In Elgin, Ontario, a burgeoning community in young Canada, Lorne Murchison must balance his political aspirations and his support for the imperialist ideal with his romantic aspirations. Meanwhile, his sister, Advena, falls in love with a young minister, who is already engaged to another woman.

An examination of Canadian values in the late nineteenth century, The Imperialist serves as a comedy of manners and an important depiction of life in small-town Ontario. The novel has since become Sara Jeanette Duncan’s best-known work.

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Sara Jeannette Duncan was a Canadian author and journalist best known for The Imperialist, considered to be one of the first modern Canadian novels. Educated as a teacher, Duncan shifted to journalism, acting as a travelling writer for Canadian newspapers in addition to writing columns for The Globe and later for the Washington Post. Following her marriage to an Anglo-Indian civil servant, Duncan turned to fiction, and went on to publish more than twenty novels. Duncan died in 1922, shortly after settling in Surrey, England, with her husband.

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