Stuart Kelly is literary editor at Scotland on Sunday and a freelance critic and writer. He was raised in the Scottish Borders and studied English at Balliol College, Oxford, gaining a first class degree and a Master of Studies.

His works include The Book of Lost Books: an Incomplete Guide to All the Books You'll Never Read (2005), Scott-Land: The Man Who Invented a Nation (2010), which was longlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, and The Minister and the Murderer (2018).

Kelly writes for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, The Guardian and The Times. In 2016/17 he was president of the Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club.