In "A Scottish Border Clan" (Edinburgh Review, April 1898) Sir Francis Napier, Baron Napier and Ettrick, concluded his discussion of significant Scottish women by mentioning Alicia Anne Scott and her sister, Margaret Campbell, claiming that the two women "joined the faculties of poetical and musical composition with the gift of song, endowments never before united in the person of any one of their predecessors." Although a few of Scott's poems and songs--such as "Ettrick," "Durisdeer," and "The Comin' o' the Spring"--are known to people familiar with Scottish music and literature, her literary reputation rests almost entirely on a single ballad, "Annie Laurie."

Little is known about Alicia Anne Scott's life beyond the information included in the biographical sketch written by her grandniece Margaret Warrender for the 1911 edition of Songs and Verses (first published in 1904). Scott was born Alicia Anne Spottiswood in 1810, the eldest of the four children in...