James Macpherson

Her preface to the whole volume expresses regret, probably purely conventional, that her comparatively feeble hand cannot wield the pen of learning and antiquity. She professes to be [u]nacquainted with the rules of translation...

Among undated poems Bowdler prints another imitation of Ossian and a translation from the German of Friedrich von Matthisson . In 1803 ES translated a poem by Gessner in response to William Sotheby

EH 's next novel, the St Clair of the Isles; or, The Outlaws of Barra. A Scottish Tradition, published anonymously but claimed on later title-pages, reveals considerable knowledge of Ossian and of medieval customs.

The title-page of this very rare book goes on: To which is added, a Description of part of the Main Land of Scotland, and of the Isles of Mull, Ulva, Staffa, I-Columbkill...

One month before writing this poem Elizabeth Smith met Mary Hunt , with whom she was soon maintaining a scholarly correspondence. In the earliest letter which Bowdler prints (written on 7 July 1792), Smith touches...

Elizabeth Smith's surviving letters are all written to female friends. The earliest ones are precociously concerned with exercising her learning: not precisely showing off but defining her own personality through her passion for Ossian and...

Though AS disliked Samuel Johnson, many of her literary opinions were conservative. She still loved Ossian in 1796, when the texts were known to be forgeries. On 24 August 1807 (despite her admiration for Robert Southey