Julia Catherine Beckwith Hart (March 10, 1796 – November 28, 1867) is credited for being Canada's first Canadian-born fiction novelist and romance author.

[1] Hart's father Nehemiah Beckwith (U. E. L.), was from New England and settled in New Brunswick in 1780, where he owned a successful ship building company.

[2] In 1824, Hugh C. Thomson agreed to publish St. Ursula's Convent or, The Nun of Canada; Containing Scenes from Real Life, and as Hart wished, as an anonymous author.

[2] Later, Hart 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.

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.