SOURCE: Gilroy, Amanda, and Keith Hanley. “Introduction.” In Joanna Baillie: A Selection of Plays and Poems, edited by Amanda Gilroy and Keith Hanley, pp. ix-xxxvii. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2002.

In the following essay, Gilroy and Hanley analyze Baillie's dramatic career, her ideas about human frailty, and her status as a Romantic writer.

Life

Joanna Baillie was born in Bothwell, Lanarkshire, Scotland, on 11th September, 1762, the daughter of James Baillie, a Presbyterian minister, whose family counted William Wallace amongst its ancestors, and Dorothea Hunter, who was descended from an old Ayrshire family. Her mother's sister, Anne, was a noted poet, and her two brothers, William and John Hunter, were the most famous medical men of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.¹ Joanna had a sister, Agnes, born in 1760 and a brother, Matthew, born in 1761; her twin sister died a few hours after birth. The children spent their early...