Susanna Moodie, originally named Susanna Strickland, was born on December 6, 1803, and died on April 8, 1885. She was an English-born Canadian author who wrote about her life as a settler in Canada, which was under British rule during her lifetime.
Family
Susanna Moodie was born in Bungay, located on the River Waveney in Suffolk. She was one of the youngest sisters in a family of writers, such as Agnes Strickland, Jane Margaret Strickland, and Catharine Parr Traill.
Early career
She authored her first children's book in 1822 and published additional children's stories in London, including books about Spartacus and Jugurtha. In London, she also worked with the abolitionist group Anti-Slavery Society, helping to record the story of Mary Prince, a former Caribbean slave.
Marriage and move to Upper Canada
On April 4, 1831, she married John Moodie, a retired officer who had fought in the Napoleonic Wars.
In 1832, she, her husband (a British Army officer), and their daughter moved to Upper Canada. The family settled on a farm in Douro township, near Lakefield, north of Peterborough. Her brother Samuel Strickland (1804–1867) worked as a surveyor in the area. A museum, founded by Samuel, is located there. The museum was once an Anglican church and overlooks the Otonabee River, where Susanna once traveled by canoe. It displays artifacts related to Samuel, as well as her older sister and writer Catharine, who married a friend of John Moodie’s and moved to the same area a few weeks before Susanna and John.
While in Canada, Moodie continued to write. Her letters and journals provide important details about life in the colony. She described daily life in what was then the remote parts of Ontario, including Indigenous customs, the weather, animals, relationships between Canadian residents and recent American settlers, and the strong sense of community. This included shared work, called "bees," which she disliked. She experienced economic hardship in 1836. Her husband also served in the militia during the Upper Canada Rebellion in 1837, fighting against William Lyon Mackenzie.
As a middle-class Englishwoman, Moodie did not enjoy living in the wilderness, which she called "the bush." In 1840, she and her husband moved to Belleville, which she referred to as "the clearings." She studied the Family Compact and supported moderate reformers led by Robert Baldwin. However, she criticized radical reformers like William Lyon Mackenzie. This created challenges for her husband, who shared her views but had to work with members of the Family Compact as sheriff of Belleville.
Writing career
Susanna Moodie was part of a family known for writing many books, similar to the Bronte, Edgeworth, and Trollope families. Several of her sisters became authors, including Agnes Strickland, Elizabeth Strickland, Catharine Parr Traill, and Jane Margaret Strickland. Agnes and Elizabeth wrote many books about the lives of royalty.
Catharine Parr Traill and Jane Margaret Strickland wrote stories, books about nature, and other popular works. Their brother, Samuel Strickland, later wrote a book about life in Canada.
The Strickland children lived in a large house called Reydon Hall, which had a big library with many books. Their parents taught them at home, and they studied subjects like literature, history, languages, and practical skills.
When their father died in 1818 and money became scarce, Susanna and her younger sisters helped support the family by writing for publications that accepted work from women. These included children’s books, magazines for women, and annual gift books, which paid small but steady amounts.
Moodie published her first children’s book in 1822. She later wrote stories about historical figures like Spartacus and Jugurtha. She also wrote regularly for magazines aimed at women. Her sisters wrote biographies of royal women for magazines like the Lady’s Magazine and Museum and the Court Magazine, while Moodie’s descriptions of rural life appeared in La Belle Assemblee in 1827–28. These early writings about life in England later inspired her Canadian stories.
While living in London, Moodie connected with the Anti-Slavery Society through its leader, Thomas Pringle. She sent him poems and stories for a gift book called Friendship’s Offering. They became friends and visited Pringle’s home in Hampstead, where she met people from the West Indies who had been enslaved. These experiences inspired her to write about slavery. In 1831, she published two books: The History of Mary Prince and Negro Slavery Described by a Negro. The second book began with her own description of waking up to the harsh realities of slavery and injustice. At the same time, she wrote reviews for Pringle and published poetry in popular magazines like Forget Me Not and Friendship’s Offering.
Moodie also wrote poetry, which was a major part of her early work. She and her sister Agnes published a book of patriotic songs in 1830. In 1831, Moodie published a collection of poems called Enthusiasm; and Other Poems, which included both old and new poems.
