Introduction

One of the more novel contributions to come out of eighteenth-century Scotland was its histories of women. In these texts, Enlightenment philosophers turned their attention from the public deeds of well-known men to the position of women in society. Yet, far from imagining women as historical actors, such writers viewed women as the passive embodiment of civilization. Women were formed by nature and when placed in the right conditions, created by their male counterparts, they flourished, allowing their innate sensibility to emerge.1 Yet, as this collection uncovers, eighteenth-century Scottish women were not passive, but active agents of historical change, shaping Scottish society during a key transitional period.