Frances Brooke

Born Frances Moore in Lincolnshire in 1724, she became an English novelist, essayist, playwright, and translator. She moved in literary circles in London and built a varied writing career at a time when women writers were still fighting for room in print and on the stage.

Her best-known work is The History of Emily Montague (1769), an epistolary novel set in Quebec. Because of its setting and subject, it is widely noted as the first English novel known to have been written in Canada. She also wrote The History of Lady Julia Mandeville, edited the weekly periodical The Old Maid, translated from French, and wrote plays including Rosina, which became especially popular.

She died on January 23, 1789, in Sleaford, Lincolnshire. Today she is remembered for her lively, observant fiction and for bridging English and Canadian literary history in a way that still makes her stand out.