Having emigrated from Scotland to Canada in his early thirties, Ian Moore-Morrans was a Scotsman to the core―despite his love for his adopted homeland―adventurous, humorous, and determined to provide a better life for himself, his wife and two young daughters. In his first memoir, From Poverty to Poverty: A Scotsman Encounters Canada, he shared with his fascinated readers what life was like for him in the early days, from his Scottish roots to his eventual emigration. In this sequel, we get to learn what happened next, joining him on a journey that takes him and his first wife back and forth across six provinces, with multiple stops along the way, as he struggles to survive and thrive in the face of countless obstacles that would likely have stopped a lesser man in his tracks. With love and humour in his heart, and music in his soul, this extraordinary “common” man was anything but ordinary. Throughout his life, love, laughter, and song carry him through even the toughest of times. Even after the death of his first wife, which he describes with poignancy, he pushes on, in true Scottish fashion, eventually meeting a new love―the soulmate with whom he shares his final years, full of romance, adventure, writing, singing, a heart-felt appreciation of Canada, and a continued enthusiasm for all things Scottish. The cover photo is of Gayle’s jewellery box that became Ian’s funeral urn, depicting Ian’s varied avocations–playing his trumpet in a Royal Air Force band; singing as a Scottish performer; displaying one of his published books; and dancing with a Scottish country dance group. The Leslie Clan tartan background represents the addition of “Moore” to Ian’s family name, as the Moore family is a sept of the Leslie Clan. (Ian’s first memoir displayed the McKinnon Clan tartan of which the Morranses are a sept.)

The most comprehensive and challenging edition of the poems and songs of Robert Burns ever to be published Along with Walter Scott, Robert Burns is probably the best known Scottish writer in the world. His life story is often represented as one of sexual and alcoholic excess. Drawing on extensive scholarship and the poet's own inimitable letters, this defining work offers a wealth of information on Burn's life and times, the hardship of his early days, his political beliefs, his hatred of injustice, and his fate as a writer too often sentimentalized by biographers, critics, and well-meaning enthusiasts. The poems are presented in the order of their first appearance, giving further insights into the reception of Burns's work and the guarded relationship he had both with his readers and his own fame. Burns is shown as being a radical figure in a British as well as a Scottish context?as well as the peer of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Byron in the revolutionary and repressive world of the 1790s.