BRUNTON, Mrs Mary (1778-1818), a novelist of the early part of the 19th century, was born on the 1st November 1778, in the island of Barra, Orkney. Her father, Colonel Balfour, was a man of importance in the island, and she received a very careful and excellent education. At the age of twenty she married the Rev. Mr Brunton, minister of Bolton in Haddingtonshire, who in 1803 received a call to a church in Edinburgh. In 1811 Mrs Brunton published anonymously her first novel, SelfControl. It at once became very popular; the first edition was sold off in a month, and a second and third quickly followed. The book was especially recommended by its high moral and religious tone: it was a novel with a purpose. As a work of art, it cannot take a high place; the plot is extravagant and improbable, and the characters have none of the charm of reality about them. The story is constructed after the model of Clarissa, and contains the usual virtuous heroine and vicious hero, with an unusual number of abductions and mysteries. Her second novel, Discipline, was published in 1814, and was received with equal favour. Mrs Brunton died on the 19 th December 1818. An unfinished tale, Emmeline, was published after her death by her husband, with a notice of her life.