Hannah Clarke Preston Macgoun was the youngest daughter of Rev. R.W. Macgoun, M.A., of Morningside Parish Church , Edinburgh . Her work appeared at the Exhibitions of the Royal Scottish Academy , the Society of Scottish Artists, and the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, to which she was elected a member in 1903. “Do you know I have never heard the lark sing,” she once told a friend, in uncharacteristic reference to “the gift of hearing which had been almost wholly denied to her.”

“Fiona Macleod” was a pen name of William Sharp, novelist and critic. He attended Glasgow Academy and the University from 1866 to 1874, then worked in a lawyer's office before going abroad for health reasons. He wrote many mystical novels and Celtic tales under the name Fiona Macleod, a secret which was kept until after his death in Sicily in 1905.