Janet Milne Rae | |
|---|---|
| Born | Janet Gibb (1844-07-08)8 July 1844 Willowbank,Aberdeen, Scotland |
| Died | 24 April 1933(1933-04-24) (aged 88) |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Other names | Mrs. Milne Rae |
| Occupation(s) | novelist, missionary |
| Known for | middlebrow novels |
| Spouse | Rev. George Milne Rae |
| Children | four, including Lettice Milne Rea (novelist),Olive Rae (actress) |
| Parents |
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Janet Milne Rae (née Gibb; 8 July 1844 – 24 April 1933), usually known asMrs. Milne Rae, was aScottish novelist and missionary born in Willowbank,Aberdeen. She began writing fiction while living in India, starting withMorag: A Tale of Highland Life in 1872.
Janet Gibb lost her mother, Margaret Smith, at the age of 12 and her civil engineer father, Alexander Gibb, at the age of 20. She married a graduate of theUniversity of Aberdeen, Rev. George Milne Rae, and the couple went out as missionaries toMadras, India. Her husband taught at the University andMadras Christian College. They returned to Edinburgh in about 1891.[1]
In Scotland, George Milne Rea publishedTheSyrian Church in India (1892) andConnection between Old and New Testaments (1904) and was prominent in theUnited Free Church of Scotland. In the first of those books, he argued against the theory that StThomas the Apostle had preached in India, explaining the assertion as an example of a tradition migrating with the people who believed in it, theNestorians.[2] He died in 1917. Mrs Milne Rae died in Edinburgh in 1933. She is buried inDean Cemetery with her husband and three of their children.[3]
The Milne Raes had four children, of whom the third,Lettice Milne Rea (1882–1959), was likewise a novelist and local historian.[4] Their eldest daughter,Olive Rae (1878–1933), became anEdwardian musical comedy actress in London and on tour in Britain.
Rae began to write "middlebrow" novels and shorter works of fiction while she was in India, her first beingMorag: A Tale of Highland Life.
Her works include:
She was also the editor ofThe Life Beautiful. A Selection of Passages fromFaber (1907).