Books by Catharine Parr Traill

Catharine Parr Traill (born Strickland; 1802 - 1899) was an English-Canadian author and naturalist who wrote about life in Canada, particularly what is now Ontario (then the colony of Upper Canada). Traill began writing children's books in 1818 like Disobedience; or, Mind What Mama Says (1819). She described her new life in Canada 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. 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) and Studies of Plant Life in Canada (1885). She died in Ontario in 1899.

This book has been deemed as a classic and has stood the test of time. The book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations.

Originally published in 1836, this was one of the few books on frontier Canada to give details of the domestic economy of a settler's life. Her target audience was the upper-class English immigrant. "It is not only the poor husbandmen and artisans, that move in vast bodies to the west, but it is the enterprising English capitalist, and the once affluent landholder, alarmed at the difficulties of establishing numerous families in independence, in a country where every profession is overstocked, that join the bands that Great Britain is pouring forth into these colonies! Of what vital importance is it that the female members of these most valuable colonists should obtain proper information regarding the important duties they are undertaking; that they should learn before hand to brace their minds to the task, and thus avoid the repinings and discontent that is apt to follow unfounded expectations and fallacious hopes!"