Rather than emphasizing William Soutar's role as a major protagonist of the Scottish Renaissance - a role which has gained greater recognition in recent years -, the author, in this study of William Soutar's life and work, has chosen to listen to the voice of a great visionary searching for meaning and wholeness in a disunited and unstable world. Taking Soutar's philosophy of the Righteousness of Life as a starting point, she traces his reflections on creative writing, death, religion, pacifism and other related spheres and establishes fully, for the first time, the width of this Scottish writer's philosophic range. By drawing upon the treasure of Soutar's private papers, she reveals a facet of his work which glows with the intense presence of his observations on concerns that are still fundamental for our understanding of modern society and politics.

Rather than emphasizing William Soutar's role as a major protagonist of the Scottish Renaissance - a role which has gained greater recognition in recent years -, the author, in this study of William Soutar's life and work, has chosen to listen to the voice of a great visionary searching for meaning and wholeness in a disunited and unstable world. Taking Soutar's philosophy of the Righteousness of Life as a starting point, she traces his reflections on creative writing, death, religion, pacifism and other related spheres and establishes fully, for the first time, the width of this Scottish writer's philosophic range. By drawing upon the treasure of Soutar's private papers, she reveals a facet of his work which glows with the intense presence of his observations on concerns that are still fundamental for our understanding of modern society and politics.