John Kennedy-Erskine and his wife Lady Augusta FitzClarence, an illegitimate daughter of William IV (who became monarch the day before Mina's birth).

[9] Five years after Kennedy-Erskine's death, Lady Augusta married Lord Frederick Gordon-Hallyburton, a decision that displeased her first husband's parents.

The sisters' Italian singing-master secretly arranged for a meeting with Alboni, but the encounter did not go well; the singer discovered that they were the daughters of the "housekeeper", and, assuming that they were not ladies, departed soon after.

[20][21] Like Mina, FitzClarence was a grandchild of William IV; at a young age, he had succeeded his father the 1st Earl, who served as a governor of Windsor Castle and constable of the Round Tower until his suicide in 1842.

[22] The FitzClarences travelled to Hamburg immediately after the wedding, visiting local schlosses and the family of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (who later married The Princess Helena).

[30] The article also stated that because Lord Munster's health was failing, the Countess was living in "comparative seclusion", though her lifestyle was also attributed to a love of a "quiet, literary, and artistic life".

[38] In 1888, an article by Munster about ballad singing appeared in The Woman's World, a Victorian women's magazine edited by Wilde.

The Spectator published a critical review soon after its publication which suggested that the novel's showering of "contempt upon the society of wealth and rank" was close to Republicanism or Socialism.

[39] The review criticised A Scotch Earl for lacking "any merits of construction or style", and added that Lady Munster was "not and never will be a capable novelist".

[41] Hugh Lamb included the Countess's "surprisingly grim" story "The Tyburn Ghost" in his 1979 edited volume Tales from a Gas-Lit Graveyard.

[42] However, modern author and editor Douglas A. Anderson has called the Countess's stories "standard, melodramatic fare", which are "perfectly forgettable".

[44] The Countess wrote the entire book by memory, and expressed regret that she had given up her journal writing as a young girl after someone else improperly read it.