Dorothea Primrose Campbell (4 May 1793 – 6 January 1863) was a poet, novelist and teacher from the Shetland islands of Scotland.
[5] Through her family connections she met Sir Walter Scott, a distant relative, during his tour of the north of Scotland aboard the Lighthouse Commission's yacht.
[2] In the 1841 England Census, she is listed as governess to seven children of the Richard Smith family at Stoke Newington, Middlesex.
[5] In the 1851 England Census, Campbell is listed as living alone at 16 Quartre Bras, Hexham, Northumberland, assisted by a pension from the Governesses' Benevolent Institution.
[10] In January 1863, Campbell died at the Aged Governesses' Asylum in Kentish Town in London, where she had been living as an inmate at the time of the 1861 England Census.
"[2] Campbell's straits appear as her "tone becomes progressively darker, dwelling on death and the slights meted out to poverty.
The publisher may have gone bankrupt – only half the stock of 500 copies had sold by April 1818,[7][5][2] though Sarah Josepha Hale noted in Woman's Record (1853), "The character of her poetry, chiefly suggested by the wild, rough scenery with which she lives surrounded, is healthy in its tone and breathes of home and heaven.
[18] According to Penny Fielding, researcher and Professor of English at the University of Edinburgh, "The novel focuses on the journey of the metropolitan hero to a distant part of the nation where he has family associations, and touches on questions of gender, superstition, ethnography, land improvement, and travel.
"[18] Recently found evidence shows that Campbell was a member of the Lady's Monthly Museum for some years,[20] adopting a pseudonym, "Ora from Thule," under which she published 53 poems and tales.
[...] For while beneath thy lovely light, The misty mountains round me rise, The world receding leaves my sight, And daring fancy mounts the skies.
Forgetful of my sorrows here, Entranced, I muse on joys to come, – And far above thy lucid sphere My trembling spirit seeks her home.