Background
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. Beckwith’s father Nehemiah Beckwith (U East L), was from New England and settled in New Brunswick in 1780, where he owned a successful ship building company. Two years after Beckwith wrote her novel, her father died in a drowning accident and in 1820 and she was sent to live in Upper Canada (Kingston) with family where she would establish a boarding school for girls and meet and then marry George Henry Hart (between 1822–1824).
Career
Born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, she spent much of her early life in Nova Scotia and Quebec. lieutenant was through her travels to Quebec and Nova Scotia that she incorporated her experiences through her novels. lieutenant took nearly over ten years for Beckwith to find someone who would publish her work.
In 1824, Hugh C. Thomson agreed to publish Saint Ursula’s Convent or, The Nun of Canada.
Containing Scenes from Real Life, and as Beckwith wished, as an anonymous author However only 165 copies were made.
After Beckwith"s romantic novel was criticized as "too complicated", almost all copies were lost. In 1831 she returned to Fredericton, New Brunswick.
On November 28, 1867, Julia Catherine Beckwith died in Fredericton, New Brunswick at the age of 71.
However, she 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 Saint Ursula’s Covent 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.
