Jane Scott Stuart was born in 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky, and spent her earliest years in her grandmother’s kitchen in Horse Cave, Kentucky — the quiet, segregated world that would later form the heart of Not In This World. An avid reader from the age of three, she grew up with stories woven into every corner of her life.
Jane went on to live on four continents — Sweden, Canada, New York, Tahiti, London, Provence, and the Scottish Highlands — absorbing the textures of each place and carrying them into her writing. She was educated at Holton Arms (Washington D.C.), Hollins College (Virginia), and McGill University (Montréal), where she met the man who became her husband: the younger son of a Scottish Earl, now her literary critic and beloved companion of over seventy years.
Not In This World is her debut novel. It draws directly on her own life and memory to tell a story of identity, love, and the extraordinary bonds that survive the pressures of history.