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…
“The song of Auld Robin Gray was written by me in 1771, when I was very young.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Scottish Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Longing
Anna Lætitia Barbauld, born Anna Aikin on 20 June 1743 and dead on 9 March 1825, was one of the most accomplished, influential, and later most unjustly neglected writers of the British Romantic era. Poet, essayist, editor, critic, educational reformer, author for children, and public intellectual, she wrote across forms that later literary history too often separated into “major” and “minor” kinds. In her own lifetim…
“The pleasures of imagination are not confined to any particular season of life.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Political Poets, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Spirituality, Sorrow
