credited as being Canada's first novelist. It took nearly over ten years for Beckwith to find someone who would publish her work. In 1824, Hugh C. Thomson agreed to publish St. 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. Later, Beckwith and her husband moved to the United States where she would write her second novel Tonnawanda ; or, The Adopted Son of America ; an Indian Story and was published in Rochester, N.Y., as “By an American.”
