It is also interesting to realize that Roughing it in the Bush, her best known work, was written a good ten years after she had moved to Belleville following her husband's appointment as sheriff of Hastings County. Though parts of the book had been previously published, on the whole, it was a retrospective look at her life as it had been. Their first home in Canada was not in the bush at all, but on an already cleared farm that John Moodie bought, but then, through a series of bad judgments and worse advice, decided to give up. They then moved to the tract of land away from the river near where Susanna's sister, Catherine Parr Traill, had settled with her husband, and that had been their original destination. If Moodie had been a more astute man, they might never have roughed it in the bush at all!

The book, itself, is very short, and it covers a long life. Therefore, it hasn't space for the longer excerpts from Susanna's books and letters - especially letters - which might have added a bit of zip to this well documented, competent, but basically rather dull, account. In some ways one gets a better feel for the personality of Susanna Moodie by reading Margaret Atwood's collection of poems (The Journals of Susanna Moodie, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1970). They have fewer facts, but more sparkle.

Recommended with Reservations.