Mary Mackellar, daughter of Allan Cameron, baker at
Fort William, was born on 1 October 1834. Her early days were spent with grandparents at
Corrybeg on the north shore of
Loch Eil; her father died at a young age, and Mary briefly took over his business. She married early John Mackellar, captain and joint-owner of a coasting vessel, the "Glencoe", with whom she sailed for several years, visiting many places in Europe, and being often shipwrecked. She settled in
Edinburgh in 1876, shortly afterwards obtained a judicial separation from her husband, and dying on 7 September 1890, was buried at Kilmallie,
Argyllshire. While living in Edinburgh she became friendly with Professor
John Stuart Blackie and enthusiastically supported his successful campaign for the establishment of a Chair of
Celtic Studies at
Edinburgh University. She dedicated her book of poems and songs to her
caraide dìleas agus fear-tagraidh mo dhùtcha, mo shluaigh agus mo chànain, Professor Blackie ("faithful friend and advocate of my country, my people and my language, Professor Blackie"). She translated a few of Blackie's poems into Gaelic. For the last ten years of her life she tried to make a livelihood by her pen, and she was granted £60 from the
Royal Bounty Fund in 1885. Her
Poems and Songs, Gaelic and English, collected chiefly from newspapers and periodicals, were published at Edinburgh in 1880. According to the
Dictionary of National Biography, the Gaelic poems show force and some fancy, but the English pieces, through which there is an undertone of sadness, are of no merit. She also wrote ''The Tourist's Handbook of Gaelic and English Phrases for the Highlands'' (Edinburgh, 1880), and her translation of
Queen Victoria's second series of
Leaves from our Journal in the Highlands has been described as "a masterpiece of forcible and idiomatic Gaelic". A
Guide to Lochaber by her gives many traditions and historical incidents nowhere else recorded. She also wrote fiction, serialised in the
Oban Times. She held the office of 'bard' to the
Gaelic Society of Inverness, in whose
Transactions much of her prose, including her last work, appears; and was 'bard' of the Clan Cameron Society. The
Highland Monthly, in its obituary, noted that Lochaber and
Clan Cameron "formed the centre and soul of her work". A monument was erected to her memory in
Kilmallie by public subscription. ==Literary analysis==