Julia Catherine Beckwith

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, New Brunswick, she spent much of her early life in Nova Scotia and Quebec. 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 (Pre-Loyalist), was from New England and settled in New Brunswick in 1780, where he owned a successful ship building company. It was through her travels to Quebec and Nova Scotia that she incorporated her experiences through her novels. Two years after Hart wrote her novel, her father died in a drowning accident

Career Hart's mother had renounced her Roman Catholic faith and shared her husbands Methodist 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. 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.

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 on January 3, 1822.