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Author: Home, John

Biography:

Home, John (1722-1808: ODNB)

Church minister and dramatist. He was born at Leith to Alexander Home, a town clerk, and Christian (Hay) Home, and educated at the Leith Grammar School and Edinburgh University (MA 1742). During the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, he fought on the side of the government and was captured at Falkirk but managed to escape his imprisonment. Patronised by Sir David Kinloch of Gilmerton, he was appointed minister at Athelstaneford, Haddington (where he succeeded Robert Blair, author of The Grave), in 1746. His first drama was written on classical themes but William Collins encouraged him to find local inspiration in Scotland. Douglas, his 1756 tragedy, was instantly acclaimed but it also generated religious controversy, leading Home to resign his Athelstaneford appointment in 1757. He moved to London where he was secretary to Lord Bute and tutor to the Prince of Wales. With the collapse of Bute’s administration in 1763, Home resigned as his secretary. On his return to Scotland, he leased land from Kinloch and built a house at Kilduff where he and his wife, Mary Home—a relation whom he married in 1770—lived until 1779. Home had become an invalid after falling from a horse when he was commissioned to a Midlothian regiment in 1778. He and Mary moved to Edinburgh where Home, whose final completed play, Alfred, had been unsuccessful, worked on his History of the Rebellion, 1745 (1802). He died at Merchiston, Edinburgh, and is buried in South Leith churchyard. (ODNB 8 Mar. 2019)

 

Books written (11):

3rd edn. London: Becket, 1773
Belfast: James Magee, 1773
Dublin: W. Wilson, 1773
New edn. London: Becket, 1778
Edinburgh/ London: Archibald Constable and Co./ Hurst, Robinson, and Co., 1822