Poet, Author. As a child she flourished in the intellectual environment fostered by her family. Her father was appointed Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow in 1776, and two of her maternal uncles were well-known anatomists at the University of Glasgow. She herself had a lifelong interest in medicine and psychology, which manifested itself in a number of plays exploring human behavior as it operates under the influence of the human passions. The author’s love for the theatre was first ignited during her childhood when she was enrolled, at the age of ten, at a boarding school in Glasgow, where she saw her first play. While at the school, Joanna Baillie showed talent not only in writing, but also in music, drawing, and mathematics. Coming of age in the period of the Scottish Enlightenment, she also became interested in philosophy. As a teenager, she turned to her father’s library and began reading William Shakespeare, whose play “Macbeth” later influenced her play “Witchcraft.” She also once stated that John Milton’s “Comus,” read at about age 20, “charmed” her perhaps more than any other drama. In 1778, upon her father’s death, she moved with her mother and sister Agnes to Long Calderwood, the Hunter family home in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, where she began composing ballads and songs. In 1783, upon the death of her uncle, who owned Long Calderwood, Joanna Baillie and her mother made the move to the London area, where she would remain for the next thirty years. At first, the three women kept house for Joanna’s brother, Dr. Matthew Baillie, in Colchester, but upon his marriage, Joanna, her mother, and sister moved to Hampstead, where Joanna remained until her death. In 1798, Baillie published her first three plays, now known under the title “Plays on the Passions.” Two focused on the passion of love and one on hatred. The second volume followed in 1802, including one play about hatred, and three about ambition. The final volume, appearing in 1812, included three plays about fear as well as a musical drama about hope. In 1790, Baillie anonymously published a volume of poetry in the Romantic lyrical tradition, often dealing with the lives of the common folk in advance of Wordsworth’s poetry of the same genre, which did not appear until 1798. In 1804, she agreed to adapt and/or compose songs and ballads for the Scottish anthologist George Thomson. These songs, written in the mid-west Scottish dialect, are considered a key part of the revival of the Scottish ballad tradition. A collection of all of Baillie’s poetry was published in 1815 shortly before her death. The poet was laid to rest in Hampstead parish churchyard, where her grave can be seen alongside those of her mother and sister. In 1899, a cenotaph was erected in her memory in the churchyard at Bothwell, Lanarkshire, Scotland, her hometown.