[Front cover flap copy] In Lawrie Todd (1830; rev. ed. 1832), John Galt paints an optimistic portrait of Scottish emigration to North America. Designed as a fictional autobiography, the novel charts the fortunes of its protagonist from his departure from Scotland - to avoid being tried for treason over his French Revolutionary sympathies - to his rise to prosperity as a shopkeeper in New York City and imaginary towns near Rochester. This edition of the novel provides a contextual introduction, explanatory notes, and maps that connect Todd's life story with boom times in New York and with Galt's own efforts at social entrepreneurship in Canada as well as with debates over emigration and political reforms in Britain. It sheds light on Galt's methods of characterisation, including his use of Scots and 'Yankee' speech habits and adaptation of real-life models, and on his popularity with readers in his own time.

John Galt was a Scottish novelist, entrepreneur, and political and social commentator.

Regina Hewitt is Professor of English at the University of South Florida. Her most recent publications include Commemorating Peterloo: Violence, Resilience and Claim-Making during the Romantic Era, co-edited with Michael Demson (2019), and an edition of Lawrie Todd for the Edinburgh University Press Edition of the Works of John Galt (2023). In 2023, she was elected Chair of the John Galt Society. Formerly Co-Editor of the European Romantic Review, she now serves as a Consulting Editor for that journal.