Marjorie Fleming

Portrait of Marjorie Fleming during her last illness. From a water-color drawing, probably by Miss Isa Keith, 1811.^[1]

Marjorie Fleming (15 January 1803 – 19 December 1811) was a child writer and poet, born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. She died of meningitis at the age of 8. Her complete written work is held by the National Library of Scotland. After spending some time in Edinburgh under the tutelage of her beloved cousin Isa Keith, Fleming returned to Kirkcaldy, where she contracted measles which later developed into the meningitis that killed her.

She is best remembered for a diary which she kept for the last eighteen months of her life. For fifty years following her death the diary remained unpublished, although she was rumoured to be the favorite poet of Sir Walter Scott. Fleming was allegedly related to Scott distantly on her mother's side. The two never referred to each other in their journals and the relationship was suggested by her 1863 editor Dr. John Brown.

Her diary was first published in 1858 by H. B. Farnie and was a great hit with Victorians. It was subsequently re-edited by Dr. Brown in 1863 and Lachlan Macbean in 1904 and 1928. However, these were severely truncated and re-worked versions of Fleming's diary, due to the nature of Fleming's writing style which used language seen in Victorian times as inappropriate for an eight-year-old to use, or indeed to be used at all in polite company. As a result, Fleming's writings were extensively edited during the Victorian and subsequent Edwardian periods and a complete and accurate edition was not published until 1935, over a century after Marjorie Fleming's death.

"Marjorie" is the spelling popularized by her later editors. "Marjory" is the spelling used by the Fleming family.

References

1. ^ Marjorie Fleming's book, the story of Pet Marjorie together with her journals and her letters, to which is added Marjorie Fleming, a story of child-life fifty years ago (1904) by Macbean, Lachlan; Brown, John. (http://www.archive.org/details/marjorieflemings00macbuoft)

External links

• Works by or about Marjorie Fleming at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions)
• Trivia Library biography
• Kirkcaldy Civic Society biography
• Fife Post biography

Persondata
Name	Fleming, Marjorie
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	15 January 1803
Place of birth
Date of death	19 December 1811
Place of death