Hugh Stowell Scott

Born in Newcastle upon Tyne,{{cite DNB12 |wstitle= Scott, Hugh Stowell |volume= 3 |last= Seccombe |first= Thomas |author-link= Thomas Seccombe |pages=278-279 |short=1}} he became an underwriter at Lloyd's of London, but then took to travel and writing novels, many of which had great popularity. Scott visited India as a tourist in 1877–1878 and set his novel Flotsam (1896) there.{{cite web |url=http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/32748/excerpt/9780521832748_excerpt.pdf |title=The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination by Gautam Chakravarty

|website=assets.cambridge.org |access-date=11 May 2010}} He was an enthusiastic traveller, many of his journeys being made with his friend and fellow author Stanley J. Weyman.{{Cite EB1911 |wstitle=Merriman, Henry Seton |volume=18 |page=173}}

Scott married Ethel Frances Hall (1865–1943) on 19 June 1889.{{Cite web |title=Ethel Frances Hall |url=http://family-tree.cobboldfht.com/people/view/3975 |website=Cobbold Family History Trust |access-date=24 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150524115806/http://family-tree.cobboldfht.com/people/view/3975 |archive-date=24 May 2015 |url-status=dead}} They had no children. Scott was unusually modest and retiring in character. He died of appendicitis in 1903, aged 41, at Melton, Suffolk.{{cite web |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14581171?searchTerm=Hugh+Stowell |title=Obytuary |website=nla.gov.au |access-date=11 May 2010}} Scott left £5000 in his will to Evelyn Beatrice Hall, his sister-in-law and a fellow writer, best known for a biographical work, The Friends of Voltaire. Scott explained the legacy as a "token of my gratitude for her continued assistance and literary advice, without which I should never have been able to have made a living by my pen."[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4951457?searchTerm=Evelyn%20Beatrice%20Hall&searchLimits= The Advertiser, (Adelaide, SA) March 09, 1904]

He worked with great care, and his best books held a high place in Victorian fiction. His book The Sowers was made into a silent film in 1916.

His first novel, Young Mistley was published anonymously in 1888. His other novels include: The Phantom Future (his only novel set entirely in England, 1888), Suspense (1890), The Slave of the Lamp (1892), From One Generation to Another (1892), With Edged Tools (a bestseller in 1894), The Sowers (generally considered his best, set in Russia, where it was banned, 1896), The Grey Lady (1897), In Kedar's Tents (1897),{{Cite journal |title=Review: In Kedar's Tents by Henry Seton Merriman |journal=The Athenæum |issue= 3654 |date=6 November 1897 |pages= 629–630 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ilpDAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA629|last1=Buckingham |first1=James Silk |last2=Sterling |first2=John |last3=Maurice |first3=Frederick Denison |last4=Stebbing |first4=Henry |last5=Dilke |first5=Charles Wentworth |last6=Hervey |first6=Thomas Kibble |last7=Dixon |first7=William Hepworth |last8=MacColl |first8=Norman |last9=Rendall |first9=Vernon Horace |last10=Murry |first10=John Middleton}} Roden's Corner (1898), Dross (1899), The Isle of Unrest (1900), The Velvet Glove (1902), The Vultures (1902), Queen (1903), Barlasch of the Guard (a Napoleonic novel set mainly in Danzig, 1903) and The Last Hope (1904).

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• Young Mistley (1888)
• The Phantom Future (1888)
• Suspense (1890)
• Prisoners and Captives (1891)
• The Slave of the Lamp (1892)
• From One Generation to Another (1892)
• Well Meant (1892)
• Sister (1892)
• A Pair of Dark Horses (1893)
• In Countermine B (1893)
• The Slowcoach (1893)
• In a Caravan (1893)
• From Wisdom Court (with Stephen G. Tallentyre, 1893)
• The Panther (1894)
• The Haunted Hand (1894)
• Crab-Appleby (1894)
• Hand and Heart (1894)
• Putting Things Right (1894)
• With Edged Tools (1894)
• At the Front (1894)
• A Friend in Need (1895)
• The Lie That Tony Told (1895)
• "The Morning Star" (1895)
• In the Track of the Wandering Jew (1895)
• The Money-Spinner and other Character Notes (with Stephen G. Tallentyre, illustrations by Arthur Rackham, 1896)
• Flotsam (1896)
• Through the Gate of Tears (1896)
• The Sowers (1896)
• A Pariah (1896)
• The Prodigal's Return (1896)
• The Carnival in Spain (1896)
• Last Year's Nest (1896)
• On the Brink (1896)
• Of This Generation (1896)
• The Grey Lady (with illustrations by Arthur Rackham, 1897)
• After Many Days (1897)
• In Kedar's Tents (1897)
• In the Valley of Repose (1898)
• On the Rocks (1898)
• Roden's Corner (1898)
• Dross (1899)
• Tomaso's Fortune (1899)
• The Isle of Unrest (1900)
• A Small World (1900)
• An Old Custom (1901)
• The Velvet Glove (1902)
• The Vultures (1902)
• Queen (1903)
• Barlasch of the Guard (1903)
• The Last Hope (1904)

Uncollected magazine stories:

• For Juanita's Sake
• The End of the "Mooroo"
• Golossa-a-l
• The Mule
• In Love and War
• Stranded
• In a Crooked Way
• The Tale of a Scorpion

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{{Reflist}}

{{A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature}}

{{wikisource|works=or|Hugh Stowell Scott}}

• {{Gutenberg author |id=1312| name=Henry Seton Merriman}}
• {{Internet Archive author |name=Henry Seton Merriman}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname= |sopt=t}}
• {{Librivox author |id=9683}}
• For short accounts of many of the novels see the Preface on [http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Slave-Of-The-Lamp1.html]

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Category:1903 deaths

Category:1862 births

Category:Writers from Newcastle upon Tyne

Category:People educated at Loretto School, Musselburgh

Category:Deaths from appendicitis

Category:English male novelists

Category:19th-century English novelists

Category:19th-century English male writers

Category:Victorian novelists

Category:19th-century English short story writers

Category:English male short story writers

Category:19th-century pseudonymous writers