, Margaret Atwood\'s third major volume of verse, was inspired by the writing of Susanna Strickland Moodie (1803-1885), an English emigrant to Upper Canada. These are among Atwood\'s best-known poems, and they have exerted a very significant influence on later Canadian literature and literary criticism.
The book comprises a sequence of eighteen poems, divided into three Journals, together with a prose Afterword. They are loosely based on the sequence of events described in Susanna Moodie\'s autobiographical books Roughing It in the Bush (1852) and Life in the Clearings (1853). Atwood\'s first Journal depicts Moodie\'s 1832 journey across the Atlantic and up the St. Lawrence, her seven years living in the backwoods (during which time several of her children
965 words
Citation: Hammill, Faye. "The Journals of Susanna Moodie". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 June 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=466, accessed 24 November 2024.]
