Susanna Moodie

A subject of fascination for writers like Margaret Atwood and Timothy Findley, Susanna Moodie was a Romantic writer from a celebrated literary family whose life changed forever when she and her husband embarked from England for the backwoods of Canada in 1832. Misled by land merchants, the Moodies discovered that settlement in Upper Canada was far from pastoral but rather a wild frontier. Utterly unprepared for pioneer life, they soon found themselves starving in a hostile wilderness. With her husband absent in the army during the 1837 Rebellions, Susanna began publishing her writing to feed and clothe her growing family. The result was the book Roughing It in the Bush--Moodie's aggravated and acerbic testament of pioneer life was praised in England but turned her into a controversial figure. Two centuries later she is now honored as an early feminist and literary pioneer. Susanna Moodie: Roughing It in the Bush brings the words of this controversial yet fascinating woman to life through the insightful writing of Carol Shields.