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Moodie, Susanna, 1803-1885We have 6 books for this author.Susanna Moodie, née Strickland (6 December 1803 – 8 April 1885) was a British-Canadian author who wrote about her experiences as a settler in Canada.  Moodie, younger sister of Catharine Parr Traill, was one of a family of writers. She wrote her first children's book in 1822, and published other children's stories in London, including books about Spartacus and Jugurtha. In London she was also involved in the anti-slavery movement. On 4 April 1831, she married John Moodie, a retired officer who had served in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1832, with her husband and daughter, Moodie emigrated to Canada. The family settled on a farm, in Douro township, near Peterborough, Upper Canada, where her brother Samuel worked as a surveyor. Moodie continued to write in Canada and her letters and journals contain valuable information about life in the colony. She observed life in what was then the backwoods of Ontario, including native customs, relations between the Canadian population and recent American, the strong sense of community and the communal work known as "bees", the climate, and the wildlife. She suffered through the economic depression in 1836, and her husband served in the militia against William Lyon Mackenzie in the Upper Canada Rebellion in 1837. As a middle class Englishwoman Moodie did not particularly enjoy "the bush", as she called it. She and her husband moved to Belleville in 1840, which she referred to as "the clearings". Here she described urban life, including religion, art, and education, especially as compared to relative lack of these things in "the bush". She studied the Family Compact and became sympathetic to the moderate reformers led by Robert Baldwin, while remaining critical of radical reformers such as William Lyon Mackenzie. This caused problems for her husband, who shared her views, but, as sheriff of Belleville, had to work with members and supporters of the Family Compact. In 1852, she published Roughing it in the Bush, detailing her experiences on the farm in the 1830s. In 1853, she published Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush, about her time in Belleville. She remained in her cottage in Belleville after her husband's death, and lived to see Canadian Confederation. She died in Toronto, Ontario in 1885. Her books and poetry inspired Margaret Atwood's collection of poetry, The Journals of Susanna Moodie, published in 1970. It was also an important influence on one of Atwood's later novels, Alias Grace, based on an account of murder convict Grace Marks which appeared in Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush. Her greatest success was Roughing it in the Bush; which came of a suggestion by her editor that she write an "emmigrant's guide" for British citizens, looking to move to Canada. But, unlike most of these tomes, Moodie wrote of the trials and tribulations she found as a "New Canadian", rather than the advantages to be had in the colony. She claimed her book wasn't meant to discourage immigration to Canada, but as a warning to people raised in relative wealth as herself and her family, with no prior experience as farmers. BibliographyNovels
Poetry
Children's books
Memoirs
Letters
External links
This biographical information was gathered from the Susanna_Moodie page, courtesy of the Wikipedia project. BooksGeorge LeatrimLife in the Backwoods Life in the Clearings versus the Bush Mark Hurdlestone Or, The Two Brothers The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I Roughing It in the Bush |
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