Joanna Baillie, the daughter of a Church of Scotland pastor, was up in rural Scotland and spent much of her adult life in Hampstead, close outside London. Her full writings, The Dramatic and Poetical Works of Joanna Baillie (1851), were published shortly before her death. They include two one-act plays, Roderick and Other Plays (1825) and Lady Anne Barnard's Diary (1826), three volumes of poems, and an autobiography, Letters from England (1790-1840). Bailey wrote several poems that have been interpreted as romantic, including "The Nightingale" and "A Dirge". But she also wrote poems on religious subjects and even sent letters to her friend William Wordsworth urging him to return to poetry. It is possible that Bailey herself was influenced by Byron's poetry. But because she never met Byron and only heard about him through others, it is hard to say for certain if he had any influence on her work. No one has ever claimed Joanna Baillie as their own, which means she must have been a genuine romantic who loved and lost love itself without hope of recovery. She was born on April 2nd, 1760, in Edinburgh, the second child and first daughter of Rev. Andrew Baillie, a minister of the Church of Scotland, and his wife, Agnes Halkerston.