Highland Lady In Ireland

by Elizabeth Grant

ISBN: 9780862413613
Imprint: Canongate Classics
Publication Date: Jun 2008
Format: Paperback
Price: £8.99
Stock Status: not in stock

The early life of Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus, so memorably recorded in her Memoirs of a Highland Lady, has had an avid readership since the book’s first publication in 1898. This volume takes up the story after she arrives in Ireland, following her marriage to Colonel Smith of Baltiboys. This journal, begun in 1840, will be recognisable to her many followers by the charm, vigour and intelligence that fill every page. They depict vividly the day-to-day life of her family, her immense efforts to improve the Baltiboys estate and how she coped with the terrible ravages of famine. Her sharp observations of all classes of society, however, from corrupt landowners to the poor and often dissolute farm-workers, make this book a memorable and important chronicle of her times, and a unique chronicle to the social history of Ireland.

Elizabeth Grant (1797-1885) was born in Edinburgh’s fashionable New Town. The comfort of a wealthy upbringing was ended by the trauma of a broken engagement, followed by the disastrous failure of her father’s career. Forced to retreat to their Highland home, Elizabeth and both her sisters wrote articles for the popular magazines of the day to generate some income. In 1827 the family left Scotland for India when her father was appointed to a Judgeship in Bombay. Here Elizabeth met and married Colonel Henry Smith, seventeen years her senior. They lived at Baltiboys, her husband’s newly inherited estate situated near Dublin, where she took the lead role in managing and improving their impoverished estate. Between 1845 and 1854 she wrote her Memoirs for her family’s pleasure; these were later edited and published by her niece.

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