Catharine Parr Traill

Shelley Boyd (McGill University)
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A significant figure in nineteenth-century Canadian literature and history, Catharine Parr (Strickland) Traill is best known for

The Backwoods of Canada: Being Letters from the Wife of an Emigrant Officer

(1836) – an autobiographical account of her journey to, and pioneer experiences in, Upper Canada (what is today the province of Ontario). Traill was a prolific, diverse writer and her output includes instructive emigrant manuals, children's literature, a novel, and botanical texts. The didactic nature and often-scientific focus of Traill's writing have often deterred literary scholars from enthusiastically embracing her work. The result is that Traill's accomplishments are often overshadowed by those of her more widely studied and celebrated sister, Susanna Moodie (1803-1885), who…

2178 words

Citation: Boyd, Shelley. "Catharine Parr Traill". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 November 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4438, accessed 19 March 2024.]

4438 Catharine Parr Traill 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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