Here's how the sentence should be written:
Mary Brown, a Canadian author, wrote *The Yellow Dress*.
Here's why italics are used:
* Clarity: Italics help distinguish the title from the rest of the sentence, making it clear what the book is.
* Standard Practice: Italicizing book titles is the widely accepted convention in English writing.
Underlining is an older practice used before computers made italics readily available. While still technically acceptable, it is not the preferred format today.
Quotation marks are used for titles of shorter works like articles, poems, songs, and chapters within a book.