convent'' at an auction for $8.00. Only five other copies have been discovered (one at the Library of Congress in Washington, the others at the Bibliothèque Nationale de Quebec, Brock University and the University of New Brunswick) and one partial copy resides at the library of McGill University.

Personal life

She married George Henry Hart in

Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the northeastern end of Lake Ontario. It is at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River, the south end of the Rideau Canal. Kingston is near the Thousand Islands, ...

on January 3, 1822.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Julia Catherine Beckwith 1796 births 1867 deaths 19th-century Canadian novelists 19th-century Canadian women writers Canadian women novelists Writers from Fredericton Colony of New Brunswick people Novelists from New Brunswick