I’m starting the ball rolling with Henrietta Keddie, aka Sarah Tytler.

Henrietta Keddie was born in Cupar in 1827. Her father Philip was a solicitor and she was the youngest of six children, five of them girls. Her older sisters went to Castlehill School, but the family moved to Elie and Henrietta was taught by her sister Margaret. She was sent to a boarding school in Edinburgh for a year (age thirteen) to finish her education. In 1848 she returned to Cupar with three of her sisters, and they set up a series of schools for girls, eventually settling in Westfield House with ten boarders. Henrietta was an accomplished and prolific writer, and in 1869 she was earning enough money to give up the school. She wrote under the name “Sarah Tytler”, and her most famous book, “Logie Town”, was set in Cupar.

Her last book, in 1911, was “Three Generations: The Story of a Middle-Class Scottish Family”, and we have copies of this and other novels here in our library.

I have cheated slightly. The photo of Henrietta isn’t from our collection – it comes from “Cupar in old picture postcards, volume 2”, by another renowned Cupar author and historian, Margaret Boyd.

The photo of Westfield House, site of the Keddie sisters’ school, is one of ours, and the last image shows just a few of the 100 or so books written by Henrietta/Sarah.

#ShineOnFife