Dorothy Emily Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1892 to a prominent Scottish family, her father being David Alan Stevenson, a lighthouse engineer and Robert Louis Stevenson's first cousin. Major James Reid Peploe (nephew of the artist Samuel Peploe) married her in 1916. They settled in Glasgow after the First World War and raised two sons and a daughter. Dorothy authored her first novel in the 1920s, and by the 1930s, she had become a popular author, selling more than seven million volumes over the course of her career. Among her many best-selling books was a series starring the well-known Mrs.

Tim is a British Army officer's wife. In her beautiful, funny, and well-observed works, the author frequently returned to Scotland and Scottish themes. Dorothy Stevenson and her husband moved to Moffat, Scotland, during World War II. The majority of her later works were written here.