. First published in 1950, A Gentlewoman in Upper Canada is a classic work of early pioneering literature. This new, significantly expanded edition includes many of Langton's original illustrations and reveals Langton's views on writing, art, and women's social and familial roles in nineteenth-century Europe and Canada.

The Langton family emigrated from England to the Peterborough, Ontario area in the 1830's.

In The Backwoods of Canada and The Canadian Settler's Guide, Catherine Parr Traill described a pioneer woman's role on the Ontario frontier, presenting an idealized portrait of the Canadian woman pioneer in the mid-nineteenth century. By transposing this figure into fiction, Traill managed to create what was, in effect, a new fictional character type: the pioneer woman.

Ontario was known as "Upper Canada" from 1791 to 1841.

In 1801 a group of Quakers settled at the north end of Yonge Street in what is now Toronto, purposefully separating themselves from mainstream society in order to live out their faith free from the larger society. Yet in 1837, Quakers were among the most active participants in the Upper Canadian Rebellion, for which one of their leaders, Samuel Lount, was hanged.

Arguing that the role of Upper Canadian women in the overall economy of the early colonial period has been greatly undervalued by contemporary historians. Jane Errington illustrates how the work they did, particularly as wives and mothers, played a significant role in the development of the colony.