Scottish Literature

Douglas Gifford was a Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow and Research Fellow in the Glasgow School of Scottish Studies. Sarah M. Dunnigan is senior lecturer in English Literature at Edinburgh University. Her research interests include medieval and early modern Scottish literature, Scottish women’s writing, fairy tales, and children’s literature.

This useful reference book should be in the library of every American college or university that has a liberal arts tradition ! anyone reading it will find much that is interesting and new, presented in a clear, accessible style ! this book is an epic undertaking, accomplished with determination and singleness of purpose. This collective work will be immensely useful for students of Scottish literature ... An essential addition to the libraries of English departments throughout the world ! Scottish Literature is an indispensable instrument for all those, within and outside academia, who wish to improve their understanding of the Scottish contribution to what one recent French critic has called the International of Letters. The sheer size of the book and the voluminous reference section are an ample illustration that not only is contemporary Scottish creative writing diverse, alive and kicking, drawing on a rich and varied tradition and bearing comparison with its European counterparts, but also that contemporary Scottish literary history and ctitical analysis are also benefiting from the new context of greater national self-confidence. The'r nae dout at aw at this tome wul, binna for the eikin o new chaipters, be a standard work I the studie o Scottish leiterature for monie a lang year. Pr. Gifford an his team ir ti be congratulatit. There is little excuse now for ignorance of the best Scottish writing with this excellent book available. It is more than an introduction because much of it is intelligent literary criticism, as well as comprehensive and accurate bibliographies ! This book is itself a formidable achievement. It demonstrates beyond the richness, range, facination and sheer scale of Scottish literature. There is now no excuse for any failure to give it the place which it deserves in our schools, universities, bookshops, libraries, broadcasting and everyday life ! Each section of the book has an admirable introduction on the historical circumstances of the period. This useful reference book should be in the library of every American college or university that has a liberal arts tradition ! anyone reading it will find much that is interesting and new, presented in a clear, accessible style ! this book is an epic undertaking, accomplished with determination and singleness of purpose. This collective work will be immensely useful for students of Scottish literature ... An essential addition to the libraries of English departments throughout the world ! Scottish Literature is an indispensable instrument for all those, within and outside academia, who wish to improve their understanding of the Scottish contribution to what one recent French critic has called the International of Letters. The sheer size of the book and the voluminous reference section are an ample illustration that not only is contemporary Scottish creative writing diverse, alive and kicking, drawing on a rich and varied tradition and bearing comparison with its European counterparts, but also that contemporary Scottish literary history and ctitical analysis are also benefiting from the new context of greater national self-confidence. The'r nae dout at aw at this tome wul, binna for the eikin o new chaipters, be a standard work I the studie o Scottish leiterature for monie a lang year. Pr. Gifford an his team ir ti be congratulatit. There is little excuse now for ignorance of the best Scottish writing with this excellent book available. It is more than an introduction because much of it is intelligent literary criticism, as well as comprehensive and accurate bibliographies ! This book is itself a formidable achievement. It demonstrates beyond the richness, range, facination and sheer scale of Scottish literature. There is now no excuse for any failure to give it the place which it deserves in our schools, universities, bookshops, libraries, broadcasting and everyday life ! Each section of the book has an admirable introduction on the historical circumstances of the period.

• How to use this book; Section One: Early Scottish Literature; 1. Literary Roots: Medieval Poetry; 2. Robert Henryson and William Dunbar; 3. Early Scottish Drama: Ane Satyre and Philotus; 4. Renaissance Poetry: The Jacobean Period; 5. The Ballads; 6. Widening the Range; Section Two: Eighteenth-Century Scottish Literature; 7. Enlightenment and Vernacular; 8. Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson and the Vernacular Tradition; 9. Robert Burns; 10. Tobias Smollett: The Expedition of Humphry Clinker; 11. Widening the Range; Section Three: Scottish Literature in the Age of Scott; 12. The Age of Walter Scott; 13. Scott and Scotland; 14. Scott's Waverley; 15. Susan Ferrier: Marriage; 16. John Galt: The Entail; 17. James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner; 18. Widening the Range; Section Four: Victorian and Edwardian Scottish Literature; 19. Scottish Literature in the Victorian and Edwardian Era; 20. George MacDonald: Phantastes; 21. James Young Geddes, John Davidson and Scottish Poetry; 22. James Thomson: The City of Dreadful Night; 23. Robert Louis Stevenson: The Merry Men, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Master of Ballantrae; 24. Margaret Oliphant: Kirsteen; 25. George Douglas Brown: The House with the Green Shutters; 26. J. M. Barrie and the Scottish Theatre; 27. Widening the Range; Section Five: The Twentieth-Century Scottish Literary Renaissance; 28. A Twentieth-Century Scottish Renaissance?; 29. Hugh MacDiarmid, Edwin Muir and Poetry in the Inter-War Period; 30. Opening the Doors: Fiction by Women 1911-1947; 31. The Poetry of William Soutar; 32. Lewis Grassic Gibbon and Eric Linklater; 33. James Bridie and the Scottish Theatre; 34. The Poetry of Sorley Maclean; 35. The Epic Fiction of Neil Gunn; 36. Widening the Range; Section Six: Scottish Literature since 1945; 37. Decline and Revival: Modern Scottish Literature; 38. Scottish Poetry after 1945; 39. Modern Scottish Drama; 40. Scottish Fiction since 1945 I: Continuity, Despair and Change; 41. Scottish Fiction since 1945 II: Despair, Change and Hope; 42. Widening the Range; Section Seven: Reading Lists; Section Eight: Resources and Connections; Acknowledgements; Index.