These annotated letters present the first personal glimpse of this Scottish playwright as she wrote and lived. It documents her problems with publishers, describes her encounters with Wordsworth, Byron, Southey, Berry and other literary figures, outlines a long relationship with Scott and places an active literary woman in the historical and social setting of early to mid-nineteenth century Britain.

The earliest letter dates from 1800, not long after Baillie had announced her authorship of the first volume of Plays on the Passions. The last dates only a few weeks before her death in 1851. --