Robert Burns

This volume, like those BRP had already published, also covers a range of topics including the natural world, religious questions, Robert Burns , and places like Italy and Algiers. The poem entitled...

AG 's Introductory Verses, addressed to dead and living friends, begin: Go, artless records of a life obscure, and liken herself to the nightingale singing with a thorn in her breast. The poems...

But most poems in this volume are occasional, more or less public. MWD wrote about buildings: the fake-medieval Hockley Abbey near Birmingham and the genuine medieval Kenilworth Castle. She wrote about Scotland: ballads...

Her range of literary reference and comment is wide: as well as Richardson (whose Clarissa she unequivocally praises), it encompasses Blair , Sterne and Smollett as travel-writers, and Homer . Grant charges Samuel Johnson

The poems include epistles, translations from Gaelic, and occasional poetry including a piece on the death of Burns . Apart from calling herself the rural muse, Grant also emphasises her Scottish identity: her characteristic...

Their move back to England was facilitated by a legacy of £5,000 from Anne's father. They bought the estate the previous year for £13,000 (including standing timber worth £3,280). AM sold the house, estate...