George Douglas Brown was born in 1869 in Ayrshire. The illegitimate son of a local farmer, he was raised by his mother. He gained a bursary to the University of Glasgow and later a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. After his mother's death, Brown moved to London and began a career in journalism. He contributed to a variety of journals and, in the autumn of 1900, began writing The House With the Green Shutters, which was favourably received and compared to Balzac and Stevenson. Aged only 33, he died of pneumonia in 1902.