Beatrice: or The Unknown Relatives, Volume 3 of 3

by Catherine Sinclair

Excerpt from Beatrice, or the Unknown Relatives

They sought her baith in bow'r and ha', The lady was not seen.  soom. Alack, now, that all the world should be out sight seeing and saint-making, and we laid up here, like two lame jackdaws in a belfry  Saints' Tragedy.

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1852

About the author

Catherine Sinclair was a Scottish novelist and a writer of children's literature which departed from the moralising approach common in that period. She is credited with discovering that the author of the anonymous Waverley Novels was Sir Walter Scott.

Sinclair's writing career began with a horror story in Blackwood's Magazine. She also wrote children's books to entertain her young nieces and nephews. The first of these books, Charlie Seymour or, The good aunt and the bad aunt', was published in 1832.

After her father's death, Sinclair was able to devote more time to writing and Modern Accomplishments, a novel of fashionable life, was published in 1836. This was followed by a sequel, Modern Society in 1837 and several later novels. From 1838, she also wrote a series of travel books beginning with Hill and Valley, or, Hours in England and Wales.

Sinclair's activities in Edinburgh included charitable works such as the establishment of cooking depots in the Old and New Towns, and the maintenance of a mission station at the Water of Leith. She was instrumental in securing seats for crowded thoroughfares, and she set the example in Edinburgh of instituting drinking fountains, one of which bore her name and stood at the city's West End before it was removed as an obstruction to trams in 1926.