Janet Caird

Janet Hinshaw Caird (24 April 1913 – 20 January 1992) was a teacher and a 20th-century writer of Scottish mysteries, poems, and short stories. Daughter of Peter Kirkwood, a missionary, and Janet Kirkwood, she was born in Livingstonia, Malawi, and educated in Scotland. She attended Dollar Academy in Dollar, Clackmannanshire, and the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a Master of Arts in English literature in 1935 before further study at the University of Grenoble and the Sorbonne in 1935–36.

She married James Bowman Caird in 1938, and they had two daughters. She taught English and Latin at Park School for Girls in Glasgow in 1937–38, at Royal High School, Edinburgh in 1940–41, and at Dollar Academy from 1941 to 1943. After several years at home, she returned to teaching at Dollar Academy in the 1950s before moving to Inverness in 1963.

Her novel for children, Angus the Tartan Partan, was published in 1961, followed by five murder mysteries set in Scotland and an historical novel, The Umbrella Maker's Daughter (1980), set in Dollar. Her three books of poetry appeared between 1977 and 1988. Caird also wrote short stories for publication in periodicals and anthologies, and she wrote reviews and critical articles for Cencrastus, Chapman, Scottish Literary Journal, and other publications.

Caird was a member of the Royal Overseas League, the Society of Authors, and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and she was president of the Inverness Association of University Women. Caird died in Inverness in 1992.

Mysteries

 * Murder Reflected (1965) ; reprinted as In a Glass Darkly (1965)
 * Perturbing Spirit (1966)
 * Murder Scholastic (1967)
 * The Loch (1968)
 * Murder Remote (1973) ; reprinted as The Shrouded Way (1973)

Poetry

 * Some Walk a Narrow Path (1977)
 * A Distant Urn (1983)
 * John Donne You Were Wrong (1988)

Juvenile

 * Angus the Tartan Partan (1961)

Other

 * The Umbrella Maker's Daughter (1980)
 * The Poetry of Violet Jacob and Helen B. Cruickshank, in Parker, Geoff (ed.), Cencrastus No. 19, Winter 1984, pp. 32 – 34,

Some of Caird's notebooks and manuscripts are held by the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. Other notebooks are held by Boston University in the United States.

Reviews

 * Hendry, Joy (1984), Distant Urn, a review of A Distant Urn, in Parker, Geoff (ed.), Cencrastus No. 18, Autumn 1984, p. 47,