SOURCE: "All's Right at Last: An Eighteenth-Century Canadian Novel," in Journal of Canadian Fiction, Vol. 21, 1977-78, pp. 95-104.

In the following essay, McMullen outlines the authorship controversy concerning All's Right at Last, and argues for the text's significance as the second Canadian novel; in theme and setting, the novel suggests Brooke's hand, though the work is of inferior quality to her earlier novels.

Could you believe that this divine girl should make me prefer the cold frost and snow of Canada to the mild winter of my native country; and that I would rather gaze on her bright eyes than partake of your most brilliant amusements?¹

In 1774, five years after the publication of The History of Emily Montague, the circulating library of Frances and John Noble in London published All's Right At Last; or, The History of Frances West. The style is epistolary, the setting for the most...