Catharine Parr Trail, an English-Canadian author and naturalist, wrote about life in Canada, notably what is now Ontario. Canada spanned a far smaller area in the 1830s than it does today. At the time, European settlers had yet to discover the majority of Upper Canada. Throughout her life, Traill wrote to provide for her family. She wrote 24 books on topics ranging from her background as a settler in Ontario to natural history, specifically botany. Traill is regarded as an early pioneer in Canadian natural history. She used her writing to communicate the colonial experience and describe Upper Canada's natural landscape to English readers. Traill is considered an amateur botanist because women could not hold professional, paid roles at the time. Traill was the first of her siblings to begin writing, joining other authors Agnes Strickland, Jane Margaret Strickland, Susanna Moodie, and Elisabeth Strickland. She began creating children's books in 1818, following her father's death. Traill's first work, The Tell Tale: An Original Collection of Moral and Amusing Stories, was published anonymously in 1818, when she was only 16.
