pulled her cloak tighter and squeezed close to Agnes. They were both silent, Susanna lost in thoughts about Samuel, their younger brother, who had recently emigrated to Upper Canada. A friend of the family had talked the destitute twenty-year-old boy into trying his hand at farming. Samuel’s letters were filled with marvellous descriptions of the wilderness and exotic place names such as the Otonabee River.
“Agnes, do you ever long to join Samuel in Upper Canada?” Susanna asked, breaking the silence of the night. “It seems like such a romantic place.”
Susanna didn’t have to wait long for an answer as she felt her sister stiffen beside her on the seat.
“O no, never,” Agnes blurted. “I only dream of living in London.”
As their chaise pulled in at the tollgate, clouds suddenly formed and the air turned cold. In the semi-darkness, Susanna spotted a vagrant man who was hiding behind some bushes. Suddenly the man let out an unearthly scream.
“Someone’s tearing at my veil!” Agnes shrieked as she clutched the flimsy material, though she later admitted she had only imagined this.
Susanna laughed whenever she recounted this nerve-tingling incident, which she wanted to include in a story for a gift-book anthology. She hoped to make her own mark and distinguish herself from her flam-boyant older sister. She was gaining confidence as a professional writer and didn’t like the fact that their shared family name sometimes caused confusion. She wrote to Frederic Shoberl, the editor of the gift-book anthology, Ackermanns Forget-Me-Not, on June 3, 1829, to clarify a matter:
“My sister and I seldom communicate our literary business to each other, as our friends in the world of letters are often of different parties and totally unknown to each other, but I am sure Agnes is too honourable ever to have demanded payment for me, without apprizing me of her intention.”
Catharine was another matter altogether. Susanna had grown so fond of the sister closest to her in age that she remarked in an undated letter to the writer Mary Russell Mitford, that she would prefer giving up her pen rather than “lose the affection of my beloved sister Catharine, who is dearer to me than all the world – my monitress, my dear and faithful friend.” Susanna had sent one of her poems to Mitford, who had responded with compliments. From the Berkshire area, Mitford was sixteen years older than Susanna and had gained critical and popular recognition with her five-volume Our Village, a collection of rural sketches.
For the time being, Susanna busied herself writing and publishing children’s books. These earnings helped their mother make ends meet. She shared with Catharine the friendship of Laura Harral, daughter of Thomas Harral, the editor who published their stories and poems in the gift-book annual, La Belle Assemblee. Susanna received much praise when her story “Old Hannah: or, The Charm” appeared in 1829. In a bold fashion, Susanna sketched a story about the Strickland family’s old and cantankerous servant Hannah, who had entertained her with tales of ghosts and magic since she was a child. The fledgling author had created her first memorable character based on a real person.
In the summer of 1830, Susanna, now twenty-seven years old, lived in London as a guest at the house of Thomas Pringle and his wife Margaret. Susanna had been “adopted” by Thomas Pringle, who edited a popular journal and had published her works. She referred to him often as “Papa” in letters to friends at that time.
As a young man, Pringle had emigrated to South Africa and edited a newspaper for many years until his controversial views against the institution of slavery cost him his livelihood. In 1827, he returned with his family to live in London where he became the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society. Aware of Susanna’s compassionate nature and writing ability, Pringle asked her to transcribe, or ghost write, the story of Mary Prince. Prince was a forty-year-old woman born in Bermuda, who had been a slave in the British colony of Antigua and was now sheltered in his house.
Susanna sat on a chair in Thomas Pringle’s study and wrote down the horrifying experiences Mary Prince, who insisted she wanted to stand rather than sit, described in her singsong voice:
“I can show you my scars, Miss Strickland,” Mary offered.
Susanna’s throat clenched. Could she refuse? No. She wanted to see the evidence for herself.
“I’ll help you,” Susanna said, seeing Mary struggle with her blouse.
Susanna stood behind Mary and gingerly lifted the cotton blouse and undergarment.
“Mary, how could they?” Susanna exclaimed, as she stared at the rounded back with its crisscross of embossed black flesh, glistening in the bright light of the lamp on the desk.
“They did that to most of us,” Mary answered matter-of-factly.
Deeply shaken, Susanna sat back down on the chair and continued to record Marys story. Mary had been malnourished, had suffered beatings, and worse, had been raped by her owners, who were supposedly upstanding Britons. How could this be? Susanna now wanted to shape the story into an unforgettable document so that people would learn, as she had, of the evil that was slavery. The pamphlet was published anonymously in 1831, with an introduction by Thomas Pringle, as The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, as Related by Herself. It sold quickly and was reprinted three times. All the profits went to “Black Mary,” as she was affectionately called by the Pringles.
Susanna also accepted a commission to write the story of Ashton Warner, another former slave befriended by Thomas Pringle. Warner was twenty-four years old, and in such poor health that he died before the pamphlet was even printed.
Susanna’s social conscience was awakened by these dramatic encounters. She resolved that she would no longer be an accomplice to the criminality she had recorded. She poured her outrage into several poems that were published in journals and eventually in her first book, Enthusiasm and other Poems.
That same summer, Susanna met someone else at the Pringles, someone who would change her life forever.
Portrait of Susanna by Cheesman
. In her youth, Susanna’s grey eyes often expressed the sadness
she felt at the sudden death of her father, “a good and just man.”
…there is to me a charm in literary society which none other can give…
– Susanna Moodie, Letters of a Lifetime
Susanna’s poetry had many admirers in London, and in her own neighbourhood of Suffolk. In fact, she had found a patron in Andrew Ritchie, the pastor of the Congregationalist Church in the village of Wrentham, about two kilometres north of Reydon Hall. She had joined the small village church in April, a few months before leaving for London and the Pringles’ house.
Suffolk was a region of dissenters, especially
