Born in Partick, Scotland, the fourth daughter and sixth child of Peter Macnaughtan and Julia Blackman,[1][2] she was educated at home by her father.

Her best-known works were The Fortune of Christina M'Nab (1901), A Lame Dog's Diary (1905), and The Expensive Miss Du Cane (1900).

She noted in her diary: "These unfortunate people have been nearly exterminated by massacres, and it has been officially stated that 75 per cent of the whole race has been put to the sword.

[7] An unfinished manuscript of hers became the basis for a book, My Canadian Memories, which was finished by her friend Beatrice Home and published in 1920.

[8] Sarah Macnaughtan is one of the 14 main characters in the series 14 - Diaries of the Great War, played by actress Celia Bannerman.