In a capitalist society both culture and creativity are commodified. Is this a problem? Maybe it’s a bit weighty of a topic for you. It’s certainly something that consumes my thoughts for large spells of time but to wean you in to it gently, I’ll start this stage of the cultural revolution with an exemplar. Let me ask you to consider another question, and forgive me if you think I’m patronising you because the answer seems so obvious! If an author wants the most people possible to read his work (and most do) what should he/she do to achieve this? Simple answer: Make the book available as easily as possible to the widest number of people at the cheapest possible price. Ignoring the fact that even if you make a book available for free on every current ‘platform’ you aren’t guaranteeing readers - you can lead the reader to the book but you can’t make them read after all – it does seem a bit of a no-brainer that you do what you can to make the book available if you want people to read it. In a capitalist world of course you have to add on ‘make it appealing’ which takes us down a whole new path of commodification – I will not dwell on this here but return to it at a later date. The point I am trying to make is that if you want people to read books you should price them sensibly and make them easily available. So. Hold that thought. I wanted to read a book. The process starts: I have very limited funds and a ‘budget’ for book-buying of £10 a month. Yet I read probably 10 books a month at least including work and pleasure related texts. So where possible I try to find the books I want to read for free. I can rarely get the kind of books I want to read free online (though some use of Project Guthenberg and the online library can bear fruit). When I fail online I try to access the books I’m interested in free via libraries – I have maintained some academic online library privileges over the past decade (mainly by taking a wide range of Open University courses) and more recently the National Library of Scotland has opened up much of its digital archive. But plenty remains stuck behind the academic paywall. I am a life ‘friend’ of an academic library but they won’t let me access their digital collection. So, sometimes, I have to resort to buying books. I’ve been trying to get hold of a copy of R.D.S.Jack’s ‘Myths and the Mythmaker’ for five years. It was published in 2010 but it took me 2 years to find out it even existed (I was busy with other authors and Barrie had slipped off my radar for a time). Perhaps I didn’t try as hard as I might have in 2012– f the eye-watering price of £70 put me off – especially combined with a review that said most of the ground was covered in ‘The Road to Neverland’ (never trust reviews, it’s simply not true!) But since the death late last year of the author R.D.S.Jack who was perhaps Barrie’s greatest living advocate, I have felt increasingly uneasy about who will now carry the torch for Barrie into the future. There is some ‘interest’ in him from a range of quarters, but forgive my cynicism, most of them seem to be trying to shoe-horn Barrie into their own areas of research (feminism, modernism etc) and that does him a great dis-service. Barrie has been kicked enough over the centuries by the ignorant, the lazy and those with an axe to grind. He deserves much, much better. So I turned again to an attempt to purchase the book. Result: Myths and the Mythmaker: A Literary Account of J.M. Barrie's Formative Years. (SCROLL: Scottish Cultural Review of Language & Literature) 12 Nov 2010 by R. D. S. Jack Paperback £69.00Prime Eligible for FREE UK Delivery Only 1 left in stock - order soon. More buying choices £43.95used & new(9 offers) (In America it comes in at more than $100!!!) The publishers are cited as Rodopi, now owned by Brill – whom Google reveals to be large academic publishers of some repute. Their reputation suggests highwayman to me!
And allergic as I am to highway robbery, I felt I had to try to go down the cheaper route ( I use the word ‘cheap’ with something of a sneer.) I discovered I could get a ‘used like new’ one for £45. To me that’s still an obscene amount of money to pay for a book. I could eat for more than a week for that. I would need to eat less well for a number of weeks in order to pay for it. I didn’t buy it. I went online. I hunted it down via my online library access. After failing in 3 of my 4 possible options, I hit pay dirt. I was able to break through the paywall and offered the choice to read it online or download for a maximum of 21 days. All well and good. I started reading it online. I hate reading online. I downloaded it. I pretty quickly realised that this is a beezer of a book. One that I would need to refer to time and again. It’s an absolutely vital book for anyone with an interest in Barrie. (Mental note to self, write review on Amazon site to that effect!). And so, I ‘just clicked’ and bought it at £45. I held back my ire at the capitalist economic models of ‘supply and demand’ and smug comments of the cultural elitists who claim ‘the value of anything is the price anyone is willing to pay’ still ring in my ears. Let me make it clear, I have no reservations regarding the quality or value of the book (priceless) but it still really irks me to have to pay that sort of money. It’s a perfect example of the price of culture. It’s a salutary lesson and it is disgusting that a book so central to our Scottish cultural and literary heritage should be hidden from the general reader. But this is the price of a capitalist, hierarchical, elitist ‘canonical’ structure. And guess what. That’s kind of the point that Jack makes in the book. (okay he doesn’t mention capitalism but the rest is more or less consistent with his views.) Does that give you any idea why it is that you just can’t read this book unless you are an academic or pretty well heeled? Might I suggest there are three obvious reasons why a publisher would put out a book at a ridiculous price (given that there’s no way it can cost them this to publish – or if so, they shouldn’t be in business because Deveron Press can do it a lot cheaper – time to change the business model Brill!). The reasons are: 1) Naked Greed. 2) They don’t want people to read it. 3) They don’t think you should read it. I suggest it’s a combination of all three reasons. The publishers know the ‘academic’ market will bear the cost. It’s just the other end of the ‘Amazon free’ spectrum. Books are seen as ‘product’ in a ‘marketplace’, so while Brill clearly work on the basis that if you feign exclusivity you can hike up the price, Amazon work on the spread betting principle of hoovering up the odd penny/dime on every single purchase that goes through their site. We are simply cultural sheep disguised as consumers, waiting to be skinned one way or the other. So. Motive 1: Greed. Motive 3: they don’t want you to read it. There appears to be something of a ‘social cultural contract’ within the elite that says that as long as you are a) rich or b) part of academia and therefore by definition an intellecutal (?) you can gain access suggests that capitalism is at the heart of our academic model. I for one, have issues with this. It’s not enough to offer people ‘free’ tuition at higher education level (you’ll note this is only for undergraduate study not postgraduate study, that is a truly rarified intellectual arena – until which stage you are not considered ‘appropriate’ as a reader of books such as those published by the Scottish Cultural Review of Language and Literature. Unfair, I hear you cry. Undergrads can read those books too. Yes they can. If they are encouraged to. I have this nasty wee ‘impish’ voice in me that suggests that in Scottish academia it is the undergrads who help keep the postgrads and ‘true’ academics in their jobs – the classic hierarchical pyramid structure is alive and well in academia and this trickles down to Scots culture in general ( I will develop this point another time). For now I simply call them out. Shame on you publishers. Shame on you editorial boards (I know, you are simply soldiers following orders) and shame on you the Scottish Cultural Review of Language and Literature. I suggest all the above mentioned ‘they’s’ do not want you to know what Jack thinks about Barrie or Scottish Literature and culture. I suggest that his work doesn’t fit into their created dominant narrative and they don’t want you to read beyond the ‘canon’. This is the rather unpleasant side effect of the formerly stated motive 2. Even if ‘they’ think that Jack’s book is a good book for ‘them’ to read and write about, somehow ‘they’ don’t think that ‘you’ or ‘I’ or any of us outwith the hallowed halls of academe should have it made available to read. Are we too wee, too poor and too stupid? Did you never realise how political an issue culture is? Or how significant a role publishing and reading plays in our culture? It seems that our academic establishments and cultural bodies are in danger of selling us a Scotland where the general reader is not considered either capable of understanding or interested in engaging in Scots culture. Give us T2 Trainspotting and leave us to wallow eh? No offence Irvine Welsh, but I personally have more interest in the work of J.M.Barrie – and I’m not afraid to say it. So what of the ‘book’ itself? Here is the promotional blurb: J.M. Barrie's critical reputation is unusually problematic. Originally viewed as a genius to rank with Shaw and Wilde, Barrie soon fell victim to damaging psychological theories about his life and his patriotism. The few critics who have commented on Barrie have colluded with dominant myths about a figure who, like his most famous creation, never grew up, who abandoned Scotland and made light of his own people when serious social analyses of the nation's condition were called for, and who scorned the opportunities of University learning when at Edinburgh. Myths and the Mythmaker attempts to challenge these myths and offer a just revaluation of Barrie's genius. Through closely focused textual analyses, it dispels the popular images of Barrie as "escapist" writer and immature, mother-fixated artist. It seeks to replace the narrow prose canon on which the "Oedipal" and "Kailyard" myths are based with a thorough account of his Victorian apprenticeship. New research into Barrie's early work and criticism show the enduring influence of his Edinburgh education on his creative writing, his academic articles, and his own complex views on artistic genius. This is exactly the kind of book I want to read – and it doesn’t disappoint. I’ve read the downloaded version and I am hanging by the post box waiting for the delivery of my gold-plated paperback copy due for delivery by the time this month’s Gateway goes out. You haven’t heard the last of this book, or of Barrie, from the Orraman believe me! Oh, the good news is that for those of you who would now like to read some Barrie, even if you can’t afford to read about Barrie) and who are not averse to ereaders – you can pick up the COMPLETE J.M.BARRIE from Delphi Classics HERE for under a fiver. That’s 54 texts for about 9pence each. Might I suggest that if you want to join the cultural revolution, you start by reading the books they DON’T want you to read, rather than flocking to the ones they are pushing in your face on a daily basis – whatever the price. Let me end with a 'rif' on what is a currently popular/populist 'theme': Choose Books. Choose cultural freedom. Don’t allow anyone to tell you that Scotland is a pish, crap place where our cultural identity is revealed in any number of Trainspotting Generations. Sure Trainspotting has its place. I’m not suggesting we sanitise our view of our culture and ourselves. I’m just suggesting we don’t allow ourselves to be degraded by a cultural elite for whom we are so much cultural canon-fodder. When undergraduates are ‘taught’ Trainspotting’ over the works of J.M.Barrie I have to question quite where our cultural ‘head’ is at. Orraman Happy New Year!
