Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, A. D. 1803

[2] It is often compared as the Romantic counterpart to the better-known Enlightenment-era A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775) by Samuel Johnson written about 27 years earlier.

The three travelers were important authors in the burgeoning Romanticism movement, and the trip itinerary was in part a literary pilgrimage to the places associated with Scottish figures significant to Romanticists such as Robert Burns, Ossian, Rob Roy, William Wallace, and contemporary Sir Walter Scott.

Scotland had become depopulated in areas from emigration throughout the 18th century, and the remaining rural Scots existed in a preindustrial lifestyle more reminiscent of the Middle Ages than modern times.

[6] As an Irish design, it was an unusual sight and brought a lot of attention along the way, in part because of rumors circulating at the time that Ireland might soon invade Scotland.

In 1941, it was recognized again when Ernest de Selincourt published a new edition with his two-volume collection of Dorothy's journals and deemed Recollections "one of the most delightful of all books of travel, and it is, undoubtedly her masterpiece".

A late 19th-century painting of a jaunting car similar to the one used by Dorothy, William and Samuel. Because of the poor roads " in practice it meant going most of the way by foot. The car was purchased by Samuel Taylor Coleridge . "
The Brownhill Inn near Closeburn where Dorothy, William and Samuel stayed for a night. A favourite hostelry of Robert Burns .