The Fountain Pen Flows Here

{Please do not feel you have to read this whole thing, I know it's long. This is a fountain dedicated to John Galt, where these pictures were taken}

{Dolly History lesson: John Galt (2 May 1779 – 11 April 1839) was a Scottish novelist, entrepreneur, and political and social commentator. Born in Irvine in 1779, the son of a sea captain who traded with the West Indies. In 1789 the family moved to Greenock and much of Galt’s fiction draws from the localities of the west coast of Scotland where he spent his youth. He was a sickly child and much of his time was spent listening to the traditional tales of his mother and the local women of Greenock, an influence that feeds into Galt’s gift for storytelling and his acute ear for regional dialect.

Around the age of twenty-four Galt began writing. He experimented in verse but was an inferior poet. Several of his essays, however, were published and this writing at this time demonstrates his early interest in politics and the colonies, particularly Canada which had long captured his imagination. In 1809 Galt spent a period of time travelling on the Mediterranean and it was here that he made his acquaintance with Lord Byron who was to become the subject of his acclaimed biography The Life of Byron in 1830. In 1811 he returned to London, his commercial aspirations disappointed and turned to journalism as a means of making money.

In 1813 Galt conceived the idea of writing a west of Scotland novel based on the observations of a parish minister but he was to wait until the writing of Walter Scott had transformed the climate of Scottish literature before a publisher would accept a book about a Scottish subject. Once published Galt’s works flew off the press. The Ayrshire Legates were serialised in 1820 –21. Then came Galt’s The Steamboat and Annals of the Parish in 1821, and Sir Andrew Wylie, The Gathering of the West, The Provost and The Entail in 1822. In 1823 Ringan Gilhaize, was published, followed by two less successful historical novels.

Yet despite critical and commercial success, Galt had not abandoned his business aspirations. In 1824 Galt became actively involved in political campaigning on behalf of the Canadian colony and two years later left for Canada leaving the manuscript for The Last of the Lairds with his publisher. During the years 1827-29 Galt developed the virgin territories of the Canadian colony and founded the townships of Guelph and Goderich. For Galt, the Canadian project was the realisation of his most profound ambitions. But he was to fall foul of colonial bureaucracy and was eventually forced to return to Britain in 1829 under charges of debt and placed in prison.

Once again Galt resorted to writing for money, contributing short stories to periodicals and penning and several long novels. These, however, were not the format in which his talents lay and his final political novels The Member andThe Radical mark a return to form in 1832. In his later years Galt suffered a stroke and composed his Autobiography by dictation, with the intention of setting the record straight about his involvement in Canada. He returned to Greenock in 1834 and continued writing until his death, aged 60, in 1839.}

Have a beautiful day darlings!!

♥

{All Photos by ©Gorgeous Gavin. All Rights reserved.}