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Two Worlds an Edinburgh Jewish Childhood

DAICHES, David

Biographies & Memoirs

Canongate Classics

Set against the religious struggles of seventeenth-century Scotland, with Montrose for the king against a convenanted kirk, John Buchan's Witch Wood is a gripping atmospheric tale in the spirit of Stevenson and Neil Munro.
As a moderate Presbyterian minister, young David Sempill disputes with the extremists of his faith. All around, the defeated remnants of Montrose's men are being harried and slaughtered by the faithful, and Sempill's plea for compassion, like his love for the beautiful Katrine Yester, is out of joint with the times.
There are still older conflicts to be faced however, symbolised by the presence of the Melanudrigill Wood, a last remnant of the ancient Caledonian forest. Here there is black magic to be uncovered, but also the more positive pre-Christian intimations of nature worship.
In such setting, and faced with the onset of the plague, David Sempill's struggle and eventual disappearance take on a strange and timeless aspect in what was John Buchan's own favourite among his many novels.

Witch Wood (Canongate Classics)

Literature & Fiction

Buchan, John.

Genre Fiction

First published in 1930 to an unprecedented storm of protest, Catherine Carswell's The Life of Robert Burns remains the standard work on its subject.
Carswell deliberately shakes the image of Burns as a romantic hero - exposing the sexual misdemeanours, drinking bouts and waywardness that other, more reverential, biographies choose to overlook.
Catherine Carswell's real achievement is to bring alive the personality of a great man: passionate, hard-living, generous, melancholic, morbid and triumphant . . . the very archetype of the supreme creative artist.

The Life Of Robert Burns (Canongate Classics)

Carswell, Catherine

Arts & Literature

Caught in the melting pot of social injustice, revolution, war, and pacifism, this powerful book gives a vivid account of the experiences and struggles of a Glasgow family from the First World War and into the Depression at the end of the Twenties.
It is a story of Glasgow apprentices, their lives dignified with a desire for art and learning and the ideal of reforming the world. The book follows the fortunes of one particular family, the Macdonnels. The mother dreams of social success while struggling to raise her family and her ambitious husband out of slum life. But even at its saddest the humour of life flashes from every page in comic description and witty observation.

Dance Of The Apprentices (Canongate Classics)

Gaitens, Edward

British & Irish

Out of the war years comes this memoir of life as a wife and mother in occupied France during World War II. In this candid and poignant account, Janet Teissier du Cros powerfully evokes the international political atmosphere of the time and its effects within her own family. As a Scotswoman married to a Frenchman, du Cros found herself enmeshed in a web of dual loyalties. The innate suspicion bred by old enmity, the attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in 1940, the handling of Dunkirk: all meant she faced far more hostility as a Briton than might be expected. Mme. du Cros writes in the main of the trials of existence, both in Southern France, where her husband Francois's family lived, and in Paris, where she joined him after his release from German imprisonment. Witty and poignant accounts of the determined joy of shared Christmases and the increased risk of bearing her third child are set against the dull throb of the progress of war, which bursts into the foreground towards the close with the Allied landings.

Divided Loyalties: A Scotswoman in Occupied France (Canongate Classics)

Cros, Janet Du Teissier

Community & Culture

The most famous Scottish novel of the early twentieth century, The House with the Green Shutters has remained a landmark on the literary scene ever since it was first published in 1901.Determined to overthrow the sentimental 'kailyard' stereotypes of the day, George Douglas Brown exposed the bitter pettiness of commercial greed and small-town Scottish life as he himself had come to know it. More than this, however, his novel lays bare the seductive and crippling presence of patriarchal authority in Scottish culture at large, symbolised by the terrible struggle between old John Gourlay and his weak but imaginative son.Illuminated by lightning flashes of descriptive brilliance, Brown's prose evokes melodrama, Greek tragedy and postmodern alienation in a unique and unforgettably powerful reading experience.

The House With The Green Shutters (Canongate Classics)

Brown, George Douglas

Contemporary

In a story which lays bare the strengths and the horrors of the egalitarian Scottish Presbyterian spirit, Ringan Gilhaize looks across three generations to describe Scotland's most turbulent years, from his grandfather's support for the Reformation, to the harsher years of his own sufferings as a persecuted Covenanter in the killing times.
Unique when it was published in 1823, and unique to this day, Ringan Gilhaize is an autobiography, a folk history of enormous scope, and a compelling psychological portrait of how idealism can turn to fanaticism.
History tells us that John Graham of Claverhouse ('bluidy Clavers') was killed by a stray musket ball at the battle of Killiecrankie in 1689. This is the story of the bitter religious and political conflicts that led to that battle, from the mouth of the man who pulled the trigger.
Best known as the author of The Provost, Annals of the Parish and The Entail, Galt shows the full range and power of his writing in Ringan Gilhaize and reinforces his claim to be in the very highest rank of Scottish writers.

Ringan Gilhaize (Canongate Classics)

GALT, JOHN

Historical

Samuel Johnson and James Boswell spent the autumn of 1773 touring the Highlands and the Western Islands of Scotland. Both kept detailed notes of their impressions and later published separate accounts of their journey together. The account of their great tour is one of the finest pieces of travel writing ever produced: it is a magnificent historical document and also a portrait of two extraordinary personalities. In the vivid prose of theses two famous men of letters, the Highlands and the Western Islands spring to life. The juxtaposition of the two very different accounts creates an unsurpassed portrait of a society which was utterly alien to the Europe of the Enlightenment, and straining on the brink of calamitous change. This great masterpiece, entertaining, profound, and marvellously readable is also our last portrait of a lost age and people.

Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (Canongate Classics)

Johnson, Samuel

Boswell, James

Galt's two great political novels date from around the passing of the Reform Act of 1832. The Member has claims to be the first political novel in the English language and is a tour de force of wit, observation, and a devastating critique of political self-seekings. Its hero is a Scot, newly returned from India, who purchases a seat in a rotten borough. As a study of the corruption of the pre-reform parliament it is unsurpassed.
The Radical is a study of narrow-minded, humour-less fanaticism. Galt's aim is to demonstrate the fragility of the existing order and the closeness of anarchy to the surface of society. This is the first republication of The Radical since its original edition.

The Member And The Radical (Canongate Classics)

This is a full translation of the Scottish epic "The Bruce". The poem is regarded as one of the key sources for the life of Robert the Bruce. It contains detailed notes explaining and simplifying the narrative, as well as contemporary accounts. The book includes "The Declaration of Arbroath".

The Bruce (Canongate Classics)

Barbour, John

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