Once one of the most popular Scottish fiction writers and widely considered to be the most likely to succeed to the position once held by Robert Louis Stevenson as a stylist and Sir Walter Scott as a historical novelist, it was for his humorous short fiction about Capt. Peter Macfarlane ("Para Handy") rather than his eight novels that Neil Munro seemed destined to be remembered at the time of his death. His nearly two hundred short stories, most collected in eight volumes, include historical adventure, Celtic legends, delineations of character, supernatural tales, contemporary humor, and topical sketches.

Novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and promoter of Scottish national subjects, Neil Munro was born on 3 June 1864 in Inveraray, Argyll, Scotland. His ancestors were shepherds and farmers who belonged to the Campbell clan. No biographical reference work names his parents, but Alan Bold's Modern Scottish Literature (1983) indicates he knew the name of...