Google Doodle celebrates Joanna Baillie's 256th birthday

Joanna Baillie, the Scottish writer who was often compared to Shakespeare, was born on this day in 1762 and Google Doodle is celebrating her 256th birthday.

Joanna Baillie, the Scottish writer who was often compared to Shakespeare, was born on this day in 1762 and Google Doodle is celebrating her 256th birthday. She is hailed as the greatest female poets of all times. Google is depicting some of her best-loved ‘Plays on the Passions’: Ethwald, De Montfort, The Tryal, Basil, and Orra with today’s Doodle.

She was friends with other important British writers as well including William Wordsworth and Lady and Lord Byron.

Bailie set the tone of English Romanticism with the ‘Introductory Discourse’ of her 1798 Plays on the Passions.

Initially, she used to write anonymously and those articles soon became the talk of London and readers started to guess author’s identity, she revealed in a letter that it was her brother who wanted her to publish a small volume of poetry. She wanted her plays to be performed by actors on stage rather than just read.

Baillie didn’t have a very nice childhood as her family had to take help from a wealthy uncle after the sudden death of his father and maybe that’s why she connected with the unfortunate and used to donate half of her earnings from writing to charity.