Her early poems showed her strong religious beliefs. The poem Enthusiasm encouraged readers to think about their values. Other poems in the collection had serious messages, such as "The Deluge," "The Avenger of Blood," and "The Destruction of Babylon." The title poem emphasized that everyday passions fade, but faith and spiritual discipline last longer.
Moodie also wrote poems about slavery, like "An Appeal to the Free." Her poetry appeared in English and Canadian magazines throughout the 1830s.
After moving to Upper Canada in 1832, Moodie continued writing. She sent poetry and short stories to publishers in England and North America. Her early works appeared in the Canadian Literary Magazine in 1833 and the New York Albion in 1835. In 1838, she began writing for the Literary Garland and became one of its main contributors. She published poems and short stories about Canada, which later became the basis for her memoir Roughing It in the Bush.
Her journals and letters recorded her experiences in Douro Township and Belleville. These writings grew into three major nonfiction books. She published Roughing It in the Bush in 1852. In 1853, she wrote Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush, which focused on her time in Belleville. She also wrote Life in the Backwoods, a follow-up to her earlier experiences.
Together, these books describe her journey from England to Canada and the challenges of starting a new life. Roughing It in the Bush became her most famous work. It was written at the request of her publisher, who wanted a guide for British emigrants. Instead of promoting Canada as an easy place to live, Moodie wrote honestly about the difficulties of settling there. She warned readers that Canada was not a perfect place, as many in England believed, but she hoped to prepare those who were unprepared for the hard work of farming.
Readers in the 19th century praised Roughing It in the Bush for its vivid descriptions of settlers, rural life, and nature. The book remains important in Canadian literary studies and is studied as history, early realism, local-color writing, and part of the Romantic tradition.
Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush was also written at her publisher’s request. It focused on life in growing towns and included Moodie’s observations about local institutions, public life, and social habits during a time of change in Canada.
Alongside her nonfiction, Moodie wrote many novels. Some of her early stories from England were later expanded and published in the Literary Garland before becoming full-length novels. For example, "The Miser and His Son" became Mark Hurdlestone in 1853, and "Jane Redgrave" and "The Doctor Distressed" were rewritten as Matrimonial Speculations in 1854. Her other novels include Flora Lyndsay, Geoffrey Moncton, and The World Before Them.
Many of her novels are set in England and follow themes like moral choices, hardship, and the consequences of bad behavior. The endings usually follow the pattern of 19th-century fiction, where good is rewarded and bad is punished.
From 1847 to 1848, Moodie and her husband edited and wrote most of the content for the Victoria Magazine, a short-lived publication for mechanics and tradesmen. It had about 475 subscribers.
Between 1852 and 1854, Moodie worked with the London publisher Richard Bentley. She contributed short pieces to Bentley’s Miscellany and published six books through his firm in three years. These included Roughing It in the Bush (1852), Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush (1853), and Flora Lyndsay (1854), along with three other books set in England that expanded earlier works she had published in North American magazines.
Her agreements with Bentley varied, ranging from selling the rights to her books outright to sharing profits from sales.
Family legacy in illustration
Moodie taught her daughter, Agnes, how to paint flowers. Agnes later drew pictures for the book Canadian Wild Flowers, which was published in 1868.
Recognition
Margaret Atwood was inspired by Susanna Moodie's books and poetry when she wrote her collection of poems, The Journals of Susanna Moodie, which was published in 1970. Moodie's work also influenced Atwood's later novel, Alias Grace, which is based on the story of Grace Marks, a convicted murderer. This story was originally written in a book called Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush. Carol Shields, another writer, was also inspired by Moodie. Shields wrote a detailed study of Moodie's work titled Susanna Moodie: Voice and Vision. In Shields' novel Small Ceremonies, the main character is writing a biography about Moodie.
On September 8, 2003, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the National Library of Canada, Canada Post released a special set of stamps called "The Writers of Canada." The stamps, designed by Katalina Kovats, included two English-Canadian and two French-Canadian writers. Three million stamps were made. Susanna Moodie and her sister, Catherine Parr Traill, were shown on one of the English-Canadian stamps.