Hugh Stowell Scott

Hugh Stowell Scott (9 May 1862 – 19 November 1903) was an English novelist who wrote under the pseudonym of Henry Seton Merriman. His best known novel, The Sowers went through thirty UK editions.

Life Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, 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. He was an enthusiastic traveller, many of his journeys being made with his friend and fellow author Stanley J. Weyman.

Scott married Ethel Frances Hall (1865–1943) on 19 June 1889. They had no children. Scott was unusually modest and retiring in character. He died of appendicitis in 1903, aged 41, at Melton, Suffolk.

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.

Novels His first novel, Young Mistley was published anonymously in 1888. 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).