Lady Anne Lindsay, later Lady Anne Barnard, was born on 8 December 1750 at Balcarres in Fife, Scotland, and died on 6 May 1825 in London. She is remembered above all as the author of “Auld Robin Gray,” one of the most affecting and durable songs in the Scottish literary tradition. Yet the ballad’s extraordinary afterlife has sometimes reduced its maker to a name attached to a single lyric. Her life was considerably l…
“When alone, I am not above five-and-twenty. I can entertain myself with a succession of inventions... I forget that I am sixty-eight, and if by chance I see myself in the glass looking very abominable — I do not care.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Scottish Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Longing
Jean Elliot, often called Jane Elliot in later accounts, was born in April 1727 at Minto House in Teviotdale, Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders, and died on 29 March 1805. She is remembered above all for “The Flowers of the Forest,” one of the most moving lyrics in the Scottish tradition. The apparent smallness of her surviving body of work has sometimes obscured the scale of her achievement. Elliot did not leav…
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Folk & Ballad Poets, Scottish Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
