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Susanna Moodie, née Strickland (6 December 1803 – 8 April 1885) was a British author who wrote about her experiences as a settler in Canada.

Moodie, younger sister of Catharine Parr Traill, and was one of a family of writers. She wrote her first children's book in 1822, and published other children's stories in London, including books about Spartacus and Jugurtha. In London she was also involved in the anti-slavery movement. On 4 April 1831, she married John Moodie, a retired officer who had served in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1832, with her husband and daughter, Moodie emigrated to Canada. The family settled on a farm, in Douro township, near Peterborough, Upper Canada, where her brother Samuel worked as a surveyor.

Moodie continued to write in Canada and her letters and journals contain valuable information about life in the colony. She observed life in what was then the backwoods of Ontario, including native customs, relations between the Canadian population and recent American, the strong sense of community and the communal work known as "bees", the climate, and the wildlife. She suffered through the economic depression in 1836, and her husband served in the militia against William Lyon Mackenzie in the Upper Canada Rebellion in 1837.

As a middle class Englishwoman Moodie did not particularly enjoy "the bush", as she called it. She and her husband moved to Belleville in 1840, which she referred to as "the clearings". Here she described urban life, including religion, art, and education, especially as compared to relative lack of these things in "the bush". She studied the Family Compact and became sympathetic to the moderate reformers led by Robert Baldwin, while remaining critical of radical reformers such as William Lyon Mackenzie. This caused problems for her husband, who shared her views, but, as sheriff of Belleville, had to work with members and supporters of the Family Compact.

In 1852, she published Roughing it in the Bush, detailing her experiences on the farm in the 1830s. In 1853, she published Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush, about her time in Belleville. She remained in her cottage in Belleville after her husband's death, and lived to see Canadian Confederation. She died in Toronto, Ontario in 1885.

Her books and poetry inspired Margaret Atwood's collection of poetry, The Journals of Susanna Moodie, published in 1970. It was also an important influence on one of Atwood's later novels, Alias Grace, which was based on an account from one Moodie's books.

Contents 1 Bibliography 1.1 Novels 1.2 Poetry 1.3 Children's books 1.4 Memoirs 1.5 Letters 2 External links

• Mark Hurdlestone - 1853
• Flora Lyndsay - 1854
• Matrimonial Speculations - 1854
• Geoffrey Moncton - 1855
• The World Before Them - 1868

• Patriotic Songs - 1830 (with Agnes Strickland)
• Enthusiastic and Other Poems - 1831

• Spartacus - 1822
• The Little Quaker
• The Sailor Brother
• The Little Prisoner
• Hugh Latimer - 1828
• Rowland Massingham
• Profession and Principle
• George Leatrim - 1875

• Roughing It in the Bush - 1852
• "Life in the Backwoods; A Sequel to Roughing it in the Bush"
• Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush - 1853

• Letters of a Lifetime - 1985 (edited by Carl Ballstadt, Elizabeth Hopkins, and Michael Peterman)

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Works by Susanna Moodie at Project Gutenberg