Sara Jeannette Duncan

Born in Brantford, Ontario, in 1861, she began her career in journalism before becoming a novelist and travel writer. She is especially known for the bold trip she made around the world with fellow journalist Lily Lewis in 1888, an unusual journey for two unmarried women at the time, and for turning her wide experience into lively, intelligent prose.

Her fiction often blends comedy with social criticism. She wrote several novels, including The Imperialist, and spent many years in India after marrying Everard Cotes, drawing on that experience in later books. Readers and critics continue to value her for her clear style, her independence of mind, and her place in early Canadian literature.

She died in 1922, but her writing remains an important link between journalism, travel writing, and the novel. Her best work captures both the manners of her era and the restless curiosity of a writer who paid close attention to the world around her.