Janet Little

Janet Little, later Janet Richmond, (1759 – 15 March 1813), known as The Scotch Milkmaid, was a Scottish poet who wrote in the Scots language.

Biography

Born in Ecclefechan, Little enjoyed a "common education" and, as an assistant to local clergy, was able to exercise her love of reading and writing.[1] By the 1780s she had gained a reputation as a "rustic poetess". Her employer, Mrs Frances Dunlop,[1] recommended her poetry to Robert Burns. Burns, who had recently been inundated by a swarm of untalented imitators, was initially wary, but he later assisted Mrs Dunlop in publishing Little's poetry. James Paterson who wrote a short biography of her in 1840 describes her as "a very tall masculine woman, with dark hair, and features somewhat coarse".[2]

Little's most notable patron, apart from Burns and Mrs Dunlop, was James Boswell. Some time in the early 1790s, Little married John Richmond (died 1819),[2] a widower more than eighteen years her senior. She continued to write until her death in 1813 of "a cramp in the stomach".[3]

Selected poems

  • 'On a Visit to Mr. Burns' (1791)
  • 'An Epistle to a Lady'
  • 'Given to A Lady Who Asked me to Write a Poem' (1792)
  • 'On Halloween' (1792)
  • 'To My Aunty'
  • 'Upon a Young Lady's Breaking a Looking Glass'

Notes

  1. 1 2 Paterson 1840, p. 79.
  2. 1 2 Paterson 1840, p. 87.
  3. ↑ Paterson 1840, p. 89.

References

  • Paterson, James (1840), The contemporaries of Burns, and the more recent poets of Ayrshire, with selections from their writings, H. Paton, p. 78–91

Further reading

  • Lonsdale, Roger H. (1990), Eighteenth century women poets: an Oxford anthology (reprint, illustrated ed.), Oxford University Press, pp. 453–455, ISBN 0-19-282775-8
  • Excerpts from the Poetical Works of Janet Little, including a brief biography
  • Complete Poetical Works of Janet Little
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