Scottish novelist, an accomplished storyteller. Cronin gained fame with his novel HATTER'S CASTLE (1931). He produced several bestsellers with social concern or based the stories on his experiences as a doctor. Cronin continued to write until he was in his eightieth year. His books also gained a wide audience through film and television.

"In the recollections of those who, like myself, have ventured into descriptions of their early years, nothing has bored me more than those long, tedious, and particularized listings of the books the author has read and which led, in the end, to the formation of a literary tastes that was demonstrably excellent. For this reason I refrain from presenting a catalogue and state simply that I read everything."
(from A Song of Sixpence, 1964)

Cronin was born in Cardross, Strathclyde, as the only child of Jessie (Montgomery) Cronin and Patrick Cronin. His childhood was shadowed by the death of his father and poverty. Cronin was educated at Dumbarton Academy at his uncle's expense. In 1914 he entered the Glasgow University Medical School, graduating in 1919. During World War I Cronin served as a surgeon in the Royal Navy.

After the war he worked as a ship's surgeon on a liner bound for India, and then served in various hospitals. In 1921 he was commenced practice in South Wales. Three years later Cronin investigated occupational diseases in the coal industry. In 1925 Cronin was awarded his M.D. by the University of Glasgow and subsequently he started to practice in Wales and in London.

Cronin's heath broke down in 1930. Whilst convalescing in the West Highlands of Scotland, he wrote his first novel HATTER'S CASTLE (1931). The story depicted a Scottish hat maker who is obsessed with the possibility of his noble birth. After its publication accusations were made, that Cronin had plagiarized George Douglas's novel The House With the Green Shutters (1901). However, the book was an immediate success and allowed him to give up practicing medicine in favour of writing.

In 1939 Cronin moved to the United States with his family. He wrote THE KEYS OF KINGDOM, a story of a Roman Catholic priest, whose years on the mission field in China taught him tolerance, which the institutional Church finds difficult to deal with. After World War II Cronin travelled with his family in Europe. By 1958 the sales of Cronin's novels amounted to seven million in the United States. Cronin's humanism and social realism also made him popular in the Soviet Union.

Many of Cronin's books have been adapted for films or television programs. The television series Dr. Finlay's Casebook (1959-66, new adaptation 1993) was based on his stories. For the last 35 years of his life Cronin lived in Switzerland. He died on January 9, 1981, in Montreaux, Switzerland.

"Now he perceived how illusory his hopes had been, how all his imaginings had been falsely based on a romantic re-creation of the past. Had he actually expected, after thirty years, to find Mary as on the day he had abandoned her, sweet with the freshness of youth, tenderly passionate, still virginal? God knows he would have wished it so. But the miracle had not occurred and now, having heard the history of a woman who wept for him late and long, who married, though not for love, lost an invalid husband, who suffered hardships, ill-fortune, perhaps even poverty, yet sacrificed herself to bring up her daughter to a worthy profession - knowing all this, he had returned to reality, to the calm awareness that the Mary he would find at Markinch would be a middle-aged woman, with work-worn hands and tired, gentle eyes, bruised and dated by the battle of live..."
(from The Judas Tree, 1961)

For further reading: World Authors 1900-1950, ed. by Martin Seymour-Smith and Andrew C. Kimmens (1996); A.J. Cronin by D. Salwalk (1985); A.J. Cronin: A Reference Guide by D. Salwalk (1984); Adventures in Two Worlds by A.J. Cronin (1952); Catholic Authors, ed. by M. Hoehn (1947) - Other medical doctors as writers: Anton Chekhov, Frank G. Slaughter, Richard Gordon, Michael Crichton, James Herriot (veterinarian)

• HATTER'S CASTLE, 1931 - film 1941, dir. by Lance Comfort
• THREE LOVES, 1932
• GRAND CANARY, 1933
• THE STARS LOOK DOWN, 1935 - film 1939, dir. by Carol Reed - "Dr Cronin's mining novel has produced a very good film - I doubt whether in England we have ever produced a better." Graham Greene
• THE CITADEL, 1937 - film 1938. dir. by King Vidor
• LADY WITH CARNATIONS, 1939
• JUPITER LAUGHS, 1940 (play)
• THE KEYS OF KINGDOM, 1942 - film 1944, dir. by John M. Stahl, written Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Nunnally Johnson, starring Gregory Peck
• THE GREEN YEARS, 1944 - film 1946, dir. by Victor Saville, starring Charles Coburn
• THE ADVENTURES OF A BLACK BAG, 1946
• SHANNON'S WAY, 1948
• THE SPANISH GARDENER, 1950
• ADVENTURES IN TWO WORLD, 1952
• BEYOND THIS PLACE, 1953
• A THING OF BEAUTY, 1956
• THE NORTHERN LIGHT, 1958
• VIRGIL IN THE NIGHT, 1958
• THE NATIVE DOCTOR, 1959
• THE JUDAS TREE, 1961
• THE INNKEEPER'S WIFE, 1962
• A SONG OF SIXPENCE, 1964
• A QUESTION OF MODERNITY, 1966
• A POCKETFUL OF RYE, 1969
• ADVENTUREAS OF A BLACK BAG, 1969
• THE MINSTREL BOY, 1975
• THE LADY WITH CARNATIONS, 1976
• GRACIE LINDSAY, 1978
• DOCTOR FINLAY OF TANNOCHBRAE, 1985