Mr. Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom, on January 7, 1956. His father was Ian Bell, a fireman on steam trains and a trade unionist. His mother was Helen Bell (née Mackay), a personnel worker with Edinburgh city water board.
Ian Bell attended Portobello High School. He studied English Literature and Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh where he graduated with an honours degree.
Mr. Bell applied to a graduate trainee scheme at The Scotsman but instead joined the newspaper in 1978 as a library assistant and shortly after became a sub-editor. He also wrote articles for the paper on rock and pop music, from the end of the seventies until 1986, when he became the literary editor. Ian Bell was an active member of the National Union of Journalists, where he was Father of the Chapel, a role equivalent to shop steward. After a labour dispute where journalists were locked out, he left the Scotsman in 1987.
He next worked as sub-editor at The Herald and The Sunday Herald. As a freelancer, Mr. Bell also wrote for The Scotsman. In the late 1990s he worked at the Daily Record, having been persuaded by the editor Martin Clarke. He also worked on The Times Literary Supplement. Ian Bell worked as the editor of the Scottish edition of The Observer 1988–1990. Mr. Bell was an advocate of Scottish independence over the course of his career.
Mr. Bell wrote a biography of Robert Louis Stevenson, Dreams of Exile which was published by Mainstream Publishing in November 1992.
He lived in Coldingham, in the Scottish Borders, for several years. He was there when he suddenly became unwell and died in hospital on 10 December 2015, at the age of 59. A memorial service was held on 22 December at Mortonhall Crematorium in Edinburgh.
Ian Bell was named Scotland's columnist of the year four times between 2000 and 2012. He completed three books- two volumes on Bob Dylan and a biography of Robert Louis Stevenson. Once Upon A Time is a 590-page work which covers Dylan's career up to and including his fifteenth studio album "Blood on the Tracks". The second volume Time Out of Mind was 570 pages. He wrote a novel Whistling in the Dark which was listed in catalogues by Mainstream in 1992 as "coming soon" but remained unpublished, with Bell reworking it several times.
(With the publication in 1880 of Washington Square, the gr...)
1993(This collection comprises essays that aim to re-evaluate ...)
1982("Fiction is to grown men what play is to the child," Robe...)
1993(In this collection of essays, a number of critics offer c...)
1990(American Literary Landscapes: The Fiction and the Fact (C...)
1989(Eighteenth-century England saw an explosion of writings a...)
1991(Critic as Scientist: Modernist Poetics of Ezra Pound by I...)
1981(The Dominican Republic (Nations of the Modern World))
1981(An examination of the work of Henry James. Topics covered...)
1991Ian Bell was always praised for their lucidity and logic.
Mr. Bell's second marriage was to Mandy Henriksen, an artist, and they had one son, Sean who became a journalist. He was a supporter of Hibernian F.C..
