Early Years
Born in Greenock into a maritime family, her most famous work (though the authorship was for some time in dispute) is "There's Nae Luck Aboot The Hoose," a tale of a sailor's wife and the safe return of her husband from the sea. It is reported that Robert Burns remarked on its quality in 1771, some years after Adam's death.
Adam had a limited education in reading, writing, and sewing. She first encountered poetry not at school but when she read extracts from Sir Philip Sidney's romance The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1590) whilst working in domestic service with the minister of West Kirk, Greenock. There she also became acquainted with John Milton’s work and translations of the classics.
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Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“Parents ... are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfil the promise of their early years.”
—Anthony Powell (b. 1905)
“Franklin said once in one of his inspired flights of malignity—
Early to bed and early to rise
Make a man healthy and wealth and wise.
As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Adolescents are travelers, far from home with no native land, neither children nor adults. They are jet-setters who fly from one country to another with amazing speed. Sometimes they are four years old, an hour later they are twenty-five. They don’t really fit anywhere. There’s a yearning for place, a search for solid ground.”
—Mary Pipher (20th century)