Sarah J. Richardson

Sarah J. Richardson is credited as the author of Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal, a memoir-like narrative first published in the late 1850s. Library records identify her as having been born in 1835, and the opening of the book says she was born in St. John's, New Brunswick, in that year.

Beyond that, reliable biographical detail is scarce. Modern catalog and library sources consistently connect her name with this one work, but they do not provide a fuller life story, and some later descriptions note uncertainty about how literally the book should be read.

That makes Richardson a somewhat mysterious figure today: remembered mainly through a single dramatic anti-Catholic narrative that reflects the religious tensions and popular publishing culture of its time.