Susanna Moodie

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SM is best remembered for her first-person narrative of pioneer life in Canada, Roughing It in the Bush, 1852, considered a foundational work of Canadian literature. She was a prolific author who wrote children's stories, sketches, novels, poetry, and other non-fiction. Her work has proved important for two contemporary Canadian writers, Margaret Atwood and Carol Shields .
  • BirthName: Susanna Strickland
  • Married: Moodie
  • Pseudonym: Z. Z.
    Critic John Thurston speculates that SM may have borrowed the initials from the Biblical story of Zebah and Zalmunna, a story she paraphrased in The Iris: A Literary and Religious Offering.
    Thurston, John. “‘The Casket of Truth’: The Social Significance of Susanna Moodie’s Spiritual Dilemmas”. Canadian Poetry, Vol.
    35
    , 1 Sept.–28 Feb. 1994.
    3

Milestones

6 December 1803

Susanna Strickland (later SM ) was born at Bungay in Suffolk, the youngest of six sisters.
Gray, Charlotte. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Viking, 1999.
5
Peterman, Michael. Susanna Moodie: A Life. ECW Press, 1999.
21

1822

Susanna Strickland, later SM , published her first book at the age of nineteen with the London firm A. K. Newman : Spartacus, A Roman Story, a historical fiction set in the ancient world.
New, William H., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 99. Gale Research, 1990.
247
Peterman, Michael. Susanna Moodie: A Life. ECW Press, 1999.
30

By 15 February 1852

Susanna Moodie published her personal narrative Roughing It in the Bush; or, Life in Canada, dedicated to her sister Agnes Strickland , Author of the Lives of the Queens of England.
Moodie, Susanna, and Susan Glickman. Roughing It in the Bush. McClelland and Stewart, 1989.
v
In fact Agnes was joint author with their unmentioned sister Elizabeth .
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
1285 (1852): 644
Milner, Nina. “Susanna Moodie (1803-1885)”. Canadian Poetry Archive: National Library of Canada.
Peterman, Michael. Susanna Moodie: A Life. ECW Press, 1999.
142-3

16 June 1852

In a Canadian review of Roughing It, Charles Lindsay accused SM of being an ape of the aristocracy, too poor to lie on a sofa and too proud to labour for a living; he apologized a year later.
Peterman, Michael. Susanna Moodie: A Life. ECW Press, 1999.
144

1875

SM published in Edinburgh her last novel: George Leatrim; or, The Mother's Test.
New, William H., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 99. Gale Research, 1990.
247
Milner, Nina. “Susanna Moodie (1803-1885)”. Canadian Poetry Archive: National Library of Canada.
Moodie, Susanna. George Leatrim; or, The Mother’s Test. Hamilton, 1875.

11 April 1885

SM died in her daughter's home at 152 Adelaide Street East, Toronto, after thirty-six hours of violent hallucinations and nightmares.
Gray, Charlotte. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Viking, 1999.
321
Peterman, Michael. Susanna Moodie: A Life. ECW Press, 1999.
172

Biography

Birth and Influences

6 December 1803

Susanna Strickland (later SM ) was born at Bungay in Suffolk, the youngest of six sisters.
Gray, Charlotte. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Viking, 1999.
5
Peterman, Michael. Susanna Moodie: A Life. ECW Press, 1999.
21

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