Catharine Parr Traill
| Catharine Parr Traill | |
|---|---|
 Catharine Parr Traill, Canadian settler and author | |
| Born | 9 January 1802 |
| Died | 29 August 1899 (aged 97) |
| Occupation | Author |
| Genre | Children's and Settler Literature |
Catharine Parr Traill (born Strickland; 9 January 1802 – 29 August 1899) was an English-Canadian author and naturalist who wrote about life as a settler in Canada.
Biography
She was born Catharine Parr Strickland in Rotherhithe in 1802, sister to authors Agnes Strickland, Jane Margaret Strickland, Susanna Moodie, and Elisabeth Strickland.[1] She was the first of the sisters to commence writing. She began writing children's books in 1818, after the death of her father. Her early work, such as Disobedience, or Mind What Mama Says (1819), and "Happy Because Good", were written for children, and often dwell on the benefits of obedience to one's parents. A prolific author, until her marriage she averaged one book per year. In 1832, she married Lieutenant Thomas Traill, a retired officer of the Napoleonic Wars and a friend of her sister's husband, John Moodie, despite objections from her family (aside from Susanna). Soon after their marriage they left for Upper Canada, settling near Peterborough, where her brother Samuel was a surveyor. Her sister, Mrs. Susanna Moodie, emigrated soon afterwards.
She described her new life in letters and journals, and collected these into The Backwoods of Canada (1836), which continues to be read as an important source of information about early Canada. She describes everyday life in the community, the relationship between Canadians, Americans, and natives, the climate, and local flora and fauna. More observations were included in a novel, Canadian Crusoes (1851). She also collected information concerning the skills necessary for a new settler, published in The Female Emigrant's Guide (1854), later retitled The Canadian Settler's Guide. She wrote "Pearls and Pebbles" and "Cot and Cradle Stories".
After suffering through the depression of 1836, her husband Thomas joined the militia in 1837 to fight against the Upper Canada Rebellion. In 1840, dissatisfied with life in "the backwoods", the Traills and the Moodies both moved to the city of Belleville. While Susanna was more concerned with the differences between rural and urban life, Catharine spent her years in Belleville writing about the natural environment. She often sketched the plant life of Upper Canada, publishing Canadian Wild Flowers (1865), Studies of Plant Life in Canada (1885) and "Rambles in the Canadian Forest".
She received a grant c. 1899 from the Royal Bounty Fund, which was supplemented by a subscription from her friends in Canada, headed by Sir Sandford Fleming. She died at her residence, "Westove," in Lakefield, Ontario on 28 August 1899.[2]
Her many albums of plant collections are housed in the National Herbarium of Canada at the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Recognition
Trent University, in Peterborough, Ontario, named their downtown campus after her. Catharine Parr Traill College is the University's main college for graduate studies.
Commemorative postage stamp
On 8 September 2003, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the National Library of Canada, Canada Post released a special commemorative series, "The Writers of Canada", with aign by Katalina Kovats, featuring two English-Canadian and two French-Canadian stamps. Three million stamps were issued. Traill and her sister Susanna Moodie were featured on one of the English-Canadian stamps.[3]
Bibliography
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Catharine Parr Traill. |
- The Tell Tale – 1818
- Disobedience – 1819
- Reformation – 1819
- Nursery Fables – 1821
- Little Downy – 1822
- The Flower-Basket – 1825
- Prejudice Reproved – 1826
- The Young Emigrants – 1826
- The Juvenile Forget-Me-Not – 1827
- The Keepsake Guineas – 1828
- Amendment – 1828
- Sketches from Nature – 1830
- Sketch Book of a Young Naturalist – 1831
- Narratives of Nature – 1831
- The Backwoods of Canada – 1836
- Canadian Crusoes – 1852
- The Female Emigrant's Guide – 1854
- Lady Mary and Her Nurse – 1856
- Canadian Wild Flowers – 1868
- Studies of plant life in Canada, or, Gleanings from forest, lake and plain (Q20891795) – 1885
- Pearls and Pebbles – 1894
- Cot and Cradle Stories – 1895
References
- ↑ Rosemary Mitchell, ‘Strickland, Agnes (1796–1874)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 26 May 2015
- ↑ Morgan, Henry James Types of Canadian women and of women who are or have been connected with Canada : (Toronto, 1903)
- ↑ "50th Anniversary of the National Library / Canadian Authors," Canada Post, Web, 28 March 2011.
Further reading
Ainley, Marianne Gosztonyi (1970–80). "Traill, Catharine Parr". Dictionary of Scientific Biography 25. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 78–80. ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9.
External links
- Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
- Information about Traill and her sister Moodie from the Libraries and Archives Canada
- Works by Catharine Parr Strickland Traill at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Catharine Parr Traill at Internet Archive
- Works by Catharine Parr Traill at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Find-A-Grave biography
- Traill, Catherine Parr Strickland.
- The Canadian Crusoes; a tale of the Rice Lake plains. New York : C.S. Francis & Co., 1853. Accessed 18 July 2012, in PDF format.
- The female emigrant's guide, and hints on Canadian housekeeping (also published under title: The Canadian settler's guide (1855).). Toronto, C.W. : Maclear & Co., 1854. Accessed 18 July 2012, in PDF format.
- The Canadian emigrant housekeeper's guide. Toronto : Lovell & Gibson, 1862. Accessed 18 July 2012, in PDF format. (Includes some of the material in The female emigrant's guide, with an appendix of official information and statistics to 1861.)
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