Atwood first encountered the story of Grace Marks in "Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush" by Susanna Moodie. In 1970, she published "The Journals of Susanna Moodie", a cycle of poems informed by the published works of Moodie. It became a classic of Canadian literature, as it lyrically evokes the experience of life in the wilderness, immigrant life, and colonial times. Subsequently, Atwood wrote the 1974 CBC Television film "The Servant Girl" about Grace Marks, also based on Susanna Moodie's account. However, in "Alias Grace", Atwood says that she has changed her opinion of Marks, having read more widely and discovered that Moodie had fabricated parts of her third-hand account of the famous murders.