January is the double headed month. We look backwards and we look forwards at the same time. Sometimes we get stuck in between. It can be a conflicting and confusing time. I have been looking backwards at my Gateway articles from last year while trying to ponder what should be my focus for the year ahead. My self-imposed field is culture, specifically Scots culture. As every year begins I struggle with the same issues: where to start? ‘what’s the point?’ and ‘who am I to write about culture?’ Last year I started on an exploration of some ‘greats’ (if you’ve read any of my articles you know that I have a problem with ‘great’ as a literary concept and construct) Beyond that I undertook a prolonged exploration of a group of writers called (by me) The Edinburgh Boys. I also started ‘Digging up the Kailyard.’ There is more work to be done on all these areas. There is always more work to be done in the defining, redefining and general exploration of culture in general and Scots culture more specifically. This year I want to push forward and explore more. I like to work organically, in response to my reading and to things happening round about as well as delving back into ‘theory’ and ‘history’ of Scots literature. Following the lead of James Leatham I’m comfortable giving my own, unique view on things, however unpopular it might be. I’m not trying to become ‘great’ after all. Just trying to bear witness to my own experience and understanding. And because I’m not being paid by anyone I have the freedom to do this. I am not ‘owned’. My writing has no commercial imperative. It’s of little value to the ‘system’ so I am roundly ignored by most. That doesn’t matter. Bearing witness isn’t about making friends, or even influencing people. It’s about bearing witness. This year I have a few topics/themes/ riffs if you want to be hip, which I intend to explore. But of course I may head off-piste as things develop. My key stated cultural resolution is really to delve into and where possible expose and unpick the actualities of cultural elites in all their forms (including what I think is possibly a unique Scottish trait of the ‘anti-elite elite’. So in the coming months you’ll be treated to articles entitled: What Price Culture? Firing the Scots Canon and Whose Culture is it anyway? I will be ploughing my way through some very claggy ground, I don’t crave or expect agreement from my readers but I do hope, through my challenging opinions (and I’d hope through decently reasoned argument) that I will encourage readers to think outside of the box/es into which Scots culture is all too often placed. I’ll give you a wee starter for ten. Bookfellas. Heard of them? Probably not. Not unless you’re among the Scots cultural literary elite in which case you’re probably not reading this. Yet for them to be what they want to be, we should all be aware of them. They are going to ‘help’ us after all. In short, Bookfellas is a concept dreamed up by The Scottish Book Trust (hmm… that very name gets me thinking challenging thoughts ) to encourage more men to read and especially to get them to read to their sons/children. I’m guessing that the cultural reference is to ‘Goodfellas’ while the ‘style’ is ‘Reservoir Dogs’. I suspect it was a good idea when kicked around in the office by a bunch of those who do not think of themselves as the elite but truly believe their own press that they hold the future of Scots literature in trust for the rest of us. But the devil is in the detail. And in this respect I suppose I am the devil’s advocate. I ask: Are we charity cases? Do we need people to tell us what to read? Of course recommendations are a great thing, especially from respected sources. BUT. The Scottish Book Trust represents something specific (in my view). It is partly a business - they exist to promote the authors/publishers they are in line (or in cahoots) with. Most people are a) unaware of this but b) find no shame in it anyway. After all, the marketplace is important and we all have to face commercial reality no? (Well, no, actually, not if we’re to be ‘trusted’ with representing and being a port of call for anyone interested in Scots writing). The ‘Trust’ side of the Scottish Book Trust exists to promote and encourage culture (but I suggest a fairly limited and middle class elitist form of Scots culture) and somehow they have to find a way to resolve the commodification of culture. Actually, it’s not something I think they have a problem with. It’s I who stand outside of the capitalist model, not they. Inside the system they probably see no irony in setting up a project thus: Bookfellas is a Scottish Book Trust initiative that brings together 50 men and aims to raise £50,000 to ensure that everyone in Scotland has the same opportunity to thrive through reading and writing. We want to encourage more men to read for pleasure and highlight the importance of dads reading to their children. Laudable on the surface. But think about it. Here’s how they are ‘selling’ it to the men they want to be their role-models. First, you dress in a suit and tie like something out of Reservoir Dogs (well, that’s so cool isn’t it. This whole idea of gangsters being smart and ‘goodfellas’ being ‘bookfellas’ etc. Forgive me if I don’t split my sides laughing at the post-modernist intellectual juvenilia of it all) They state as follows: Reading and writing have the power to change lives. And yes, you have no opposition from me on that score. They give some facts and figures, all very worthy of why it’s so important to get folk reading. For example: Reading for pleasure is more important to educational achievement and future success than wealth or background. Sounds good but I wonder if that is really true? Their argument is that while over 60% of mums aged under 25 read to their children only 25% of dads do. Okay. But do they consider that these ‘dads’ may be out working? There is scant real interrogation (that I can see) of the socio-economic conditions of people and WHY dads may read less to their children than mums. Anyway, what they want is to Help us turn Scotland into nation of booklovers. Now I would love that. Truly. I do believe that reading (for pleasure or for any other reason) is a great thing. That it’s a great way to access our culture and learn about ourselves and our place in the wider world. Or it can be. It can just be a way to perpetuate propagandistic myths about the capitalist model and a hierarchical society which alienates all but the elite and those aspiring to elitism. And when that is the purpose of books/reading is it any wonder that many folk (of all genders) don’t engage. Which is sort of my case in point. The Scottish Book Trust does not speak for all Scots writers. It claims to champion ‘the good’ but who is it who decides the criteria for ‘good’? That’s where the argument falls down. You might remember me going on about this last year in my ‘Only Connect’ article as well as the articles on Burns and Scott. It’s a recurrent theme of mine, sorry. But I don’t apologise because I think it’s an important theme to interrogate. I might humbly suggest that many men (and women and children) are alienated from reading because they do not see a reflection of their own lives in the work they read. And they have no way of discovering writers who share their experience. They are ‘sold’ from on high – even if what they’re being sold is Trainspotting. Be it aspirational elite, heroin chic or tartan noir – what’s being sold as culture is a construct and a pretty narrow construct as well. And not one that reflects across the whole of Scottish society/culture. Just think on that – I will explore this in more depth in future articles. Back to the current example though. In their avowed laudable goal to make Scotland a nation of booklovers, here’s what The Scottish Book Trust are going to do. The idea is simple. Each of the 50 men commits to raising £1,000 each in any way you like by April 2017. Each of the 50 men becomes a role model for reading in their families, at work and with friends. The money raised will support Scottish Book Trust’s literacy programmes. Okay… read on… here’s why, as a man, you would sign up (apart from wanting to wear shades, a suit, and be like a combo of Goodfellas and Reservoir dogs of course) The Benefits You will immediately become part of an exclusive group of 50 men across Scotland. You’ll meet new people and widen your personal and business networks. You’ll be championing a great cause, having fun and making a real difference to the future of people in Scotland. Okay, now I really feel I shouldn’t have to point out the herd of elephants trampling round this room. You aim to promote inclusive reading habits by creating an exclusive group? I suppose it’s an example of faith in a trickledown version of capitalism is it? It certainly doesn’t say ‘grassroots’ to me. It smacks of top down thinking. And as such it will surely fail. It may perpetuate the same small elitist circle, reaching out to the aspirational, but it will not engage those who perhaps need most ‘help’ – if you think non-readers need ‘help.’ For me the only ‘help’ such people need is to being able to access appropriate reading matter – and by appropriate I mean what they WANT to read. I believe there are plenty of writers out there living ‘under the radar’ who are writing the kind of things that these ‘non readers’ would read. But they never make the headlines. They have no ‘commercial’ value to the likes of the Trust and therefore they cannot be matched with potential readers. Instead, we are all to be served up with the ‘good’ by the ‘great.’ In the name of preserving and promoting our Culture. Not good enough in my opinion. It is, of course, easy to criticise. I’m not trying to knife anyone, just trying to raise consciousness, and I will attempt to explore the theory and practice of how we can develop and engage as a nation with our own written culture throughout the rest of this year. That’s my cultural resolution. I hope you’ll join me on the journey. You don’t have to buy anything, you don’t have to wear a tie or be a ‘cool dude’. You don’t have to be a man. Just someone who is open to the idea that culture shouldn’t be boxed up and distributed to the masses – but that it is actually a part of the very essence of who we are. I’ll leave you with a wee ditty. To the tune of Auld Lang Syne. Feel free to sing along. ‘It’s good because we say it’s good, it’s good because we say It’s good because we say it’s good, it’s good because we say.’ I need no Bookfella to encourage me to read. Nor do many other men I know. I do know a lot of men who would read more if a) they had the spare time and b) could find something to read that felt appropriate to them. If you’re in this position then you have to do a lot of work for yourself – go ‘under the radar’ and seek out the writers who are writing the sort of thing you’re interested in reading – they are out there but no Bookfella is going to be your guide towards them. I can’t offer recommendations because I don’t know your personal taste. But I can tell you that awards and bestsellers are constructs of an aspirational cultural elite and if you are not one of them, then accepting their recommendations isn’t likely to yield the results you are looking for. If you’re looking for a ‘real’ writer who is something like you – an ‘ordinary’ sort of guy – then you have to look for ordinary guys. Don’t look up. Look under the radar. Don’t worship, explore. Something to think about till next month then... The Orraman. Memorials and Websites –what do they say about our view of writers?
The Memorials we erect to writers surely tell us something about our opinions of them. This month I’d like to consider both the physical memorials to our Edinburgh Boys and the modern equivalent, which I suggest, is the website. Who does not know of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh? Scott’s memorial is domineering, all-encompassing- something to be ‘proud’ of on a vast scale. And it stands close to Waverley Station. Scott really ‘bosses’ this part of the Capital. But how many people read the Waverley novels, despite the size of the memorial. I wonder whether the rule is the memorial is large in inverse proportion to how much the writer is read? You can build it, and they may come, but you can’t make them read! By contrast Robert Louis Stevenson is having something of a resurgence in popularity. He is certainly more read than Scott these days. He even has a ‘day’ in Edinburgh which is this week lasting for a whole week. (November 13th so you may just have missed it). He even has a hashtag! #rlsday. This is all because he has been taken to the heart of Edinburgh City of Literature and is being heavily promoted. Which is all as it should be, but does tend to confirm that suspicion that post mortem, the perceived value of a writer lies in things other than the actuality of his writing – how much capital can be made out of him seems to be vital. Now I’ve been a lifelong lover of Stevenson – I am familiar with his house at Heriot Row having even slept there on a couple of occasions as a child. I used to dine out that I slept in his bed, but I suspect this isn’t true since the bed I slept in was at the back of the house so how could he have seen Leary light the lamp? Still, my point is that I have every cause to praise Stevenson, but that doesn’t stop me from suggesting that his recent rise is not only to do with a sudden awakening to the greatness of his work but to other more commercial forces. As far as actual memorials go, Stevenson isn’t that well represented. There has been a bronze memorial plaque in St Giles Cathedral since 1904 but more recently a small stone memorial in West Princes Street Garden commissioned by the Stevenson Society in 1987. Stevenson stated in his letters that he didn't want a statue of himself and so this modest stone is appropriate to a modest man. However, some have greatness thrust upon them and in 2013 a Bronze sculpture was unveiled in Colinton village. Whatever the ins and outs of Stevenson Resurgit in the literary canon, I just hope it leads to more people reading his work widely (and beyond the best-sellers) There’s an interesting memorial connection between Robert Louis Stevenson and Samuel Rutherford Crockett. While the two men never met, they became friends through letters and literature. Stevenson suggested Crockett ditch poetry in favour of fiction. He wrote a forward to Crockett’s early work ‘The Stickit Minister and Other Common Men’ (1893) and he wrote a poem to Crockett part of which forms the plaque on the Crockett Memorial in Laurieston. Built by public subscription in 1932 it is quite an impressive memorial, though in an out of the way place and until recently had fallen into something of dis-repair. However, on the anniversary of Crockett’s birthday this year the Memorial has seen a renovation including an inscription board, a wooden bench and much needed parking space. The Crockett memorial is the sort of structure he would have climbed as a youngster and the view would have been amazing from the top: a view of all the places he loved in childhood and wrote about throughout his adult life. The Scott monument it certainly isn’t. Crockett never was and never will be a Walter Scott – the two men are diametrically opposed in almost every way. And yet Crockett was chosen to write abridged versions of Scott novels for children of the early 20th century – who ‘would not read Scott.’ The irony is that in these works ‘Red Cap Adventures’ and ‘Red Cap Tales’ it is Crockett’s writing (and his fictionalised children) who steal the show from Scott. So Crockett has connections to both Scott and Stevenson – beyond literary style. J.M.Barrie was also a pen friend of Stevenson and a friend of Crockett. Both men planned a trip to Samoa for 1894 but sadly never made it and the opportunity for ‘Jimmy and Sam’s excellent adventure’ was lost when the news came that Stevenson had died. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened to all three men had they met up in Samoa early in 1894. Crockett might never have become famous (1894 was the year he burst onto the literary scene with no fewer than four novels published) and Barrie might never have got married. (Instead of going to Samoa he got sick and was nursed by Mary Anstell whom he subsequently married – out of gratitude?) Barrie’s memorials in Kirriemuir and Kensington Gardens are not of the man himself but of his character Peter Pan. He shares this commonality with Arthur Conan Doyle. He has a memorial at his birthplace in Picardy Place, Edinburgh but it is of Sherlock Holmes. There is a Conan Doyle statue in in Crowborough, East Sussex, however. Like Barrie, Buchan is under-represented in statuary in this country. You have to go to Haenertsburg, in the North-eastern Transvaal to find a memorial to him. Never mind the statues, there are places associated with our Edinburgh Boys. Scott once again top trumps the pack with Abbotsford. Stevenson has 17 Heriot Row, home of the Stevenson Society and an up market bed and breakfast these days. Crockett is perhaps worse remembered. His birthplace Little Duchrae is up for sale right now. His other childhood home in Cotton Street gives no recognition (but then nor does the entire town of Castle Douglas see fit to honour one of their most famous sons) and his houses at Bank House, Penicuik and Torwood, Peebles are both private homes neither of which evince any interest in their former famous inhabitant. As for Conan Doyle? There is a Sherlock Holmes museum at 221b Baker Street and in Edinburgh he features in the Writers Museum in the High Street, but all attempts (online) to find out about the Arthur Conan Doyle Centre were met with server errors. Not so elementary my dear Watson! Barrie has a birthplace museum in a cottage in Kirriemuir – it’s a great place to visit and perhaps the best Barrie memorial that exists. And Dumfries is in the process of capitalising on the Barrie/Peter Pan connection with a massive project to renovate Moat Brae, where Barrie lived for a while as a child and allegedly first came up with the idea of Peter Pan (I have my doubts, but it makes a nice story!) And Barrie is so overlooked that any publicity should surely be good – although again I do wish those promoting Barrie would look beyond Peter Pan. John Buchan has a new home in Peebles. Until some years ago there was a centre in Broughton but it ‘upgraded’ to Peebles where it exists as ‘The John Buchan Story.’ But hey, we live in a virtual world right? So let’s perhaps pit our Edinburgh Boys head to head in the only venues that count – websites. These are generally maintained by literary societies and I leave you to make your own minds up about the varied prices for membership. For those who love competitions and rankings, let’s just say that I’d place the Stevenson society website top of the pile. The Buchan Society and the Galloway Raiders (the Crockett Society) give a good account of their ‘man’ and offer an insight into both the writer and his works. All three of the aforementioned seem to have an investment in keeping the memory alive and encouraging folk to read the work. Scott has a ‘digital archive’ for the hardcore and a ‘tourist’ attraction for others which as you’d expect, pisses higher up the wall than any other in terms of money but not necessarily in terms of content – it seems to be selling the place rather than the writing. Conan Doyle has both a literary Society (which is actually the Sherlock Holmes Society) and a site which appears to be directed at preserving his literary estate in terms of commercial opportunities. And poor Peter Pan. Poor J.M.Barrie. He is atrociously served. I defy anyone to make sense of the Barrie website. I don’t think it’s even remotely up to date and trying to connect to it is well nigh impossible, I’ve tried several times over the years. The man is as neglected in this respect as every other. For Barrie the only thing to do is go to Kirriemuir. Until someone sees sense and sets up a proper website. I am frequently tempted to do so myself. But shouldn’t it be something the Mote Brae Trust look into – if they can prise themselves away from Peter Pan for just a minute. I for one think it’s time to grow up about J.M.Barrie. But enough from me. Go on a wee journey of discovery yourselves: RLS website http://robert-louis-stevenson.org S.R.Crockett Galloway Raiders website www.gallowayraiders.co.uk John Buchan website http://www.johnbuchansociety.co.uk/ Walter Scott Websites http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/ and http://www.scottsabbotsford.co.uk/ Arthur Conan Doyle Website http://www.arthurconandoyle.com/ And http://www.sherlock-holmes.org.uk/conan-doyle/ for the literary society Last, and very definite least: J.M.Barrie Websites http://www.jmbarrie.co.uk/ and if possible the even more appalling http://www.jmbarrie.net/ The Orraman Barrie, Conan Doyle and Buchan.
