Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Catharine Parr Traill
-
Standard Name: Traill, Catharine Parr
Birth Name: Catharine Parr Strickland
Married Name: 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 her skills in botany. Commenting on CPT
's outpouring of practical advice to female settlers, contemporary critic Clara Thomas
dubs her the Mrs Beeton
of nineteenth century Canada.
qtd. in
New, William H., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 99. Gale Research, 1990.
335
Traill also published a number of stories for children; the best of these incorporate her scientific observations. Characteristically, she wrote: Nothing that exists in the animal, vegetable or mineral world is unworthy of our attention.
qtd. in
New, William H., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 99. Gale Research, 1990.
SM
came from an aspiring middle-class family and was well-educated. Unlike their older siblings, she (with her sister Catharine Parr Traill
and another sister close to them in age) had difficulty establishing herself as a...
Family and Intimate relationships
Agnes Strickland
All but one of AS
's five sisters became writers when they grew up. Elizabeth
(1794-1875) became Agnes's collaborator or silent partner. Jane
wrote children's stories. Catharine
and Susanna
both emigrated with their husbands to...
A son arrived in August 1834, named for his father but called Dunbar
. SM
had seven children in eleven years; all were difficult pregnancies and births. One of SM
's midwives (besides her sister
Family and Intimate relationships
Susanna Moodie
After his death SM
moved in with her youngest son and his wife at Seaforth, Ontario, but later took rooms in various locations around Belleville. Eventually, she accepted her sister'sCatharine Parr Traill
invitation to come and...
Family and Intimate relationships
Elizabeth Strickland
ES
's closest relationship in her family was that with her next sister, Agnes
(1796-1874), together with whom she built her writing career. (From about mid-century if not earlier, their relationship was regularly disrupted by...
Literary responses
Margaret Laurence
Again one reviewer, this time a woman writing for a Canadian magazine, insisted against Laurence's protests that the novel was entirely autobiographical.
Laurence, Margaret. Dance on the Earth: A Memoir. McClelland and Stewart, 1989.
208
The Feminist Companion called The Divinersa spacious novel which translates experience...
Author summary
Agnes Strickland
AS
, writing in the middle nineteenth century, won renown as a historian and biographer, particularly of the British royal family and particularly of its female members. In fact all of these books were co-authored...
Publishing
Fredrika Bremer
In May 1852 Anna Maria Hall
's journal, Sharpe's London Magazine, carried FB's Impressions of England in 1851 (before her related book appeared, and along with an article by Catharine Parr Traill
).
“Wild Cattle Preserved in Parks.-”. The Times, No. 21098, 24 Apr. 1852, p. 2, https://link-gale-com.subzero.lib.uoguelph.ca/apps/doc/CS33719960/TTDA?u=guel77241&sid=bookmark-TTDA&xid=2975e4df.
21098 (24 April 1852): 2
Residence
Margaret Laurence
Her final home, to which she moved on 1 May 1974, was in Lakefield, Ontario (which as an early settlement had been the home of both Susanna Moodie
and Catharine Parr Traill
). Here ML
Residence
Susanna Moodie
SM
and her family relocated to a bush farm north of Peterborough, Ontario, in part to be closer to her sister's
and brother's
homes.
Gray, Charlotte. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Viking, 1999.
92, 97
Residence
Susanna Moodie
The Moodies bought some cleared farmland near Port Hope but had great difficulty evicting the former owners, the Harris family.
Gray, Charlotte. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Viking, 1999.
84
SM
's sister Catharine Parr Traill
and her husband had passed through the area...
Textual Features
George Eliot
The white neck-cloth species, exemplified by Caroline Scott
's The Old Grey Church, is both upper-class and fervently Evangelical in setting: a kind of genteel tract on a large scale, intended as a sort...
Textual Features
Susanna Moodie
Roughing It in the Bush is a collection of sketches about a difficult adjustment to pioneer life in Canada, based on real incidents in SM
's life before her move to Belleville and embellished...
Textual Production
Elizabeth Strickland
According to the British Library Catalogue (in 2007) ES
published a book of stories for children, Prejudice Reproved; or, The History of the Negro Toy-Seller, 1826, jointly with her sisters Agnes
and Catharine
...
Timeline
By 2 August 1856: Jane Margaret Strickland published a novel,...
Women writers item
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...
Texts
Traill, Catharine Parr, and Agnes Dunbar Moodie Chamberlin. Canadian Wild Flowers. Lovell, 1868.
Traill, Catharine Parr. Cot and Cradle Stories. Editor FitzGibbon, Mary Agnes, Briggs, 1895.
Traill, Catharine Parr. Lady Mary and Her Nurse; or, A Peep into the Canadian Forest. Hall, Virtue, 1856.
Traill, Catharine Parr. Little Downy; or, The History of a Field Mouse. Dean and Munday, 1822.
Traill, Catharine Parr, and Mary Agnes FitzGibbon. Pearls and Pebbles; or, Notes of an Old Naturalist. Briggs, 1894.
Strickland, Agnes et al. Prejudice Reproved; or, The History of the Negro Toy-Seller. Harvey and Darton, 1826.
Traill, Catharine Parr. Prejudice Reproved; or, The History of the Negro Toyseller. Harvey and Darton, 1826.
Traill, Catharine Parr. Reformation; or, The Cousins. Woodhouse, 1819.
Traill, Catharine Parr. Sketchbook of a Young Naturalist; or, Hints to the Students of Nature. 1831.
Traill, Catharine Parr, and Agnes Dunbar Moodie Chamberlin. Studies of Plant Life in Canada; or, Gleanings from Forest, Lake and Plain. Woodburn, 1885.
Traill, Catharine Parr. The Backwoods of Canada. Knight, 1836.
Traill, Catharine Parr. The Canadian Crusoes: A Tale of the Rice Lake Plains. Editor Strickland, Agnes, Hall, Virtue, 1852.
Traill, Catharine Parr. The Female Emigrant’s Guide, and Hints on Canadian Housekeeping. Maclear, 1854, 2 vols.
Traill, Catharine Parr. The Keepsake Guineas; or, The Best Use of Money. Newman, 1828.
Traill, Catharine Parr. The Tell Tale: An Original Collection of Moral and Amusing Stories. Harris, 1818.
Traill, Catharine Parr. The Young Emigrants; or, Pictures of Life in Canada. Harvey and Darton, 1826.