Memoirs of a Highland Lady

by Elizabeth Grant

Memoirs of a Highland Lady is one of the most famous memoirs ever written. Since its first bowdlerised edition in 1898, it has been consistently in print. This is the first ever complete text. Written between 1845 and 1854 the memoirs were originally intended simply for Elizabeth's family, but these vivid and inimitable records of life in the early nineteenth century, and above all of the great Rothiemurchus estate, full of sharp observation and wit, form an unforgettable picture of her time.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Scotland, Biography, Biography Memoir, Research

720 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1899

About the author

Elizabeth Smith born Elizabeth Grant or Grant of Rothiemurchus was a Scottish diarist. Over the course of her life, she lived in Scotland, England, India, Ireland, and France. She is known today for the journals that she wrote from the 1840s when she was living in France. However she published in magazines anonymously during her life to supplement her family's income.

Reviews

[Elin Eriksen · Rating 5 out of 5]

These memoirs contain a plethora of gems for a historical writer and everyone else interested in the first half of the 19th century. The detailed descriptions, not made for an audience but a journal to leave for her family, gives it a unique and interesting perspective.

The family travelled a lot; London, Hertfordshire, Scarborough, Ramsgate and Edinburgh to name a few, my point is that this is a versatile book for research of the era far beyond the Highlands which was my motivation for reading this book.

I was amazed to read that six-year-old Elizabeth was taken to see plays on Drury Lane and Covent Garden. The games they played and the books they read.
Small details like a swinging cot for the baby in the post-chariot the children travelled in is just one of the many things I discovered that I had never heard of before. How it was to be a child in this era was another. Elizabeth Grant was a privileged child but it was an interesting perspective.
It portrays details that it is difficult to find like how it was to travel the northern road and cross the Spey on a ferry.
Interaction between children and their parents, governess and other relatives. It is a unique peek into the existence of early 19th-century living, ladled with interesting details.

Recommend

[Cathi Warren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful and valuable reading...I only wish the actual typeface made it more enjoyable to read. Since many of my ancestors were from the highlands, I absorbed this as if it were written for me from one of my great-great-grandmothers.

[Elizabeth Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the best written work of its time but in places very charming and an interesting view into the time period. Some passages are rather dull (especially the many which are concerned with slightly fleshed out lists of minor society members met at various locales), but this can be excused as the original audience for Elizabeth Grant's memoirs was her children, for whom these names would have more relevance.

Living close to many of the locales mentioned in the book added considerably to the appeal of the book for me. I now know who lived in some of the locales I visited, and it fascinating to think of the author and her associates being in some of the places I frequent today.

[Marielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I love reading regency historical romances and love all of Jane Austen, it's very nice to read descriptions of real daily life in the beginning of the 19th century in Scotland through the eyes of a growing girl. I did skip some paragraphs, but will come back to this.
I found it very readable.

[Alison Hodgson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this after staying in the little cottage by Loch an Eileen which is referred to in this book. I loved the descriptions of life at the time, I preferred the second volume to the first and particular enjoyed the description of her travels.

[Catherine Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant little nuggets of information about Highland life and the journeys she made between London and Edinburgh in the early 1800's.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Memoirs of a Highland Lady works well as a historical artifact but not as a memoir. Instead of a memoir with a cohesive theme, the book is the diaries and recollections of Elizabeth Grant stretching from her time as a child in Scotland in the 1790s to her life as a young wife in the 1820s. The childhood and youth sections are more likeable, since the later sections when Elizabeth lives in India do not age well and reek of colonialist attitudes and behavior. If you are interested in upper-class life in Scotland in the early 1800s, this would make an interesting read. If not, skip it. Read if you enjoy: history from women's viewpoints, Scottish history

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

My MSc dissertation is based on this book by Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus. She's very insightful, with detailed descriptions even though she wrote everything about 25-30 years after it happened. It's realy long though- almost 700 pages. And I am currently on 289...

[Kirsten · Rating 1 out of 5]

Zwischen 1845 und 1854 schreibt Elizabeth Grant die Geschichte ihres Lebens auf. Die Aufzeichnungen waren ursprünglich nur für ihre Familie gedacht. Sie beschreiben die Zeit von ihrer Geburt bis zum Treffen mit ihrem zukünftigen Mann, Colonel Smith of Baltiboys.

Elizabeth Grant stammt aus einer großen Familie mit vielen Bekannten- und sie beschreibt jedes Erlebnis mit ihnen sehr detailliert. Gleich zu Anfang wurde ich mit Namen und Beziehungen überschüttet von denen ich mir nur einen Bruchteil merken konnte. Ich hatte den Eindruck, als ob es der Autorin mehr um den Stammbaum ging als um die Dinge, die wirklich passiert sind.

Wenn Elizabeth Grant dann etwas von ihren Erinnerungen und Erlebnissen erzählte, fand ich das meiste davon traurig und teilweise auch verstörend. Die Eltern scheinen sich in der Erziehung ihrer Kinder weder abgestimmt zu haben, noch zeigten sie viel Interesse. Dazu wirkte besonders die Mutter nicht sehr liebevoll. Vielleicht ist es für eine Außenstehende einfacher, zu sehen. Ich konnte nicht verstehen, warum die Autorin ihre Kindheit trotz allem so heiter beschreibt. Vielleicht verklärt der zeitliche Abstand auch Einiges- oder ich bin zu streng.

Ich habe die Erinnerungen der Highland Lady nach dem ersten Teil abgebrochen. Ich wollte mir die Inhalts- und Lieblosigkeit nicht weiter antun.

[Dr. des. Siobhán · Rating 2 out of 5]

So this is super interesting as a historical document but I'm rating my reading experience here and I was very very bored for large parts of this. This does not mean that "Memoirs of a Highland Lady" is a bad book and I really liked the bits about Rothiemurchus (because I know the area / forest quite well), but it's long, descriptive and exhausting to read. Sorry! 2.5 stars and I'm sure I'm the problem here

[Stuart Macalpine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The setting is the estate next to the land I called home growing up - and the memories of those places and revisiting them now - are still vivid. Now that estates are ‘rewilding’ some of the descriptions of logging and total deforestation mentioned as asides are sobering. But in general a genial and warming read.

[Mirjam H]

DNF too many familynames and relationships

[Marini · Rating 1 out of 5]

Got to 450, and couldn't read anymore - just became too tedious. The beginning was good, when she talked about her childhood, but all she talked about in part II was meeting this person and that one, which doesn't make any difference to someone who doesn't know (about) them.