Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross (1578–1640)

Elizabeth Melville was a daughter of the statesman Sir James Melville of Halhill, Fifeshire, Scotland, and his wife Christian Boswell, who gave her a good education. In about 1596, she married John Colville of Wester-Cumbrae, Commendator of Culross, with whom she had at least seven children. Lady Culross was a Calvinist renowned for her religious piety. Alexander Hume, who thought highly of her talents, dedicated to Lady Culross his Hymns and Sacred Songs (1599). She herself was the author of a long epic poem entitled Ane Godlie Dreame, Compylit in Scottish Meter (1603), a bestseller, making her the earliest known Scottish woman writer to see her work appear in print. The book was reprinted almost a dozen times prior to 1737. Modern interest in her work was sparked when Germaine Greer included her work in an anthology of 17th-century women's verse.