"The History of Emily Montague" has been considered by critics ‘the first Canadian novel’, since it anticipates some of the main concerns of Canadian literature: the French-English conflicts, the contact with the wilderness and the tensions between nature and society.
The novel could also be considered as a fruit of the 18th-century British literature, since it is written in epistolary form, makes references to classic literature and the French philosophes Rousseau and Voltaire, presents character-types and treats themes hold dear by the English culture of the time like the conflict between city and countryside, courtship and marriage.
