BAILLIE, JOANNA (1762-1851), Scottish poet and dramatist, was born at the manse of Bothwell, on the Clyde. She belonged to an old Scottish family, which claimed among its an cestors Sir William Wallace. At an early period she moved with her sister Agnes to London, the two sisters settling at Hampstead, where they passed the remainder of their lives. Joanna Baillie published anonymously in 1790 a volume called Fugitive Verses, and in 5798, also anonymously, the first volume of her "plays on the passions" under the title of A Series of Plays, in which, says the title-page, "it is attempted to delineate the strange pas sions of the mind, each passion being the subject of a tragedy and a comedy." The book was followed by a second volume, Plays on the Passions, in 1802, a third in 1812 and three volumes of Dramas in 1836. Miscellaneous Plays appeared in 1804, and the Family Legend in 181o. Miss Baillie herself intended her plays not for the closet but for the stage, and Family Legend (i 8 i o) had a brilliant though brief success in Edinburgh while De Monfort (1809), because of the acting of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, had a run in London. Henriquez and The Separation were coldly received. Joanna Baillie is best remembered by some charming Scottish songs, though some of them, like Woo'd and Married are adaptations. She lived to be 89, and died on Feb. 23, 1851. Her sweetness of disposition made her a universal favourite, and her little cottage at Hampstead was the centre of a brilliant literary society.
See Joanna Baillie's Dramatic and Poetical Works (1851); G. Gil fillan, Galleries of Literary Portraits, vol. i. (1856) ; M. S. Carhart, The Life and Work of Joanna Baillie, "Yale Studies in English Bibl."