Elizabeth Cairns (1685 – 1741) was a working-class Scottish Calvinist lay preacher and memoirist.
Cairns was born in Blackford, the daughter of an impoverished Scottish Covenanter shepherd. From the age of five she and her sister needed to look after sheep without supervision. 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.
Works
- Memoirs of the life of Elizabeth Cairns written by herself some years before her death; and now taken from her own original copy with great care and diligence . Glasgow: printed for, and sold by John Greig sadler there, and at Edinburgh, Perth and Stirling. 1762.
References
- 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.
- "Elizabeth Cairns". Women in Scottish History. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
- 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.
- 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.