This month we look at the other half of our Edinburgh Boys, also blighted by their Bestsellers. J.M.Barrie is best known for – and totally blighted by – Peter Pan. His writing on ‘the boy who wouldn’t grow up’ has permeated all aspects of knowledge about him, and led to all manner of frankly ludicrous claims about his personal life and proclivities. If ever a writer was blighted by a character, never mind a book (and indeed in Barrie’s case a drama) it was Barrie. It seems that all discussion about Barrie and his work have to be mediated through the prism of Peter Pan. I think this is both unfair and inaccurate. The seeds of the character of Peter Pan are generally thought to have been found in The Little White Bird, (1902) and of course in Barrie’s relationship with the Llewelyn Davies boys – credited jointly as the inspiration for Peter. Barrie wrote: ‘I suppose I always knew that I made Peter by rubbing the five of you violently together, as savages with two sticks produce a flame. I am sometimes asked who and what Peter is, but that is all he is, the spark I got from you.’ But Barrie’s underlying interest in the psychology of childhood is also seen in his more autobiographical works Sentimental Tommy and its sequel Tommy and Grizel. If you note that Sentimental Tommy was first published in 1895, two years before Barrie met the Llewelyn Davies’, the seeds of a more complex and different story emerge. The ‘Tommy’ stories challenge the Victorian view of ‘sentimentality’ and juxtapose fantasy with reality in a very interesting way. They also show that Barrie was already well along the path of considering the nature of childhood in general and ‘boys’ in particular before either the Llewelyn Davies boys or Peter Pan the character were ‘born.’ The often dragged out simplistic story which attributes a sort of macabre fascination on the part of Barrie with boys to the fact that his older brother David died in a drowning accident from which his mother never recovered, leaving Barrie like a puppet trying to fill his place – is developed through Tommy and through Peter to become something quite sophisticated. Obviously Barrie suffered some level of childhood trauma. But he was also well aware of and fascinated by the nature of childhood in all its conscience free state. He sets boys up as a kind of noble savage against the restrictions of ‘civilized’ Victorian/Edwardian society. His unique combination of socio-psychology meets socio-political commentary is, I believe, Barrie’s great legacy. Beyond the fiction, in his dramatic works he places his socio-pscyhological lens firmly at the mores of his own society and the class system (with ne’er a boy in sight). The Admirable Crichton, What Every Woman Knows, and even Dear Brutus and Mary Rose all show evidence of this. Barrie was not obsessed with boys and boyhood – but perhaps his audiences were. Childhood was undergoing a reappraisal in Barrie’s time as profound as that of the 1950’s/60s which saw the emergence of the teenager, and the more recent social phenomenon of kidulthood. It seems society is still obsessed with not growing up – and this is hardly a crime to be laid at Barrie’s door. He offers much in the discussion of this field but he is horribly blighted because of his candour. He still suffers under the mug slinging of ‘inappropriateness’ in his relationship with children, but for me, Barrie is only ‘inappropriate’ in the fact that – as he claims in The Admirable Crichton one may look at society and instead suggest that ‘what’s natural is right.’ Despite being knighted, he is not a fully paid up member of the establishment by any means. For me, the further you delve into Barrie and the further you depart from Peter Pan mania, the more you learn of what a singularly great writer he was. A Well Remembered Voice both as a play and a short story, is incredibly moving and delves into some very uncomfortable places. Even his first foray into fiction Better Dead offers something quite unusual and unique. Barrie is in the process of being reinvented or ‘claimed’ by modernists as a ‘fantasy’ writer – a modernist before modernism really came into being, but I think this is just another branding exercise and I think Barrie resists such confines. Yes it’s right to free him from the blight of Peter Pan – but not to simply pigeonhole him into another straightjacket. He deserves better. He deserves readers who set aside their prejudices and come to read him where he was, with an understanding of all that he has to say about society. It is time for us, the reader, to grow up in our attitude to J.M.Barrie. (Sir) Arthur Conan Doyle was as blighted by a character as Barrie. In his case, Sherlock Holmes was the bane of his life, the character and story no reader could get beyond. There is something else shared by Barrie and Conan Doyle and it is an interest which was broadly prevalent at the fin de siécle and which found increased public interest post First World War. This was spiritualism. In several of Barrie’s stories and plays you find an exploration of otherwise seemingly rational people ‘dealing’ with the supernatural elements. I think this can be reasonably well explained – at least in its latter stages – as a ‘shock’ response to the horrors of the First World War. But Conan Doyle took the baton and charged with it. His interest in Spiritualism had been sparked as early as 1886 but in 1916 he ‘came out’ as a Spiritualist. This rocked a world who had seen in Sherlock Holmes, the father of scientific rationalism as the way to be. But Conan Doyle felt (and was) eternally blighted by Sherlock Holmes. He created not just a character, but an entire genre and was unable to escape from it, however hard he tried. It is interesting, then, to speculate how far Doyle was aware (or cared) that his reputation as the creator of Sherlock Holmes was damaged by his later adoption of Spiritualism. Was it a determined and conscious effort to free himself from a blight he did not want? Most, if not all young writers (especially if they need money) dream of achieving greatness through their work – either through a style or a character. But it’s often a case of be careful what you wish for. Many writers discover that once they are ‘discovered’ they are then pigeon-holed and it becomes difficult to impossible to write outside of the box of fame. It is often claimed that writers only have one story and retell it time and again. I think this is unfair. I think that writers generally have a range of areas of interest which they play with time and again – twisting and turning and exploring all sides of the matter in their stories – but this is not the same thing as retelling the same plot endlessly (which is what market-driven publishing demands). Conan Doyle is a salutatory example (as is John Buchan after him) of a writer who could not escape from his bestseller blight. Sherlock Holmes first saw the light of day in the story A Study in Scarlet published in the 1887 edition of Beeton’s Christmas Annual. He next appeared in serial form in The Sign of the Four in 1890. And thence in short story/serial formats almost continuously from 1891-1893 by which time he had fully caught the imagination of the mass market. Trying to kill him off in The Final Problem in 1893 didn’t work and following The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1901-1903, Conan Doyle offered more Sherlock Holmes stories in a steady stream from 1903 right through till 1927. Conan Doyle was like a rock star who kept disappearing from live touring only to return once he’d done his ‘studio albums.’ For extended periods he wrote other things – things that he would much rather be remembered by – but it was Sherlock Holmes who brought home the bacon. It is also important to note that, as with other of our Edinburgh Boys, the money to be made was primarily in serial fiction. Novels were spawned out of this but the ‘siller’ as S.R.Crockett called it, was in the serialisation. Barrie of course broke this mould with his dramatic works, but the serial form was lucrative for our ‘boys’ from the 188o’s onwards. Stevenson was less affected by this form and of course Scott died before it came into its own. To get a truer picture of Conan Doyle it’s worth reading some of his lesser known works – The Lost World, The White Company and The Crime of the Congo are just three which stand out – but there are plenty more to choose from. Whereas for ‘success’ it seems that an ability to create variations of the same thing infinitely is what gets one noticed, for me, it is in the breadth of skill that we should praise writers for – and if you want to relieve our Edinburgh Boys from the blight of the bestseller, the onus is on you to read around their other work. I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed. Last but not least this month, we come to John Buchan. His status as Edinburgh Boy is perhaps more tenuous than the others, given that he was not educated at Edinburgh University, but came to it as Rector in later life (once already successful.) However, like Conan Doyle before him, Buchan was blighted by his bestseller – The Thirty Nine Steps (1915) and the character it spawned Richard Hannay. Like Conan Doyle, Buchan produced a number of Hannay Novels –including Greenmantle, (1916), Mr Standfast (1919) The Three Hostages (1924) and The Island of Sheep (1936). Hannay, to my mind, stands as a kind of precursor of James Bond but his creation had at least as much to do with Buchan’s status as foremost propaganda writer during the first world war as anything else. Buchan was much more than a writer of fiction though. He was a lawyer, historian, politician and he wrote in all of these fields. Like Conan Doyle, Hannay was a foil who became a blight. Be careful what you wish for strikes again. It is well worth remembering that the young Buchan experimented (not entirely successfully) with historical fiction at a time when it was dominated by S.R.Crockett. A comparison of the Covenanting novels of Buchan and Crockett showed how much Buchan had to learn in the art of writing historical fiction in the 1890s. He was, of course, just a young man then - and when his ‘chance’ came he took it. He was hugely successful in the thriller/spy genre but it was certainly not his first love, nor his favourite topic to write about. He was as blighted by the rest. In conclusion, we should consider who is responsible for the continuing blight? The fact is that with all our Edinburgh boys, the blight continues only as long as readers act like sheep and succumb to the marketing hype. If readers develop a habit of reading around the bestsellers they can lift the curse. We do not need to ask if you believe in fairies – but simply to suggest that if you believe in writers you do them the best service you can by reading their work in its entirety, not being too captivated by the ‘bestseller’ claims. Because as we have seen in this series of posts, none of the writers would self-define by their bestsellers and all of them have a lot more to offer than first meets the eye. Happy reading. Next month I will consider the role of memorials in the lives of our Edinburgh Boys. Orraman In our new series of articles 'The Blight of the Bestseller' Orraman explores the legacy of the Edinburgh Boys. You remember ‘The Edinburgh Boys’? In the following months I want to explore the relationship between the men and their work – specifically looking at the blight of the bestseller. But in case you’ve come late to this party I’ll give you a reminder of our ‘boys’ and their pedigree. Or at least the public face of them according to Wikipedia. Isn’t that the first port of call for everyone’s research these days? I should caution that an encylopedia is only as good as its editors. While Wikipedia is nominally open to all, if you don’t have the technical skills to add your knowledge then however much ‘real’ knowledge you have, it won’t find its way onto the site. A consequence of this democratisation can be that the most prominent information isn’t the most important, relevant (or even correct) and yet is sourced by people who just want a quick ‘google’ for ‘facts.’ One of my aims is to illustrate how much further you need to go to actually know anything about our ‘boys.’ The other is to read into the gaps. The places the average surfer perhaps doesn’t bother to go. The consequences of cheap/mis-information are both deep and broad. So while Wikipedia does offer a quick, cheap, snack – it’s not always good for you and it can’t replace a properly cooked meal – if you pardon my analogy. The first thing I’ve done is given you the unadulterated thumbnails of our boys as found on Wikipedia, complete with photos of our ‘boys’ in all their glory. Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, FRSE (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832) was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet with many contemporary readers in Europe, Australia, and North America. Scott's novels and poetry are still read, and many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature. Famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, The Lady of the Lake, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor. Although primarily remembered for his extensive literary works and his political engagement, Scott was an advocate, judge and legal administrator by profession, and throughout his career combined his writing and editing work with his daily occupation as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire. A prominent member of the Tory establishment in Edinburgh, Scott was an active member of the Highland Society and served a long term as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1820–32). Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde andA Child's Garden of Verses. A literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks among the 26 most translated authors in the world. His works have been admired by many other writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Bertolt Brecht, Marcel Proust, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, Cesare Pavese, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said of him that he "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins." Samuel Rutherford Crockett (24 September 1859 – 16 April 1914), who published under the name "S. R. Crockett", was a Scottish novelist. [Crockett offers us a chicken/egg conundrum. As Scotland's Forgotten Bestseller we must ask - is there no information about him because he is not worth reading or is he not read because there is no information about him?] Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland but moved to London, where he wrote a number of successful novels and plays. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (included in The Little White Bird), then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a "fairy play" about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland. Although he continued to write successfully, Peter Pan overshadowed his other work, and is credited with popularising the then-uncommon name Wendy.[1] Barrie unofficially adopted the Davies boys following the deaths of their parents. Barrie was made a baronet by George V on 14 June 1913,[2] and a member of the Order of Merit in the 1922 New Year Honours.[3] Before his death, he gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, which continues to benefit from them. Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KStJ, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was an Irish-Scots writer and physician, most noted for creating the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and writing stories about him which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction. He is also known for writing the fictional adventures of a second character he invented, Professor Challenger, and for popularising the mystery of the Mary Celeste. He was a prolific writer whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels. John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, GCMG, GCVO, CH, PC (/ˈbʌxən/; 26 August 1875 – 11 February 1940) was aScottish novelist, historian and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation. After a brief legal career, Buchan simultaneously began his writing career and his political and diplomatic careers, serving as a private secretary to the colonial administrator of various colonies in southern Africa. He eventually wrote propaganda for the British war effort in the First World War. Buchan was in 1927 elected Member of Parliament for theCombined Scottish Universities, but he spent most of his time on his writing career, notably writing The Thirty-Nine Steps and other adventure fiction. In 1935 he was appointed Governor General of Canada by King George V, on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada R. B. Bennett, to replace the Earl of Bessborough. He occupied the post until his death in 1940. Buchan proved to be enthusiastic about literacy, as well as the evolution of Canadian culture, and he received a state funeral in Canada before his ashes were returned to the United Kingdom. You may feel this is all you want to know about any of our authors. But it’s certainly not enough to make any kind of informed decision about what they write and why you might want to read it. Which is what I’m all about. To save you some work I’ve put together a quick table – an overview of some of what I think are the most relevant pieces of information (and filled in a couple of the more obvious gaps) Of course there is more information on each Wikipedia page, but there are also inconsistencies and poorly researched information. Everyone who does research privileges certain information and I am no different. But what I’m starting to do is read between the lines, and I encourage you to do this to – to find out what we are not being told. From this start point I will talk at greater length about each man in the coming months:
If you cannot read the table on the page, then please download the pdf version for reference.
