Origin, Composition, Publication

Lawrie Todd had its starting point in an autobiographical manuscript that John Galt purchased from Grant Thorburn (1773–1863), a Scottish emigrant who ran a successful seed business in New York City. Galt most likely obtained the manuscript in 1827 or 1828, when he lived in Canada and sometimes travelled to the United States. Details about his meetings with Thorburn are sketchy, despite his comments on them in his Literary Life and in the introduction to the novel. According to the Literary Life, their first meeting took place at an unspecified time at Thorburn's “seed-store” in New York City, the meeting having been arranged because Thorburn was something of an eccentric local celebrity and Galt was known to take an interest in such characters. The purchase of the manuscript took place sometime after a second meeting at the American Hotel, a popular gathering place in the neighbourhood of Thorburn's store.

According to Galt's introduction, Thorburn was equally fascinated with Galt at their first meeting and so sought out the author “a few days” later for further “acquaintance” (4). Galt alludes to “a communication” in which Thorburn confided more about his life than he chose to reveal when another person was present at the hotel (4), but he does not indicate in either the introduction or his Literary Life exactly when and where he purchased Thorburn's manuscript. He does specify that he paid “an author’s, not a publisher's price.” Thorburn gives a partly compatible account in a preface to the sixteenth edition of Lawrie Todd, which he edited. Dating the meeting at the American Hotel in 1831 (which is obviously inaccurate), Thorburn says that he “gave” the manuscript to Galt at that time and that Galt “returned it”; Galt does not mention returning the manuscript.

Galt wrote Lawrie Todd in 1829, after he had left the Canada Company and returned to Britain, though he began “to construct the narrative” at an earlier time while still “in the solitude of the forest” (4), presumably in North America. Galt's motives for turning Thorburn's account of his experiences as a Scottish emigrant in New York into a novel exploring settlers’ lives more fully were practical, personal, and ideological.