George Douglas Brown

Born in Ochiltree, Ayrshire, on January 26, 1869, he was educated at local schools, Ayr Academy, the University of Glasgow, and Balliol College, Oxford. He also wrote under the names George Douglas and Kennedy King.

After university he worked in London journalism and fiction. His reputation rests chiefly on The House with the Green Shutters (1901), a novel widely noted for its unsentimental picture of Scottish provincial life and for its influence on later realist writing.

He died in London on August 28, 1902, at just 33 years old, only a year after the publication of the book that made his name. That short life has given his work an added sense of intensity, and readers still return to him for the boldness and force of his writing.