From Treasure Island to Trainspotting, Scotland's rich literary tradition has influenced writing across centuries and cultures far beyond its borders. Here, for the first time, is a single volume presenting the glories of fifteen centuries of Scottish literature. In Scotland's Books the much loved poet Robert Crawford tells the story of Scottish imaginative writing and its relationship to the country's history. Stretching from the medieval masterpieces of St. Columba's Iona - the earliest surviving Scottish work - to the energetic world of twenty-first-century writing by authors such as Ali Smith and James Kelman, this outstanding account traces the development of literature in Scotland and explores the cultural, linguistic and literary heritage of the nation. It includes extracts from the writing discussed to give a flavor of the original work, and its new research ranges from specially made translations of ancient poems to previously unpublished material from the Scottish Enlightenment and interviews with living writers. Informative and readable, this is the definitive single-volume guide to the marvelous legacy of Scottish literature.

Critics hailed the first edition of The Literature of Scotland as one of the most comprehensive and fascinatingly readable accounts of Scottish literature in all three of the country's languages - Gaelic, Scots and English. In this extensively revised and expanded new edition, Roderick Watson traces the lives and works of Scottish writers in a beautiful and rugged country that has been divided by political and religious conflict but united, too, by a democratic and egalitarian ideal of nationhood. The Literature of Scotland: The Twentieth Century provides a comprehensive account of the richest ever period in Scottish literary history. From The House with the Green Shutters to Trainspotting and far beyond, this companion volume to The Literature of Scotland: The Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century gives a critical and historical context to the upsurge of writing in the languages of Scotland. Roderick Watson covers a wide range of modern and contemporary Scottish authors including: MacDiarmid, MacLean, Grassic Gibbon, Gunn, Robert Garioch, Iain Crichton Smith, Alasdair Gray, Edwin Morgan, James Kelman, Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, A. L. Kennedy, Liz Lochhead, John Burnside, Jackie Kay, Kathleen Jamie and many, many more! Also featuring an extended list of Further Reading and a helpful chronological timeline, this is an indispensable introduction to the great variety of Scottish writing which has emerged since the start of the twentieth century.

Neil Gunn has long been recognized in Scotland as one of the well-springs of the literary renaissance of the nineteen-twenties and nineteen-thirties and is now generally accepted as the most significant novelist the Highlands of Scotland has produced. Yet his work has divided the critics: one view sees him as essentially a regional writer recreating the history of the Highlands and exploring the values of a traditional society. Another sees his greatest contribution in the later novels which deal with the deepest issues of the day in more exploratory and experimental fashion. This study demonstrates that in fact Gunn accepts no limitations in psychological and philosophical penetration, and deals always with the whole universe of man and the other landscape of the mind. The varied criticism of Gunn and the reasons for his neglect outside Scotland are sharply examined, and his status as a novelist of European stature is assessed.

This is a penetrating study of the striking parallels between the work of Scottish novelist Neil Gunn and Eastern thought, particularly those of Zen Buddhism and Taoism. All of his books are crucially concerned with man's archetypal quest for wisdom and freedom. Many of his characters have just those qualities of stillness, inner luminosity and unspoken meaning that characterize the traditional Oriental religions. In a detailed and lively analysis of seven of Gunn's major novels including Highland River, The Silver Darlings, and The Well at the World's End, Burns explores the significance of such moments in Gunn's fiction. Contents: Light, Delight and Zen, Introduction; The Pivot of Tao, Butcher's Broom 1934; Returning to the Source, Highland River 1937; The Heart of the Circle, The Silver Darlings 1941; Slaying the Mind, The Serpent 1943; The World of Light, The Well at the World's End 1951; Beyond Violence, Bloodhunt 1952; Seeking the Master, The Other Landscape 1954; Celebration of the Light; References; Glossary of Zen Terms; Bibliography; Index

Scottish creative writing in the twentieth century was notable for its willingness to explore and absorb the literatures of other times and other nations. From the engagement with Russian literature of Hugh MacDiarmid and Edwin Morgan, through to the interplay with continental literary theory, Scottish writers have proved active participants in a diverse international literary practice. Scottish criticism has, arguably, often been slow in appreciating the full extent of this exchange. Preoccupied with marking out its territory, with identifying an independent and distinctive tradition, Scottish criticism has occasionally blinded itself to the diversity and range of its writers. In stressing the importance of cultural independence, it has tended to overlook the many virtues of interdependence. The essays in this book aim to offer a corrective view. They celebrate the achievement of Scottish writing in the twentieth century by offering a wider basis for appreciation than a narrow idea of 'Scottishness'. Each essay explores an aspect of Scottish writing in an individual foreign perspective; together they provide an enriching account of a national literary practice that has deep, and often surprisingly complex, roots in international culture.

Scotland and Nationalism provides an authoritative survey of Scottish social and political history from 1707 to the present day. Focusing on political nationalism in Scotland, Christopher Harvie examines why this nationalism remained apparently in abeyance for two and a half centuries, and why it became so relevant in the second half of the twentieth century. This fourth edition brings the story and historiography of Scottish society and politics up-to-date. Additions also include a brand new biographical index of key personalities, along with a glossary of nationalist groups.