[Goldfinch and thistle]
Watercolour by
Susanna Moodie, 1869.
Copyright/Source

Letters Introduction
About Transcribing the Moodie-Traill Letters
About 19th-Century Letter Writing

Letters Introduction

The more than 220 letters available here have been selected to represent the lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill from the late 1820s in England to the late 19th century in Canada. They include letters from John Moodie and Thomas Traill, as well as from Susanna and Catharine.

In transcribing them we have tried to preserve the flavour of the originals by making as few changes as possible. The reader will find unusual spellings, punctuation and other irregularities, sometimes attributable to the letter writer, sometimes to the conventions of letter writing in the 19th century, and sometimes to the difficulties of transcribing from manuscript to type.

Digital images of several of the original handwritten letters are provided for illustration.