Elizabeth Cairns (memoirist)

Elizabeth Cairns (1685 – 1741) was a working-class Scottish Calvinist lay preacher and memoirist.[1]

Cairns was born in Blackford, the daughter of an impoverished Scottish Covenanter shepherd.[2] From the age of five she and her sister needed to look after sheep without supervision.[3] At different times she worked as a shepherd, servant and schoolteacher. Her memoirs recorded her life as a spiritual journey, in which she was sustained by mystical and visionary encounters.[4]

  1. ^ Anne Commire; Deborah Klezmer, eds. (2006). "Cairns, Elizabeth (1685–1714)". Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages. Retrieved 1 March 2023 – via Encyclopedia.com.
  2. ^ "Elizabeth Cairns". Women in Scottish History. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
  3. ^ Elspeth Jajdelska (2022). "Socioeconomic Status and Varied Freedoms in Eighteenth-Century Childhood Reading". In Anne Marie Hagen (ed.). Mediation and Children's Reading: Relationships, Intervention, and Organization from the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Lehigh University Press. p. 32. ISBN 9781611463279.
  4. ^ Kate Barclay; François Soyer, eds. (29 May 2022). "Chapter 21. Elizabeth Cairns (1686-1741), Memoirs of Elizabeth Cairns". Emotions in Europe, 1517-1914: Volume III: Revolutions, 1714-1789. Taylor & Francis. p. 175. ISBN 9781000423495.