His father was a distinguished soldier and his mother was a member of the Stuart Menteths, a noble Scottish family.

His best-selling novel, If Winter Comes, was in many aspects ahead of its time, dealing with an unhappy marriage, eventual divorce, and an unwed mother who commits suicide.

[4] If Winter Comes was so popular that clergymen gave sermons on the plight of the novel's hero, Mark Sabre.

Rebecca West criticised This Freedom in an October 1922 article for Good Housekeeping, "Wives, Mothers, and Homes".

"[8] In any case, This Freedom proved to be highly successful and was ranked by the New York Times as the 7th best-selling book in the United States for 1923 and the 6th best for all of 1924.