Though her life was largely circumscribed by domesticity and poverty both in England and in Canada, Catharine Parr Traill's interests, experiences, and contacts were broad and various. Her contribution to our knowledge of nineteenth-century Canadian life, from a literary, historical, and scientific perspective, was significant.

Chosen from her nearly 500 extant letters, the 136 presented here vividly reflect typical aspects of social and family life, attachments to the Old World, health and medical conditions, travel, religious faith and practice, the stresses of settlement in...