Jenni Calder

Jenni Calder (née Daiches) (born 1941) is a Scottish literary historian, and arts establishment figure.

Biography Calder was born to a Jewish family of Lithuanian-Jewish émigrés. She lives in Scotland and has been Edinburgh-based since. She has been part of the Scottish literary community for many years. Her teaching and writing cover Scottish, English and American literary and historical subjects.

She has written 28 books on literary and historical subjects, including biographies of Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, George Orwell and Naomi Mitchison and books on Scottish history and Scottish emigration. She has a particular research interest in emigration and the Scottish diaspora. She worked at the National Museums of Scotland from 1978 to 2001 and latterly as Head of Museum of Scotland International. In 2003 she helped to organise the National Museums of Scotland's exhibition called 'Trailblazers - the Scots in Canada'. She was president of Scottish PEN, a not-for-profit organisation that champions freedom of expression and literature across borders.

She writes fiction and poetry as "Jenni Daiches".

She was formerly married to Angus Calder, and is the daughter of David Daiches a prominent Scottish, Jewish, writer, critic and historian. She was born in the US and spent time in Kenya. Her book Not Nebuchadnezzar is a partly a biography and a . She has spoken out about antisemitism.

On the question of Scottish independence; of 27 Scottish authors whose opinion was sought, Calder was one of only two offering a definite No.

Some worksThere Must Be a Lone Ranger: The myth and reality of the American Wild West. Hamish Hamilton, 1974Huxley Brave New World and Orwell Nineteen Eighty Four. Edward Arnold, 1976Stevenson and Victorian Scotland. Edinburgh University Press, 1984Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four. Open University, 1988The Wealth of a Nation. Publications Office, Edinburgh, 1989Scotland in Trust: The National Trust for Scotland, 1990The Story of the Scottish Soldier, 1600-1914. National Museums of Scotland, 1992Enterprising Scot: Scottish Adventure and Achievement. National Museums of Scotland, 1995Scots in the USA. Luath Press, 2006

Reviews Clunas, Alexander (1982), review of Stevenson and Victorian Scotland, in Murray, Glen (ed.), Cencrastus'' No. 8, Spring 1982, pp. 42 & 42,