Sara Jeannette Duncan, (22 December 1861 - 22 July 1922), was a Canadian author and journalist. She was the daughter of Charles Duncan of Brantford, Ontario. She was born in Brantford, Ontario in 1862. She was educated at the Collegiate Institute in Brantford, Ontario. Duncan first worked there as a schoolteacher before taking up writing journalism as a full-time occupation. Sara Jeannette Duncan published 22 books, including two volumes of personal sketches and a collection of short stories. One of her most famous sayings is "One loses many laughs by not laughing at oneself." Duncan is best known today for her 1904 novel The Imperialist, which tells the story of Lorne Murchison, a young lawyer in the fictional town of Elgin, Ontario who becomes an advocate of imperial preferential trade and unsuccessfully runs for the Parliament of Canada for the Liberal Party. The book has been widely praised by scholars as a sensitive and perceptive portrait of small-town Ontario at the turn of the twentieth century, and at the social mores of the time and place. In this book: An American Girl in London A Voyage of Consolation (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An American girl in London') The Imperialist The Pool in the Desert Hilda, A Story of Calcutta Down Under With the Prince The Path of a Star A Daughter of To-Day