Born in Oslo, ca. 1875, to a Scots family, Agnes Grozier Herbertson was the daughter of James Grozier Herbertson, and his wife Jessie Peattie. Her father's employment with a shipping company kept the family on the move, with the Herbertsons married in Norway, and their children born in Norway, France, and Scotland. Herbertson's younger sister, Jessie Leckie Herbertson, was also a writer, and the two lived together from the late 1930s, eventually retiring to the Edinburgh area.

Herbertson authored children's books, plays, and poems, as well as six novels for adults, beginning with A Book Without A Man!, published in 1897.