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Author: Campbell, Dorothy Primrose

Biography:

CAMPBELL, Dorothy Primrose (1793-1863: LC)

She was born at Lerwick, Shetland, to Duncan Campbell and Eliza (Scott) Campbell. Letters she wrote to Walter Scott (to whom she may have been distantly related) 1817-21 establish that her family was impoverished particularly after the early death of her father and depict her as struggling to keep the family together. She published poems under the name “Ora” in the Ladies Monthly Museum. The 1816 subscription edition of her Poems includes a list of 160 subscribers and the author’s preface states that she was motivated to publish by the financial distresses of her family. For her 1821 novel, Harley Radington, the publisher, A.K. Newman, paid her only in copies of the book. The 1841 census lists her as a governess working in Hackney, but she was unemployed by the time of her 1844 application to the Royal Literary Fund (one of her referees was Francis Jeffrey [q.v.]). She was awarded £30, and she was later supported by the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution. She died at London. (ancestry.co.uk 21 Aug 2018; Blain; RLF file 1093, NCCO; NLS correspondence with Walter Scott)

 

Other Names:

  • D. P. Campbell
  • Miss D. P. Campbell
 

Books written (2):

Inverness: for the authoress by J. Young, 1811
London: for the authoress by Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1816