With regard to the information above, I'm noting a few things of interest and which I will comment on further in specific articles: Dates – These pretty much speak for themselves. One thing to note is the age at which each man died (longevity can have a profound effect upon ‘success’ in publishing terms. Also the dates of the writers career. For how much of their lives were they making a living (or actively pursuing) literary pursuits? Scott (60s) Stevenson(40s) Crockett (50s) Barrie (70s) Conan Doyle (70s) Buchan (60s) Nationality Note that all bar Scott are titled Scottish. As any Scot will know you’ve really ‘made’ it when you are no longer Scottish but ‘British’. Also note that for literary purposes Scottish writers are often described as ‘English’ literature – this is certainly the case with Scott. It’s quite a can of worms. For another time. In the 19th century Scots tended to be referred to as North British. Luckily we’ve got over that now! Family The class the author starts off in and the class he marries into are important factors not clear from this table. Note that all of them have responsibility for at least 3 children during their lives (not always their own) Education Apart from Buchan all were educated at Edinburgh University. Their education prior to University is of course also important and ranges from home-schooling, to parish schools to public boarding school. Profession This is not a ‘self-defined’ category but rather a retrofitting from the point of the editor/s. Note that Crockett isn’t even listed as Novelist whereas Buchan’s political profession is rather ignored. Writing Style/Literary Movement Again, highly suspect because retrofitted. Periods and literary styles are mix-matched. Scott is claimed for Romanticism (but Stevenson and Crockett are not) Stevenson and Crockett are labelled Victorian/Edwardian (which is often the kiss of death for ‘literary’ types. Worse, Crockett and Barrie are labelled ‘Kailyard’ an increasingly discredited appellation and in both cases inappropriately applied. Buchan is simply listed as ‘Adventure Stories’ which would have infuriated him. Similarly Conan Doyle is crushed by the power of Sherlock Holmes. Put simply, there is MUCH more to this section than ever meets the eye and yet surely it is one of the most important to be accurate and clear about if you are trying to inform a new readership? Famous Works This of course will form the backbone of my future pieces. Again it is woefully inadequate reflecting either the superficiality or plain ignorance of those editing the sections. But of course these are how the men ARE remembered: Scott for the Waverley novels, Stevenson primarily for Treasure Island and Kidnapped, Crockett not at all (though The Raiders is the one anyone who has read Crockett is most likely to have read) Barrie for Peter Pan , Conan Doyle for Sherlock Holmes and Buchan for the Thirty Nine Steps. These are all fine books but my contention in the pieces that follow will be that they have done as much harm as good to the reputations of the writers who wrote them. Titles/Political leanings You’ll note that four of our men end up being ‘Sir.’ So they are definitely in the elite, as often from their political as their literary stances. But politics hardly gets a mention. Scott is noted as a Tory. Wikipedia is pretty quiet on the others. Again there’s a lot of ‘class’ to look at in the lives of our writers as this plays (I contend) quite an important role in how they are remembered. We still live, after all, in aspirational times. I hope this has given you something to ponder until next month. And maybe even encouraged you to either read some of the ‘famous’ works or explore into some of the lesser known aspects of our Edinburgh Boys. The Orraman explores whether 1894-1895 were vintage years or vinegar in Scots fiction.
Last month I introduced you to the man who first coined the word ‘kailyard’ in anger, Miller. If you were paying attention you’ll remember the article he wrote in the New Review in April 1895. If not, divert now and read it HERE. If you took his word for it, you would be damning two of our Edinburgh Boys right away, but I suggest that his article was simply one of thousands jockeying for position in the febrile battlefield of ‘literature/fiction’ being fought out at the end of the 19th century. I’m not looking to strike a balance but rather to show some alternatives as to what was being written at the time – with the hope that it may get you thinking (and exploring) for yourself. The internet is a powerful tool. Of course if you have academic privileges it’s a more powerful tool, but if you are a non academic affiliated Scot you can still get access to some of these simply by joining the National Library for Scotland and browsing their digital collections. My research database of choice is the ProQuest Platform. Other databases (many, too many) are available and the first thing they do is make you realise just how expansive journalism, criticism and fiction were way back then. We tend to get stuck with ‘the classics’ – which are often no more than the victors in some other war – and either forget or never know, that there have always been loads of interesting writers out there who ‘never made it’ or ‘never lasted.’ And that this is in no part down to the ‘quality’ of their work but more down to the commercial viability or exploitation of them and their reputations. Which is in and of itself often just a reflection of class privilege. So if you want to get down and dirty and find writing that is off the ‘canon’ from days gone by, I suggest that starting to delve into online databases is the way to go. It also offers a transferable skill that may encourage an awakening towards a more ‘engaged’ use of current search engines. Too often people wait to ‘be told’ what is good to read. We should remember that search engines are tools not intelligent beings with your own best interest at heart. You need to engage with your own search or you are simply being spoon fed not ‘best’ but ‘most profitable.’ But back to the ‘boys.’ If we take a snapshot of 1894: Barrie was still dividing his time between fiction and drama. Conan Doyle was similarly trying to contain the public’s desire for Sherlock Holmes and direct them to his more ‘serious’ writing. Crockett had taken the world by storm with a 4 books in a year offensive stagemanaged by his agent A.P.Watt and publisher T.Fisher Unwin. Stevenson upped and died (and didn’t even finish his work in progress) and John Buchan was writing short stories and critical work and preparing for his first published novel ‘Sir Quixote of the Moors.’ All were employed by the publishing industry, and their journalistic writing is as often as interesting as their fiction! If you start looking at the magazines and journals of the day, you begin to see the ‘positioning’ of the press and the ‘marketing’ which was just as much of a feature then as it is now. I’m particularly interested in ‘The Bookman’ which was William Robertson Nicoll’s ‘baby’ and the ‘New Review’ edited by W.E. Henley which generally took an opposite stance. Henley ran the National Observer in the 1890s (which had been known as the Scots Observer until he went to London) and when he left that he set up the New Review which he edited until 1897. The two men (and their respective publications) stand on opposing sides of the battle for hearts, minds and most importantly, cash of the ‘reader.’ But they were competing on much the same ground for what we might recognise as ‘market share’ of a fast moving and very lucrative marketplace. They were editors of magazines in the ‘middle’ of the market - There are many other journals to choose from, and all of them really interesting – as long as you remember they are not the last word on anything, rather a window into a world as turbulent as the New Statesman, Spectator and the like of our own time. At the end of 1894 the cataclysm happened. Stevenson died. It took till the January editions for the obituaries to really start flowing, but flow they did. ‘Bookman’ in 1894/5 offers a range of obituaries to Robert Louis Stevenson, including a poem by J.M.Barrie in January 1895. If poetry floats your boat it might be worth you trying to track it down. I wasn’t that enamoured of it, so I didn’t bother to copy it – but that’s just my opinion. -Crockett also wrote an obituary of RLS which you can access here (although you will have to sign up – for free – to the Galloway Raiders site). From 1893, Crockett and Barrie had been planning to go and visit Stevenson in Samoa. They left it too long. Had Barrie not got ill (and then married) in 1894 and Crockett not become an ‘overnight’ success after a decade of trying, things might have been very different. As it was, they were left to pay tribute to a man who was, to a great extent, a mentor to them both – and to a whole school of Scottish Historical Romance. Even Buchan learned a thing or two from Stevenson (and dare one say it, from Crockett.) W.E.Henley, editor of The New Review was a close friend of Stevenson. He is perhaps better known today for his poem ‘Invictus’. But while we’re still in the land of Bookman. SRC also wrote a piece on JMB’s books in November 1894. http://www.gallowayraiders.co.uk/jmbarrie.html So much for The Bookman. It’s not so easy to track down New Review articles but a dogged search can get one access. I found an article published in October 1894 titled ‘The Coming Book Season’ which offers an overview of contemporary ‘quality’ writing. