Christian Milne
What little is known about Christian Milne (née Ross) comes from the autobiographical preface to her Simple Poems on Simple Subjects (1805), which informs us that Milne (1773-c.1816) was a maidservant in a household in Aberdeen until her marriage to a ship’s carpenter. Simple Poems was published by subscription, and Milne’s former employer, probably one Mrs. Moir, seems to have been crucial in introducing her to subscribers among the professional class and gentry. Milne was encouraged to publish her poems by “a gentleman of great professional respectability in Aberdeen,” very likely one of the pillars of the community who certified the truth of her autobiographical statement.
Simple Poems speaks to a double audience, with poems including “To the Ship Carpenters of Footdee” and “Written on my Little Girl’s ‘Introduction to Reading’” written to or about members of her immediate social circle, and others, such as “To a Gentleman, Desirous of Seeing my Manuscripts” and “On Seeing the List of Subscribers to this Little Work” addressed to those who helped to see her work into print. Milne slyly plays these audiences against each other, contrasting her social equals’ mockery of her poetic aspirations to the encouragement offered by Aberdeen’s intellectual elite.
Milne’s book of poems is valuable not only as the production of a working-class poet but also as the work of a poet situated at a distance from major centers of publication. Geographically, the list of subscribers for Simple Poems is confined primarily to those living in Northeast Scotland, between Dundee and Aberdeen; but as far as the occupations of those listed is concerned, it must be one of the most diverse subscription lists of its time. Several members of the local aristocracy, including the Duchess of Gordon and the Earl of Aberdeen, have purchased multiple copies, and the list also includes the Provost of Aberdeen, doctors, clergymen, lawyers, teachers, and university faculty. More surprising is the list of broadly middle-class subscribers: a dancing master, a haberdasher, a grocer, a land-surveyor, an organist, a nail manufacturer, a wine merchant, a builder, and several sailors, among others. By purchasing a copy of Milne’s book, these subscribers of the middling sort presented themselves as people of literary taste, capable of recognizing and nurturing talent.