Lady Carolina Nairne

From wikipedia: Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne (16 August 1766 – 26 October 1845) – also known as Carolina Baroness Nairn in the peerage of Scotland and Baroness Keith in that of the United Kingdom – was a Scottish songwriter. Many of her songs, such as "Will ye no' come back again?" and "Charlie is my Darling", remain popular today, almost two hundred years after they were written. She usually set her words to traditional Scottish folk melodies, but sometimes contributed her own music. Carolina Nairne and her contemporary Robert Burns were influenced by the Jacobite heritage in their establishment of a distinct Scottish identity, through what they both called national song. Perhaps in the belief that her work would not be taken seriously if it were known that she was a woman, Nairne went to considerable lengths to conceal her identity (even from her husband) when submitting her work for publication. Early on, she called herself "Mrs Bogan of Bogan", but feeling that gave too much away she often attributed her songs to "B.B.", "S.M.", or "Unknown". Although both working in the same genre of what might today be called traditional Scottish folksongs, Nairne and Burns display rather different attitudes in their compositions. Nairne tends to focus on an earlier romanticised version of the Scottish way of life, tinged with sadness for what is gone forever, whereas Burns displays an optimism about a better future to come. Nairne began writing songs shortly after her father's death in 1792. She was a contemporary of the best-known Scottish songwriter and poet Robert Burns, although the two never met. For both, Jacobite history was a powerful influence. What was probably her first composition – The Pleughman (ploughman) – may have been a tribute to Burns. Like his, Nairne's songs were at first circulated by being performed, but her interest in Scottish music and song brought her into contact with Robert Purdie, an Edinburgh publisher. Purdie was gathering together "a collection of the national airs, with words suited for refined circles" to which Nairne contributed a significant number of original songs, all without attribution to her. The collection was published in six volumes as The Scottish Minstrel from 1821 to 1824, with music edited by Robert Archibald Smith. Nairne concealed her achievements as a songwriter throughout her life; they only became public on the posthumous publication of "Lays from Strathearn" (1846). She took pleasure in the popularity of her songs, and may have been concerned that this could be jeopardised if it became public knowledge that she was a woman. It also explains why she soon switched from "Mrs Bogan of Bogan" to "BB" when submitting her contributions to The Scottish Minstrel. Consideration for her husband may have been another of Nairne's motives for maintaining her anonymity. Despite his Jacobite family background he had served with the British Army since his youth, and it might have caused him some professional embarrassment if it had become widely known that his wife was writing songs in honour of the Jacobite rebels of the previous century. Somewhat mitigating against that view, however, is that she maintained her secrecy for fifteen years after his death.