Frances Brooke (1724-1789), journalist, translator, playwright, novelist, and even co-manager of a theater, was described as "perhaps the first female novel-writer who attained a perfect purity and polish of style." Today, Brooke is known primarily for The History of Emily Montague, one of the earliest novels about Canada, where she lived for a number of years. But it is her third novel, The Excursion, that is an important example of the fashionable and popular English novels of the late 1770s. Written for the very audience it portrays, this novel introduces the heroine, Maria Villiers, to London's "gentle" society and its glittering pastimes. Brooke drew upon the English courtship novel in the tradition of Eliza Haywood, Henry Fielding, and Frances Burney for her novel's overarching plot structure. But instead of concentrating on Maria's romantic adventures, she experiments with unusual treatments of subplots and unconventional characters. The most interesting aspect of her story is the development of Maria's ambition to win fame and fortune as a writer; it is one of the few portraits of a woman with literary ambitions by an early woman writer. Brooke's wry narrative voice foreshadows that of Jane Austen. The editors' introduction places The Excursion firmly in the tradition of the English novel, provides a fresh biography of Brooke, and brings together the most important eighteenth- and twentieth-century criticism of Brooke's work. The second volume in the series Eighteenth-Century Novels by Women, The Excursion contributes to our understanding of the development of the novel and offers a lively view of women's position in eighteenth-century English society.

Frances Brooke was an 18th century British novelist, playwright, essayist and translator. Under the pseudonym of "Mary Singleton, Spinster," she edited thirty-seven issues of her own weekly periodical, "Old Maid" (1755-1756). In 1769 she published "The History of Emily Montague." Although her time in Canada was brief her novel was considered to be the first novel written in Canada. The History of Emily Montague is a love story set in Quebec City. The early English-speaking inhabitants, the Qubcois, and the Native people are all a part of her story. The time is the decade between Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 and the American War of Independence in the 1770s. The History of Emily Montague is written as a series of letters. " The History of Emily Montague has much to say about the confrontation between the old world and the "new," Huron and Iroquois culture; progressive gender roles in the development of a new colony; the innate indolence of Canadians; the weather; and eighteenth-century courtship in a colonial context. In a sense this novel is a travelogue, a "history" of Emily Montague and her friends, in response to the unseen request by the English woman to describe the colony in detail-with all the information a woman in England would want to know about the landscape, religion, social life, and people of colonial Canada. Through the different letter writers, primarily Colonel William Fermor, Colonel Ed Rivers, and Arabella Fermor, Brooke spends a great deal of time detailing lives and customs of the various inhabitants of Canada." From Citation: Moss, Laura. "The History of Emily Montague." The Literary Encyclopedia. 8 January 2001.