Catharine Parr Traill

Shelley Boyd (McGill University)

Ed. by Wendy Roy, University of Saskatchewan
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.1: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): Colonial and The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia), Cynthia Sugars (University of Ottawa)

Dates

Born 9 Jan 1802
Died 29 Aug 1899
Activity 1818-1895

Places

Born in England
Active in Canada; England

Activities

Primary

Botanist
Children's/Young Adult writer
Educationalist
Natural scientist
Novelist

Other

Essayist
Letter-writer/ Diarist
Travel writer

Resources

Traill's Works

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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…

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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 22 November 2024.]

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