AustLit

There is some confusion in standard reference sources between Campbell McKellar and C. D. McKellar/MacKellar, exacerbated by variant spellings of the names. Morris Miller appears to equate the two; he refers to Douglas Sladen's Twenty Years of My Life (p323) where Sladen talks about McKellar as contributing a chapter to Adam Lindsay Gordon and His Friends (Sladen and Humphris, 1912). That chapter, 'Some Notes on the Gordon Country in South Australia in November 1887', has a note : 'by C. D. Mackellar, author of Scented Isles'. It would appear from this that Sladen has confused two different authors.

Information from cover biographies and reviews of Campbell McKellar's novels held at the British Library (where the author's name is spelt MacKeller) make no reference to the travel works Scented Isles or Pleasure Pilgrim or C. D. McKellar/Mackeller. Neither do these travel works refer to any of the novels by Campbell McKellar or mention him, supporting the view that the two authors are different.

Sladen says McKellar was 'connected by both property and family to Australia'. The Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages lists a Campbell Duncan McKellar born in Hamilton in 1859 to Thomas and Catherine (McColl). But C. D. MacKellar, in Pleasure Pilgrim, says 'I made a voyage to Australia when I was a boy'. A comparison of the handwriting in The University of Queensland Library copy of the travel book Scented Isles (signed C. D. MacKellar) with that of the novels held in the Victorian State Library (signed Campbell McKellar) suggests two different authors. However, if they are the same person, it would appear that Campbell McKellar / Hilarion / HRH is used for novels (1887-1896) and C. D. Mackellar is used for his travel writings (1908-1912).