Frederick John Niven, (born March 31, 1878, Valparaíso, Chile-died Jan. 30, 1944, Vancouver, B.C., Can.), regional novelist who wrote more than 30 novels, many of them historical romances, set in Scotland and Canada. Educated in Scotland, Niven worked in libraries in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Three of his best-known novels-The Flying Years (1935), Mine Inheritance (1940), and The Transplanted (1944)-form a trilogy dealing with the settlement of the Canadian west.