Carolina Oliphant, later Lady Nairne, was born on 16 August 1766 at Gask House in Perthshire, into a family whose private memories were inseparable from one of Scotland’s most public historical wounds. She died on 26 October 1845, also at Gask, after a life of seventy-nine years in which she became one of the most accomplished and widely loved writers of Scottish song. For much of that life, however, the public did n…
“I have been carefully weaned from this world, and do delight to think of the happy land that cannot be far off now.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Political Poets, Scottish Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
On the eastern coast of Scotland, where the North Sea meets the fertile lands of Angus, stands the House of Dun—a Georgian mansion that witnessed the birth of one of Scotland's most distinctive literary voices. It was here, on 1 September 1863, that Violet Augusta Mary Frederica Kennedy-Erskine entered the world, destined to become the poet and novelist who would capture the very essence of Scottish rural life in ver…
“All the degrees in Europe could not counterbalance that in my eyes.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Scottish Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Tenderness