Catherine Parr Traill

Though her life was largely circumscribed by domesticity and poverty both in England and in Canada, Catharine Parr Traill's interests, experiences, and contacts were broad and various. Her contribution to our knowledge of nineteenth-century Canadian life, from a literary, historical, social, and scientific perspective, was significant. Chosen from her nearly 500 extant letters, the 136 presented here vividly reflect typical aspects of social and family life, attachments to the Old World, health and medical conditions, travel, religious faith and practice, the stresses of settlement in Upper Canada in the 1830s, and the dispersal of families with the opening up of the Canadian and American West. Together with the introductory essays, Traill's correspondence offers an intimate and revealing portrait of a courageous, caring, and remarkable woman - mother, pioneer, writer, and botanist.

From the book:"Nurse, what is the name of that pretty creature you have in your hand? What bright eyes it has! What a soft tail - just like a gray feather! Is it a little beaver?" asked the Governor's little daughter, as her nurse came into the room where her young charge, whom we shall call Lady Mary, was playing with her doll. Carefully sheltered against her breast, its velvet nose just peeping from beneath her muslin neckerchief, the nurse held a small gray-furred animal, of the most delicate form and colour.

Many a mid-nineteenth century "female settler" must have had cause to feel gratitude to this comprehensive and live Guide, and the remarkable lady who wrote it. The book abounds with useful information from bread and pickle-making to what to do if your cabin catches fire, and how best to combat loneliness in the Ontario bush. It discusses manners, morality, what the sensible pioneer should wear, and how to raise chickens. It tells you how to raise flowers and vegetables, how to cope with illness with no doctor in reach, and abounds with practical suggestions for entertaining and interior decorating, even while in the wilderness. It is not surprising that The Canadian Settler's Guide has become a genuine classic of Canadiana. Written in a clear, lucid prose, its author's versatility, imagination, and common sense still shine from every page. Catherine Parr Traill was a young bride when she exchanged the comforts of upper-class English society for the rigour of pioneer existence. And she took the taming of the Canadian bush into her stride as gracefully as she had once entertained the vicar at tea. Her diverting and informative Guide remains as fascinating today as when it was first written.

The toils, troubles, and satisfactions of pioneer life are recorded with charm and vivacity on The Backwoods of Canada, by Catherine Parr Traill, who, like her sister Susanna Moodie, left the comforts of genteel English society for the rigours of a new, young land. Traill offers a vivid and honest account of her trip to North America and of her first two and a helf years living in the bush country near Peterborough, Ontario. Treasured by its nineteenth-century readers as an important source of practical information, The Backwoods of Canada is an extraordinary portrayal of pioneer life by one of early Canada's most remarkable women. The New Canadian Library edition is an unabridged reprint of the complete original text and all its illustrations.

A facsimile of the 1826 edition of the adventures of an English family that settles in Canada in the early nineteenth century.