Catharine Trotter, according to her editor and biographer, was born on August 16, 1679, the younger of two daughters of David Trotter, a captain in the Royal Navy and his wife, Sarah Ballenden, of a well-connected Scottish family. Trotter's father died of the plague while on a voyage that was to have made his fortune. Instead, his family was forced to survive on an irregularly disbursed pension from the reigning monarch. Trotter was educated at home, and perhaps largely self-educated, although she seems to have taught herself French and Latin. She was a precocious writer, publishing a novella at a young age, followed by poems, and ultimately five plays, four appearing between 1695 and 1701 and the last in 1706, all of which achieved a certain renown.

In 1701 Trotter began to live with her married sister in Salisbury, where she remained until her own marriage in 1708. In...