Frances Brooke | |
|---|---|
_by_Read.jpg) Frances Brooke by Catherine Read ca. 1771 | |
| Born | Frances Moore 12 January 1724 Claypole, Lincolnshire, England |
| Died | 23 January 1789 (aged 65) Sleaford, England |
| Occupation | English-Canadian writer |
Frances Brooke (née Moore; 12 January 1724 – 23 January 1789) was an English novelist, essayist, playwright and translator. Hers was the first English novel known to have been written in Canada.[1]
Frances Moore was born in Claypole, Lincolnshire, England, the daughter of a clergyman. She was only three years old when her father died.[2] Her mother's death followed soon after.[2]
By the late 1740s, she had moved to London, where she embarked on her career as a poet and playwright. She did not drew attention until she published her essay serial The Old Maid.[2] Under the pseudonym of Mary Singleton, Spinster, she edited 37 issues of this weekly periodical (1755–1756), which was patterned after The Spectator.[3]
In 1756 she married Rev. Dr John Brooke, rector at Colney, Norfolk.[4] The following year he left for Canada as a military chaplain while his wife remained in England. In 1763 she wrote her first novel, The History of Lady Julia Mandeville. In the same year Brooke sailed to Quebec, Canada to join her husband, who was then chaplain to the British garrison there. In autumn 1768 she returned to London, where she continued her writing.
Brooke was well-known in London's literary and theatrical communities. In 1769 she published The History of Emily Montague, the first novel written in Canada. This brief stint in North America has caused some critics to label her "the first novelist in North America." Evidence of Brooke's wisdom and experience of life and its vicissitudes is apparent in her writing. One exemplary observation reflects that "It is a painful consideration, my dear, that the happiness or misery of our lives are generally determined before we are proper judges of either." Another reviewer recommended it for young ladies and praised the writer for her "art of engaging the attention by a lively stile, a happy descriptive talent, characters well-marked, and a variety of tender and delicate sentiments".[5]
Also in 1769, Frances Brooke's novel The History of Emily Montague was used in the earliest Oxford English Dictionary citation for the hyperbolic or figurative sense of "literally"; the sentence from the novel was, "He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women at his arrival; it is literally to feed among the lilies."[6] The citation was still used in the OED's 2011 revision.[6]
Brooke died in Sleaford, England, aged 65.
Most entries are from Selected Bibliography: Frances Moore Brooke by Jessica Smith and Paula Backscheider, which also refers to editions of Frances Brooke's works and to full-length critical monographs and biographical studies of the author.
Brooke is widely seen by literary historians and critics as the first Canadian novelist for writing her 1769 work The History of Emily Montague.[8] Her literary reception is based mostly on this publication. It was popular among scholars after its recovery, with more than a dozen scholarly articles written on its subject matter by 2004.[9] Modern paperback reprints include a definitive scholarly edition.[10] Critics of Brooke have studied themes present in Emily Montague, such as applying free-trade imperialism to 18th-century Canada,[11] proto-feminism,[12] and displacing the French Catholic threat in British Columbian colonies.[13]
While the purpose and material of Emily Montague are often debated among critics, its reception as a work is largely neutral to negative. Recent critics such as Dermot McCarthy concede that "Brooke's inability to imagine her ambivalence... is understandable given her time and background.... However, her failure should not be endorsed."[14] Desmond Pacey, in his Essays in Canadian Criticism writes that "Emily Montague's artistic shortcomings are obvious: the plot is thin, conventional, repetitive, and poorly integrated with the informative sections of the book; the style is generally stilted and monotonous; the characters, with one or two exceptions, are traditional in conception and deficient in life; the whole performance is heavily didactic and sentimental."[15] Juliet McMaster cites Emily Montague as a source of inspiration and parody for Jane Austen's Love and Freindship, but states that overall, "Emily Montague is no mean literary achievement."[16] Even in its own time, views divided on its value. The Monthly Review in its September 1769 issue wrote that its "frost pieces... decorate a short story which has nothing extraordinary in it."[17] While Brooke is promoted as a Canadian novelist, Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia entry notes how "Brooke's work was based on English models and had no perceptible effect on Canadian literature."[8]
Other Brooke works, such as her 1777 novel The Excursion, have received scholarly interest for their pastoral traditions[18] and their political satire against the English theatre industry of the 18th century,[19] while some of her works such as her 1781 play The Siege of Sinopoe have close to no reception. Brooke's personal life is the subject of a number of scholarly journals, mostly on her relations with actors David Garrick and Mary Ann Yates.[20] Brooke herself was the subject of her own monograph,[21] and in recent years has gained popularity as the "destroyer of English (not literally)" after an online article published by the University of Pennsylvania, which regards Brooke as being used in the earliest Oxford English Dictionary citation of the hyperbolic use of the word "literally" to mean "figuratively".[22]
In 1985, the International Astronomical Union's Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature, approving 337 names for features on the surface of Venus, honoured Brooke by naming a crater after her.[23]
