John Macrone (1809-1837) was a Scotsman who arrived in London around 1830 and became a publisher, in partnership with James Cochrane between January 1833 and August 1834, and independently between October 1834 and his death in September 1837. A friend of Dickens and Thackeray, he published Sketches by Boz and, posthumously, The Paris Sketch Book. One of his other projects was a life of Scott, which he began to write soon after the death of the novelist; but his book, chiefly remembered because Hogg wrote his Anecdotes of Scott for inclusion in it, fell under the displeasure of Lockhart, and was cancelled shortly before it was to have been published. A fragmentary manuscript, however, was recently discovered by the author of this thesis and has now been edited for the first time, together with a biographical study of Macrone, in which extensive use is made of previously unpublished and uncollected material.