Eliza Lanesford Cushing's dramatic sketches and full-length plays, originally published in Lady's Book and the Literary Garland between 1839 and 1845, mark the beginning of playwriting as a literary art form in English Canada. Born on 19 October 1794 in Brighton, Massachussetts, Cushing was already an established writer before moving to Montreal with her husband, Dr. Frederick Cushing, in 1833. Her mother, Hannah Webster Foster, was the author of one of the earliest American novels, The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton (1797). Her father, John Foster, the popular pastor of the Congregationalist Unitarian Church in Brighton, published seventeen sermons from 1799 to 1821.

The Foster daughters, Eliza, Harriet, and T. D. Foster, who became the wife of the lecturer and essayist Rev. Henry Giles of Boston, were greatly influenced by the literary and religious work of their parents. Eliza and Harriet collaborated on The Sunday School or Village Sketches, written for "the Sabbath readings...