Michael Scott (30 October 1789 – 7 November 1835) was a Scottish author and autobiographer who wrote under the pseudonym Tom Cringle.

Life and work

Scott was born in Scotland at

Cowlairs Cowlairs is an area in the Scottish city of Glasgow, part of the wider Springburn district of the city. It is situated north of the River Clyde, between central Springburn to the east and Possilpark to the west. Administratively, in the 21st ...

, near

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

, the son of a Glasgow merchant. In 1806 he went to

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

, first managing some estates, and afterwards joining a business firm in Kingston. The latter post necessitated his making frequent journeys, on the incidents of which he based his best known book, ''Tom Cringle's Log''. In 1822 he left Jamaica and settled in Glasgow, where he engaged in business. ''Tom Cringle's Log'' began to appear serially in ''

Blackwood's Magazine ''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine''. The first number appeared in April 1817 ...

'' in 1829. Scott’s second story, ''The Cruise of the Midge'', was also first published serially in ''Blackwood's'' in 1834–1835. The first appearance in book-form of each story was in Paris in 1834. Both stories - "interesting autobiographical portraits of jamaica in the 1820s, written by a perceptive and sympathetic, but transient observer" - were originally published anonymously, and their authorship was not known till after Scott's death at Glasgow. Craig Lamont has placed Michael Scott within a 'Glasgow School' of early nineteenth century Scottish novelists, along with

John Galt John Galt () is a character in Ayn Rand's novel ''Atlas Shrugged'' (1957). Although he is not identified by name until the last third of the novel, he is the object of its often-repeated question "Who is John Galt?" and of the quest to discover ...

and Thomas Hamilton.Craig Lamont, ''Finding Galt in Glasgow'', in Gerard Carruthers & Colin Kidd, (Eds.), ''The International Companion to John Galt'', Scottish Literature International, 2017, pp. 34-43

References

External links

* * * 1789 births 1835 deaths Scottish novelists {{Scotland-writer-stub