Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pen name of the Scottish author James Leslie Mitchell. Born in Auchterless and raised in Arbuthnott, then in Kincardineshire, Mitchell started working as a journalist for the Aberdeen Journal and the Scottish Farmer at age 16.

In 1919, he joined the Royal Army Service Corps and served in Iran, India, and Egypt before enlisting in the Royal Air Force in 1920. In the RAF, he worked as a clerk and spent some time in the Middle East.

He married Rebecca Middleton in 1925, with whom he settled in Welwyn Garden City. He began writing full-time in 1929. Mitchell wrote numerous books and shorter works under both his real name and nom de plume before his early death in 1935 of peritonitis brought on by a perforated ulcer.

He was best known for A Scots Quair, a trilogy set in the north-east of Scotland in the early 20th century, of which all three parts have been serialised on BBC television.