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight it offers so much more. It deals with the role of publishing, the ‘issue’ of the libraries, the decline of the three volume novel, the fear of ‘sensationalism’ as distinct from Romance, (and particularly of ‘women’s’ sensationalism’) and I can’t help but feel it is bothered by the ‘popularisation’ of reading. Doubtless there are many ways to read this article, but I certainly think it’s worth a look at to give yourself some more background to the milieu in which our ‘boys’ were working. [We'll post the whole article in next month's edition of Gateway] I also am led to speculate whether J.M.Barrie in writing ‘Sentimental Tommy’ in 1889 may not have had a nod over his shoulder to this kind of attitude. Also, in his ‘drawing room’ plays such as ‘Quality Street’ (1901), ‘The Admirable Crichton’ (1902) and ‘What Every Woman Knows’ (1908) The ‘Coming Season’ article was written for the New Review by Arthur Waugh. Who he? Critic, publisher, father of Evelyn and it looks like one of the ‘gang’ of Henley, Millar and Waugh. I feel like I’m starting to see the people behind the pens. It may all be speculation but it’s starting to make me realise that reading any of these articles will tell me at least as much about the people, their positions, perspectives and dare on say prejudices, than about the actual writers under discussion. I am beginning to build up an interesting speculative theory here. New wine in old vats anyone? Until the death of Stevenson, no one seems to have big issues with Crockett and Barrie being influenced by him – or that they might be part of the same ‘movement’ but once he’s dead he gains a mythic status and Crockett especially is distanced from him. The Colvin edited letters seem to suggest that Crockett was not a ‘friend’ so much as a tag-a-long. This is at odds with the Crockett side of the archive (although most of their correspondence is lost) but it does seem that a preservation order on the memory (and status) of Stevenson comes at the cost of allowing Crockett his place as a Scots historical romancer. Instead, the seed of the ‘Kailyard’ is planted. It’s just my speculation of course but… stranger things have happened. And while we’re on the topic of strange things… how about our other Edinburgh ‘boy’ – Conan Doyle? Here’s a contemporary article on the then Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle (yet to be knighted) Dr. A. Conan Doyle, the novelist, whose public utterances on the platform are arousing so much interest, receives all flattering attentions with the greatest modesty. Although Dr. Doyle is the author of Micah Clarke, The Great Shadow, The White Company, and The Refugees, four of the acknowledged great novels of recent years, and though he is the creator of Sherlock Holmes, one of the most remarkable characters in modern fiction, Conan Doyle has no desire to be hero-worshiped. Anyone who has met him cannot help but be charmed with his simplicity. Consistent with all this, we have Dr. Doyle's own word to the effect that he will positively not write his impressions of America. An English magazine offered him a big price for his impressions, but the novelist refused. Dr. Doyle is better known in America as the inventor of Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective, rather than as the author of historical novels. For this reason it seems that there is a widespread supposition that he is a sort of practical detective. As a matter of fact, however, Conan Doyle says that he has not even the instincts of a detective, adding that he is not in the least degree either a sharp or an observant man himself. When he is confronted by a particularly difficult problem he simply tries to get inside the skin of a sharp man and see how he would solve it. The fact is, Conan Doyle does not wish to pose as an authority on detective service, though he has expressed his opinion that the finest detective service is done in Paris. If the actual detective service of Paris, however, is the best in practice, France has turned out no detective stories to compare with Doyle's own detective narratives. It is obvious to anyone who has talked with Conan Doyle that he prefers to go on record as a novelist rather than as a writer of detective stories. His novels are works that required long and laborious research, and present the life of the times they depict in the most faithful and realistic manner. They fasten the interest from the beginning, and though realistic they can yet be classed among the most stirring of historical romances. In his lectures Dr. Doyle is giving us some idea of the labor of writing a historical romance, and yet it has been noticed that the public prefers to hear how he conceived and worked out the mysteries involved in his detective stories. When I asked Dr. Doyle to explain not only how he put his puzzles together, but how he manufactured them, he simply replied that he thought the stories themselves fully explained the mechanism. Conan Doyle, in personal appearance, looks more like an athlete than a literary man. The stoop in his broad shoulders is the only outward sign of his calling. He has big, bright, blue eyes that are sympathetic and inspire confidence, and there is a ruddy glow of good health, of cheerfulness of mind, and of kindliness of heart in his face. He converses in a simple, offhand way, which, however, never drops into absentmindedness. Dr. Doyle is thirty-five years old. In a casual meeting with him it is impossible to determine whether he hailed from England, Scotland, or Ireland, but he himself has informed us that he was born in Edinburgh, where he spent the first nine years of his life. At a time when most boys would have contented themselves with the fantastic masonry of alphabet blocks, he was building stories with his limited vocabulary. "My companions used to tease me for stories day and night," says he, "and it was only necessary to bribe me with a tart to set me going." He went to Stonyhurst College when a boy of nine, and remained there seven years. After a term of study in Germany he went to Edinburgh, and took the regular course in medicine. It did not cure him of his literary tendencies, however. There was no remedy for them, but he found relief in trying his hand at a short story. "I sent it to Chambers's Journal," he says, "and I suppose its return would have utterly discouraged me. But they kept it, and sent me a check for 3 pounds. He then secured the post of surgeon on a whaling ship bound from Peterhead to the Arctic seas, where he passed his majority, near N. lat. 81 degrees, and had some exciting adventures with the rifle and the harpoon. The head of a Polar bear killed by him on this voyage adorns his book-case at his present home in Norwood, just out of London. He qualified in medicine on his return and shipped again as surgeon bound for the west coast of Africa. He finally settled in Southsea, Wales, and began the practice of medicine with only £3 in his pocket. Meanwhile, he continued to write stories, but never earned more than £50 a year by their sale. Habakuk Jephson's Statement, a short story written while he was at Southsea, appeared in the Cornhill anonymously, according to the law of that distinguished periodical, and was credited to Robert Louis Stevenson. Then he conceived the character of Holmes, whose adventures were to be harmonized with a correct science of deduction. The Study in Scarlet was produced, and had a very large sale. "I had entertained the notion for a long time," he said to an interviewer, "that a historical novel could be made successful without the conventional plot, but simply through the interest that could be created in a string of characteristic scenes and incidents. Micah Clarke was written agreeably with this plan. Then I went back to Holmes again, and wrote The Sign of Four. The White Company followed, presenting a picture of what to me is the most interesting period of English history." While this work was progressing, the doctor came to London, where he made a special study of eye surgery, intending to limit his practice to the treatment of that organ. But orders began to pour in upon him for stories, and it soon became evident that he would have to shift out of his practice, and he did. The Refugees followed, and when he came to London to give himself wholly to a new profession, his fame had gone before him and had crossed the sea, and was on the tongues of men in the remotest outposts of Britannia. Since then, his stories have become popular in America, and in this, his first visit to us, he finds that his name is by no means a strange one to the majority. (Gilson Willets, 1894 – I have not been able to confirm the journal this article comes from – I got it via third party online website! Gilsen Willets was an American, born 1868 and died 1922, and I think he worked in films) And let’s not forget the new kid on the block in 1895. The ‘King’ Stevenson may be dead but Buchan was going to be the new ‘King’ if he had anything to do with it. Crockett might be best positioned in 1895 but 20 years later he was dead and Buchan was the boy to be reckoned with. Guess which side of the tracks Buchan came from? Crockett surely never stood a chance. While in 1894 both Barrie and Conan Doyle were fairly seasoned and Crockett