Jane Findlater
Encyclopedia
Mary Findlater
Mary Williamina Findlater was a Scottish novelist.Born in Perthshire as the daughter of a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, Findlater wrote novels and poetry both alone and together with her sister...
as well as for herself. They are known for their collaborative works of fiction as well as their own individual writing. Sometimes they are referred to as the Findlater sisters.
Jane Findlater was born in Edinburgh but the first twenty years of her life were spent in Lochearnhead
Lochearnhead
Lochearnhead is a village on the A84 Stirling to Crianlarich road at the foot of Glen Ogle, north of the Highland Boundary Fault...
where her father was minister
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
of the Free Church of Scotland
Free Church of Scotland (1843-1900)
The Free Church of Scotland is a Scottish denomination which was formed in 1843 by a large withdrawal from the established Church of Scotland in a schism known as the "Disruption of 1843"...
. The family were not well-off, life at the manse
Manse
A manse is a house inhabited by, or formerly inhabited by, a minister, usually used in the context of a Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist or United Church...
was conservative, and the sisters' life was rather restricted. Their close relationship was of great importance to them, and continued for their entire lives. They were taught by governesses, including Annie Lorrain Smith
Annie Lorrain Smith
Annie Lorrain Smith was a British lichenologist whose Lichens was an essential textbook for several decades...
before she trained as a botanist, listened to stories told by family, friends and servants, and started writing from an early age, both together and individually.
They moved to Prestonpans
Prestonpans
Prestonpans is a small town to the east of Edinburgh, Scotland, in the unitary council area of East Lothian. It has a population of 7,153 . It is the site of the 1745 Battle of Prestonpans, and has a history dating back to the 11th century...
with their mother after their father died in 1886, and Jane and Mary tried to help the family finances by writing, while their older sister Sarah (Mora) worked as a nurse. It was ten years before Jane's book The Green Graves of Balgowrie, inspired by her mother's family history, struck a chord with both the general reader and the critics. It had been written on grocer's paper; its success brought both freedom from financial worry and also literary acclaim. After a few years they moved south in search of a warmer climate for their mother's health.
From then until the outbreak of war
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the sisters published a series of novels, including their co-authored work, and two collaborations with Kate Douglas Wiggin
Kate Douglas Wiggin
Kate Douglas Wiggin was an American educator and author of children's stories, most notably the classic children's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878...
and Allan McAulay (pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
of Charlotte Stewart). Their popularity led to a much wider circle of acquaintances, including friendship with Ellen Terry
Ellen Terry
Dame Ellen Terry, GBE was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud....
and Mary Cholmondeley
Mary Cholmondeley
Mary Cholmondeley was an English novelist.The daughter of the vicar at St Luke's Church in the village of Hodnet, Market Drayton, Shropshire, England, where she was born, Cholmondeley spent much of the first thirty years of her life taking care of her sickly mother...
. After meeting Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, they got to know his brother William
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
and his sister-in-law Alice while on a lecture tour to the United States in 1905.
Both sisters' work shows an attention to the details of everyday life, including its pleasures, combined with a sense of the restricted opportunities for women in turn of the century Scotland. For them, marriage is not necessarily a happy ending. Jane's book The Ladder to the Stars (1906) was less well-received than The Green Graves, because of its focus on women's personal freedom. The heroine is "wholly absorbed in the cultivation of Self", according to one reviewer. Crossriggs (1908), often considered the sisters' best collaborative work, widely read in its day and republished in 1986, is just one of the books in which they reject "the idea that a single life is a wasted life". This nicely observed picture of village life, while telling stories of love, also explores "the lonely situation of an articulate and emotional woman" for whom marriage is not the answer.
In the 1920s their work seemed old-fashioned and Beneath the Visiting Moon (1923) was their last book. They moved from Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
to Rye
Rye, East Sussex
Rye is a small town in East Sussex, England, which stands approximately two miles from the open sea and is at the confluence of three rivers: the Rother, the Tillingham and the Brede...
on the Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
coast and, for wartime
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
safety, back to Perthshire
Perthshire
Perthshire, officially the County of Perth , is a registration county in central Scotland. It extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, Rannoch Moor and Ben Lui in the west, and Aberfoyle in the south...
in 1940.
Jane never married; the sisters would not consider being parted, joking that they could only consider marriage to a Mormon
Mormon
The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...
. Their writing in partnership is often considered their best work, outshining their individual novels.
Work online
Further reading
- Eileen Mackenzie, The Findlater sisters : literature & friendship (J.Murray 1964)
- The Findlater Sisters