Andrew Melrose
Andrew Melrose (5 February 1860 - 6 November 1928
Life and works
Melrose was born in Midlothian. Much of his early career was spent at the London Ludgate Hill offices of the Sunday School Union, where from 1893 he published the Sunday School Chronicle.[1]
He began publishing under his own name around 1899 in York Street,
Between 1900 and 1903 Melrose published and contributed to a weekly paper Boys of the Empire, the official organ of the Boys Empire League. The League's stated purpose was" to promote and strengthen a worthy Imperial Spirit in British-born boys".[2] The paper was edited by Howard Spicer (later Sir Howard).
In 1911, Melrose was living at 68 Southwood Lane, Highgate, with his wife Margaret and their children Ernest (20), Douglas (17), Allan (14), Kenneth (11) and Marjorie (9).[3]
Melrose gained a reputation for publishing distinctive books of a theological kind.
Melrose was not afraid of courting controversy in his choice of authors. In 1915 he published
The book on which Melrose chiefly prided himself was The House with the Green Shutters by George Douglas Brown. Melrose had met Brown through Howard Spicer, and the two encouraged Brown to write his grim story of a Scottish village. The following year, Brown died unexpectedly of pneumonia at Melrose's house in Hornsey.[7][8] Melrose published a memorial edition of Brown's House with the Green Shutters in 1923 and subsequently unveiled a memorial to the author in his Ayrshire birthplace.[1]
Under the pseudonym of A. E. Macdonald, Melrose wrote popular biographies of missionary Alexander Murdoch Mackay,[9] British statesman William Ewart Gladstone[10] and explorer Henry Morton Stanley.[11]
In 1927 Melrose's publishing business was taken over by the
Melrose prize winners
The Melrose prize was awarded eight times between 1908 and 1923, and seven of the winners were women.
Year awarded | Writer | Title | Adjudicators |
---|---|---|---|
1909 | Agnes E. Jacomb | The Faith of His Fathers | Clement K. Shorter
|
1910 | Patricia Wentworth | A Marriage Under the Terror | Flora Annie Steel, Mary Cholmondeley, Mrs Henry de la Pasture |
1911 | Miriam Alexander | The House of Lisronan | W. J. Locke
|
1913 | Margaret Peterson | The Lure of the Little Drum | Joseph Conrad, Mary Cholmondeley, W. J. Locke |
1914 | Marius Lyle (Una Maud L. Smyth) | Unhappy in Thy Daring | H. G. Wells, W. L. Courtney, A. E. W. Mason |
1920 | Catherine Carswell | Open the Door! | Andrew Melrose |
1921 | Isabel Beaumont (Constance Isabel Smith) | Smokeless Burning | |
1923 | A. G. Thornton | An Astronomer at Large |
References
- ^ a b c d e The Times obituary; 7 November 1928
- ISBN 0-8108-5043-5
- ^ 1911 Census
- ^ The Publishers' Circular and Booksellers' Record, Vol. 116, p.107
- ^ James Milne, "Best Novel Competition Won by a Woman With Her First Book: Some Inferences Drawn" New York Times, 9 April 1910 [1]
- ^ A.S. Barnes, Educational Foundations, New York, 1914, p.371
- ^ Andrew Melrose, George Douglas Brown, Reminiscences of a Friendship and a Notable Novel; Cuthbert Lennox
- ^ George Douglas Brown. The House with the Green Shutters: A Biographical Memoir, Hodder and Stoughton, 1903.
- ^ A.E. Macdonald (pseud.Andrew Melrose). Alexander Mackay, Missionary Hero of Uganda. London, 1893.
- ^ E. A. Macdonald (pseud.Andrew Melrose), Mr. Gladstone: A Popular Biography, 1891
- ^ E.A. Macdonald (pseud.Andrew Melrose. The Story of Stanley, the Hero of Africa, 1890