The Dramatic and Poetical Works of Joanna Baillie

Published in London by Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans in 1851, The Dramatic and Poetical Works of Joanna Baillie brought together her major literary achievements in a single volume, appearing shortly before her death. It remains an important record of her contribution to Scottish and British Romantic literature. 

Baillie's greatest innovation was her psychological approach to drama. Rather than concentrating solely on external events, she examined how emotions develop and influence human Behaviour. Her Plays on the Passions combined the moral and philosophical traditions of the Scottish Enlightenment with the emotional intensity of Romantic literature.

Her contribution to Scottish literature was equally significant. Through historical drama, Scottish songs and poetry, she helped preserve and reinterpret Scottish cultural traditions for a wider British audience. Her use of Scots language in songs such as Woo'd and Married an' a' demonstrated her appreciation of vernacular literary expression, while The Family Legend contributed to the early nineteenth-century movement towards a distinctive Scottish national theatre. 

Although her popularity declined after her death, modern scholarship has restored Baillie to a prominent position in literary history. Her collected Dramatic and Poetical Works are particularly valuable as an expression of the relationship between Scottish Enlightenment thought, Romantic poetry and the development of modern psychological drama. They also preserve the remarkable achievements of a woman who successfully challenged the male-dominated literary establishment of her age.

For collectors and scholars of Scottish literature, the 1851 collected edition is especially significant as a comprehensive publication prepared under Baillie's supervision, representing the culmination of more than sixty years of literary activity.

Joanna Baillie was a Scottish poet and playwright whose dramatic and literary achievements established her as one of the most significant women writers of the Romantic period. Born on 11 September 1762 in Bothwell, Lanarkshire, she was the daughter of the Reverend James Baillie, a Presbyterian minister, and Dorothea Hunter, whose brothers included the distinguished physicians William and John Hunter.
Educated partly in Glasgow, Baillie moved to London in the 1780s, eventually settling in Hampstead, where she spent much of her literary life. Although she lived in England for most of her adulthood, her Scottish upbringing, Presbyterian background and interest in Scottish history and culture remained important influences on her writing.
Baillie first attracted literary attention with Poems: Wherein It Is Attempted to Describe Certain Views of Nature and of Rustic Manners (1790), but her reputation was firmly established with A Series of Plays: In Which It Is Attempted to Delineate the Stronger Passions of the Mind, published anonymously in 1798. This pioneering collection, subsequently known as the Plays on the Passions, explored powerful human emotions such as love, hatred, jealousy and fear through dramatic characterisation. Further volumes appeared in 1802 and 1812.

Her dramatic works included De Monfort, Basil and The Tryal, while her historical dramas, notably The Family Legend (1810), drew upon Scottish Highland history and traditions. The latter was successfully performed in Edinburgh with the encouragement of Sir Walter Scott, who greatly admired her work.

Baillie continued writing throughout her life, publishing Dramas in 1836 and Fugitive Verses in 1840. She died in Hampstead on 23 February 1851, aged 88.

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