Leitch Ritchie

Leitch Ritchie (1800–1865) was a Scottish novelist and journalist. He was born at Greenock and worked as a clerk in Glasgow, but about 1820 adopted literature as his profession.

Ritchie wrote four novels, of which the most successful was Wearyfoot Common. The others were Schinderhannes, The Robber of the Rhine and The Magician. In his later years he edited Chambers' Journal. He also wrote short stories, including one of the first British werewolf short stories The Man-Wolf (1831). Ritchie also wrote non-fiction works, such as travel books.

Life

Ritchie was at first an apprentice in a banking office, but at an early age went to London with letters of introduction to literary people. Called back by his father, to take up a position in a Glasgow trading firm, he started in 1818, with some friends, a fortnightly publication, The Wanderers, which ran to 21 numbers (4 April 1818 to 9 January 1819). The Glasgow firm became bankrupt, and Ritchie again went to London.

Working as a professional writer, Ritchie sent articles to the Foreign Quarterly Review, the Westminster Review, and other periodicals. The London Weekly Review, on which he had been employed, passed into other hands, he and the former editor, James Augustus St. John, went to live in Normandy. Books made his reputation, and from this period he had enough work. In addition to his other engagements, he with William Kennedy, started a monthly periodical, The Englishman's Magazine, which ran to seven numbers (April to October 1831), when his own illness caused its abandonment.