Poet and novelist, son of a farmer, was born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, and educated at the University of Aberdeen, and at the Independent College, Highbury. He became minister of a congregation at Arundel, but after a few years retired, on account partly of theological considerations, partly of a threatened, breakdown of health. He then took to literature, and published his first book, Within and Without [1856], a dramatic poem, Poems followed in 1857, and Phantastes, a Faerie Romance, in 1858. He then turned to fiction, and produced numerous novels, of which David Elginbrod [1862], Alec Forbes [1865], Robert Falconer [1868], The Marquis of Lossie [1877], and Sir Gibbie [1879], are perhaps the best.

Contents
At the Back of the North Wind
Phantastes, a Faerie Romance for Men and Women
Lilith, a romance
The Princess and the Goblin
The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories
A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul
Unspoken Sermons Series I., II., and II.
The Princess and the Curdie
What's Mine's Mine
Hope of the Gospel
Robert Falconer
Sir Gibbie
Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood
There & Back
The Marquis of Lossie