A place to call home: Journeys of Eliza Fenwick (1766–1840)

In tracing the colonial odyssey of Eliza Fenwick (1766–1840) from Great Britain to Upper Canada, I show her as an immigration success. From her literary life in London as the author of Secresy (1795) and several innovative children’s books, she transformed herself, as a single working mother, and later grandmother, into a school owner, a businesswoman. At the heart of my essay is her search for social and financial security, a place to call home. Her extant – mostly unpublished – letters demonstrate that it was in the welcoming space of Upper Canada that she established a future for her descendants. Lissa Paul’s biography of Eliza Fenwick, Eliza Fenwick (1766–1840): A Life Rewritten, will be published by the University of Delaware Press in their Early Modern Feminisms Series, in early 2019.