Dunicliff, Joy. Mary Howitt: Another Lost Victorian Writer. Excalibur Press of London, 1992.
148, 210-11
Susanna Moodie
-
Standard Name: Moodie, Susanna
Birth Name: Susanna Strickland
Married Name: Susanna Moodie
Pseudonym: Z. Z.
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
.
Connections
| Connections Sort descending | Author name | Excerpt |
|---|---|---|
| Cultural formation | Mary Howitt | |
| Education | Carol Shields | Later she took advantage of her position as a faculty wife to enroll for a course in writing for magazines (at her husband's suggestion) at the University of Toronto
—which changed the direction of her... |
| Family and Intimate relationships | Agnes Strickland | |
| Family and Intimate relationships | Elizabeth Strickland | |
| Family and Intimate relationships | Catharine Parr Traill | Her sisters included the writers Agnes Strickland
, Elizabeth Strickland
, and Susanna Moodie
. She shared a particularly close bond with Susanna, her fellow emigrant. Gray, Charlotte. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Viking, 1999. 5, 212 |
| Friends, Associates | Mary Russell Mitford | She knew most of the literary women of her day, including Felicia Hemans
(who wrote to ask her for an autograph), L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, editor. The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford as Recorded in Letters from Her Literary Correspondents. Hurst and Blackett, 1882. 1: 173-4 Mitford, Mary Russell. The Life of Mary Russell Mitford: Told by Herself in Letters To Her Friends. L’Estrange, Alfred Guy KinghamEditor , Harper and Brothers, 1870. 2: 213 |
| Intertextuality and Influence | Margaret Atwood | Several of these poems, like Death of a Young Son by Drowning, treat actual incidents of Moodie's life while transforming the plaintive tone adopted in Moodie's own narratives into one of tragedy. Atwood's handling... |
| Intertextuality and Influence | Margaret Atwood | |
| Intertextuality and Influence | Mary Russell Mitford | Our Village is often said to have inaugurated its genre of small-scale, local-colour sketch writing, but (apart from Washington Irving
's Geoffrey Crayon's Sketch Book, 1819) it owes an obvious debt to the work... |
| Leisure and Society | Mary Prince | Nothing is known of her non-working life as a free woman except that she attended the wedding of Susanna Strickland
on 4 April 1831. |
| Literary responses | Louisa Anne Meredith | This publication, often considered her most significant, positions her as the first permanent Tasmanian woman resident to author a book on the new colony. Brothers, Barbara, and Julia Gergits, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 166. Gale Research, 1996. 166: 261 |
| politics | Mary Prince | They did this because so long as her owner refused to manumit her, she could not go back to the Caribbean without again becoming subject to his absolute will. Alexander, Ziggi, Mary Prince, and Ziggi Alexander. “Introduction; Supplement; Appendices”. The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, edited by Moira Ferguson, Pandora, 1987, pp. 1 - 41. 85-8, 89-92 |
| Author summary | Catharine Parr Traill | CPT
, sister of the writers Elizabeth
and Agnes Strickland
and Susanna Moodie
, is best known for her naturalist writing about nineteenth-century Upper Canada. She was a letter-writer widely respected and eventually rewarded for... |
| Reception | Catharine Parr Traill | CPT
's writing is generally regarded as the optimistic counterpoint to her sister Susanna Moodie
's gloomy take on Canadian pioneer life. |
| Residence | Catharine Parr Traill | CPT
and her husband
left England for Canada just days before Susanna Moodie
and her husband
also left. They were eager to claim Thomas Traill's military land grant. Gray, Charlotte. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Viking, 1999. 47 New, William H., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 99. Gale Research, 1990. 332 |
Timeline
3 June 1829
Publisher Henry Colburn
went into partnership with Richard Bentley (1794 - 1871)
(who, in order to do this, had just dissolved the partnership between himself and his brother Samuel Bentley
as printers).
By 2 August 1856
Jane Margaret Strickland
published a novel, Adonijah, a tale of the Jewish Dispersion; it was shortly attacked by George Eliot
in Silly Novels by Lady Novelists as one of the deplorable types of fiction...