ABSTRACT
In 1930, Archibald Joseph Cronin’s medical career came to an abrupt end due to ill health and he moved to the West Highlands in Scotland. With his newfound time he decided to embark on a career in writing, another passion of his. Cronin went on to write numerous very successful novels. The Stars Looked Down is a novel about a northern mining town, highlighting the poverty and occupational illnesses faced by the nation’s mining population, through the eyes of the Fenwick family. Many of Cronin’s novels were made into Hollywood blockbuster films. In 1939, Cronin and his family moved to the United States where he wrote more novels. These proved highly popular and total sales of his books in the United States reached seven million in 1958. Despite leaving the profession after a little over 10 years, Cronin influenced medicine in the United Kingdom immensely through his literary work.
