by Cecily Ross
The references to “amber” eyes in the entries of November 11, 1834, and the final entry, December 31, 1839, I borrowed from Margaret Atwood’s poem “Departure from the Bush” in The Journals of Susanna Moodie. And I cannot take credit (nor can she) for Susanna’s observation in the entry of September 4, 1839, that “marriage demands much in the way of self-suppression and tolerance”; that honour goes to the great George Eliot.
This book is a work of the imagination, an attempt on my part to “get inside” Susanna Moodie’s head, and as such, it reflects many of my own prejudices, as well as my experiences as a daughter, mother, wife and sister. For that, I apologize.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the 1980s, I lived for a time with my two young daughters in a rented farmhouse in the countryside north of Port Hope. Across the road, there was a historical plaque nailed to a fence post, its bronze letters proclaiming the site of Susanna and John Dunbar Moodie’s first Canadian home. One summer afternoon, the girls and I climbed that fence, wandered across a rolling hayfield, and there beside a dry stream bed and a copse of young poplars, we could see a pile of rocks said to be the remains of the cattle shed where Susanna and John Moodie and their baby girl Kate spent their first Canadian winter, the “iron winter” of 1832.
As historical sites go, it isn’t much, but we used our imagination, and in the library of the rented farmhouse, we found a tattered copy of Roughing It in the Bush, Susanna’s account of her seven years in the wilderness. History came alive that summer for two little girls, aged eight and eleven, as we read about Susanna’s tragic, yet somehow absurd, travails. And her determined spirit seemed to reside with us in that old house set in the lee of a drumlin that Susanna herself may have climbed to gaze out over Lake Ontario and beyond at all she had so foolishly left behind. We were captivated by her story, marvelling at the nearly incomprehensible hardships she endured. What was it really like to bear and raise five children in a remote log cabin? To live on little more than potatoes all winter? To have no money to buy shoes for her children? To write stories and poems with an infant on her lap, by the light of a rag dipped in tallow, for the few dollars they might bring?
Mrs. Moodie has also haunted the imaginations of such Canadian luminaries as Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Robertson Davies, Charles Pachter and many others, in particular Charlotte Gray, whose 1999 biography, Sisters in the Wilderness, lifted Susanna and her sister Catharine Parr Traill from the mists of CanLit obscurity. I would like to thank them all and to apologize for having the temerity to add my voice to what surely amounts to a chorus of angels.
This book would never have happened without the support of my wonderful agent, Jackie Kaiser, whose faith in me over the years has been like a lifeline to a drowning person (I’m not kidding). As well as providing her encouragement and her brilliant negotiating skills, Jackie read two early drafts of this novel and provided invaluable editorial advice.
I owe everything (well, not everything, but a lot) to my editors: Helen Reeves, for helping me see the forest for the trees early on, and Jennifer Lambert at HarperCollins Canada, for her sensitivity to my work and her unfailing instincts. I cannot tell you what a privilege it has been to have had the benefits of your guidance.
My debt to Charlotte Gray is immense, for her generosity in reading an early draft, and for her encouragement. Trent University’s Michael Peterman, Canada’s premier Susanna Moodie scholar, was an early reader too. His vast knowledge saved me from more than a few embarrassing errors. I would also like to thank Hugh Brewster for reading the manuscript in its very early days, and for the benefits of his insight.
Thank you to my lovely and talented daughters, Leah McLaren and Meghan McLaren, for keeping Susanna Moodie alive all these years, and for teaching me about motherhood. I apologize for being such a slow learner.
And to my one and only Basil, without whom there would be no book. Not only did he create the space I needed in my life to write it, he was the one who for years kept saying, “You have to write the Susanna Moodie book,” until I finally did. I love you. Here it is.
A NOTE ON THE TYPE IN WHICH THIS BOOK IS SET
This book was set in Electra, a Linotype typeface designed in 1935 by William Addison Dwiggins. A man of many talents, he was an illustrator, calligrapher, writer and the first professional designer to dedicate his skill solely to books.
Electra is a typeface created for legibility but also for its ability to convey the warmth of human ideas, which makes it popular for setting poetry and lends an intimate, epistolary feel to this book. The namesake of this typeface is a heroine from Greek mythology, a woman of integrity capable of righting the wrongs of those closest to her, even at great cost to her person.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CECILY ROSS is an award-winning writer and editor who has worked at The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, Harrowsmith, the Cobourg Daily Star and The Peterborough Examiner. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Chatelaine, ON Nature and Zoomer magazine. She lives in Creemore, Ontario.
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CREDITS
COVER PHOTO © ROBIN MACMILLAN / TREVILLION IMAGES
COVER BACKGROUND: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
COPYRIGHT
The Lost Diaries of Susanna Moodie
Copyright © 2017 by Cecily Ross.
All rights reserved under all applicable International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
First Edition
Published by Harper Avenue, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
EPub Edition: April 2017 EPub ISBN: 9781443450218
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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ISBN 978-1-44345-019-5
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