was the new bestseller, Buchan was a mere lad of 20. Here is a notice in The Bookman October 1895. NEW WRITERS. MR. JOHN BUCHAN. THE author of "Sir Quixote of the Moors," just published by Mr. Unwin, and of a great deal else to come in the very near future, has surely a more precocious literary record than any other of our time. He has some years of journalistic work behind him; and at the present moment be is a scholar of Brasenose, aged twenty. Mr. Buchan was born in Perth, lived for thirteen years in a little sea-coast town in Fife, and seven years ago went to Glasgow. At the University there he gained distinction in philosophy, and last winter he won a scholarship at Oxford. For many years his summers have been spent in Upper Tireeddale, whence his family originally came; and from continual wandering among the bills in all weather he came to know them and their people intimately. He has always been an enthusiastic angler, and his first published paper was on that subject, and appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine for August 1893. Subsequently he wrote a good many articles on kindred subjects in that magazine. In the same year he edited a small edition of Bacon's Essays for the "Scott Library." In January, 1894, was begun his series of articles in Macmillan's Magazine dealing with the wilder life of the Tweedside Hills, the tramps, and poachers, and drovers, storms, and nights spent on the heather, all the raw material from which so many writers of romance have drawn, from Scott to Stevenson-two writers, by-the bye, whose influence Mr.Buchan specially owns. These articles have been collected, and are to be published by Mr. John Lane early in next year. Another book, soon to be issued, is a small anthology of fishing songs, collected from the whole of English literature. His only published work of fiction as yet is "Sir Quixote." There his aim was to trace the psychological effects of certain aspects of scenery and weather, as well as to examine the results of the conception of honour in certain circumstances. A book ·of short stories from his pen will appear before the summer. On a long historical novel he has been engaged for nearly three years; it deals with the adventures of a Scots gentleman, a Platonist and a scholar, in the late seventeenth century. * That, too, he expects to have ready for publication before the summer. When one mentions that Mr. Buchan has also done a good deal of journalism, it will be owned his record is an extraordinary and an interesting one for a writer of twenty years of age. (*The novel was John Burnet of Barns – which owes far more to Crockett than Buchan would ever admit!) I’ve read Sir Quixote and it is clearly the work of a ‘juvenile’ and could be termed ‘derivative’ in a number of places. It also reads like he got bored, or distracted – it ends in something of a hurry. But it’s well worth a read – you can see something of the later Buchan, but it’s really interesting to note the different ‘style’ of language. He was certainly much freer twenty years later in The 39 Steps. ‘Sir Quixote’ offers a good illustration of how writing changed over that period. I would of course remind you that Buchan isn’t maybe an ‘Edinburgh Boy’ proper, in that he didn’t attend the University (unlike the others) but he became Rector. Make of that what you will. We’ll look more at the phenomenon of ‘New Writers’ and how they were touted through the publications of the day as well as the Curse of the Bestseller in future months. There’s something to look forward to eh? In the meantime, why not reacquaint yourself with some of our Edinburgh Boys fiction? There are much worse ways to while away your time. Orraman, July 2016. Continuing our sojourn in and around the Kailyard, this month we’re tasked with selecting the seeds. If you read Leatham’s piece on Galt elsewhere in this issue, you will note that he claims Galt as ‘The First of the Kailyarders’ but suggests that it is Galt’s gritty rural realism that puts readers off. He describes Galt as ‘A realist without hope.’ I have a certain empathy with this stance. But you have to admit such a claim is worlds away from the contemporary ‘reading’ of Kailyard as sickly sweet sentimental clap trap devoid and divorced from realism. Which variety do we pick? You’d think that if you planted Kail you’d grow kail, but we can see that it’s not obvious what a kail seed looks like, never mind grasp what the final plant will look like. If we don’t know what kale is or what it looks like we’re not going to find the job easy, are we? Let’s give Leatham his head. His opinion is as valid as any surely? And he’s closer by far to the whole debacle than I am today. To begin with, he gives a good critique of Galt, and it is in terms of his style that he starts the claim to Kailyard.. Forgive me if I seem to be cherrypicking in the kailyard - you can read the whole article HERE 'Galt’s Style. The Scots Galt writes is deliberately and droll-ly unique. To this day no well-known writer has made so much of the Scottish air and manner of expression. The late S.R.Crockett and Mr John Buchan catch something of the trick; but what was a natural turn with Galt, as being the language of his contemporaries, and especially his own ‘droll, peculiar’ mother, is with later writers a thing overlaid and artificial.' Note that Crockett and Buchan are here mentioned as other exponents of ‘the Scottish air and manner of expression.’ I certainly think there are many connections between Crockett and Buchan (which Buchan might well have tried to deny) and that Leatham seems to think that it is this ‘Scottish air and manner of expression’ which is marked as a main feature of Kailyard. For him, the battle ground of ‘dialect’ and ‘national Scots’ language is key. This very quickly takes us down a path towards Modernism and the ‘creation’ of a national language by the likes of McDiarmid. I won’t go there just now because I don’t want to choke my seeds with weeds before I even plant them. Drunk men addressing thistles is all very well, but I want to keep a pristine planting bed. Focus on the job in hand. And Scots dialect/language was (and again is) a battle ground. I’ll refer to it as the ‘leid’ effect and stick to my own point. Leatham continues: ‘It is not that Galt wallows in dialect. Far from it. There is broad Aberdeenshire in George MacDonald’s fictions, and some fairly recognisable Lothians in Stevenson. But Galt’s Scots is not local. He has a copious Scots vocabulary, composed, not of localisms, but of such words as will be found in Jameson’s ‘Dictionary of the Scottish Language’ as being in fairly general use. I am not of those who pretend that there is such a thing as classic Scots. Burns wrote Ayrshire Scots, Stevenson (as he himself says) ‘the drawling Scots of the Lothians.’’ George MacDonald and William Alexander wrote very pure Aberdeenshire. Galt’s Scots has little or no dialect in it. Sir Walter similarly avoids dialect. But there is a Scots manner of writing, and there are occasional Scots words – ‘galravitching,’ for instance – and Scots expressions, often borrowed from scripture – ‘chambering and wantoning’ occurs to one – that set a stamp of Scottish individuality upon a piece of English writing and Galt has this character to a degree that is nowhere equalled. His best imitator is Dr. Moir in ‘Mannie Wauch.’ So we can see that Leatham at least thinks that there is both dialect and a ‘Scots way’ of writing. Crockett is often abused for writing ‘dialect’ and certainly the use of ‘dialect’ seems to be one of the standard features attributed to kailyard fiction. I will say that Crockett’s dialect when used, is accurate Gallovidian, there is no tweeness about it and it is realistic not nostalgic. But Crockett also employs ‘scots humour’ which I take to be an important part of what Leatham calls the ‘Scots manner of writing.’ I don’t believe he’s just talking grammar and syntax, I believe he’s talking humour and, dare I say it, emotional depth. But as we dig a bigger and bigger hole, still I cannot quite see the shape of the seed we intend to plant. I am not alone. Leatham feels called upon to consider what a ‘kailyarder’ might actually be. He asks: 'What is a Kailyarder? This is why I call Galt the first of the kailyarders. I do not know that I have ever seen a definition or short description of what a kailyarder is, but I take it the essential feature of the school is its concern with the old-fashioned life of the village or small town where every family had its own garden of simple kitchen stuff and a few homely flowers.' Definitions of Kailyard are still hard to come by. Current thinking seems to be that it has become so clichéd a term as to have no more value. (This does not stop the perpetuating of the ‘myth’ of the Kailyard ‘school’ of Barrie, Crockett and MacLaren, which in turn stops people from reading their work and discovering that it is anything but kailyard in terms of the disparaging definitions adopted by the Modernists and their followers.) But are we beginning to select our seed? Must it be one in which an ‘old-fashioned’ life of the village or small town is the central concern? ‘Old-fashioned’ is a word that does get linked to ‘nostalgia’ (unfairly I contend) and I think it’s overly pejorative for our needs. How about stating that ‘kailyard’ has the focus on the rural rather than the urban, on the natural rather than the ‘civilised’ – or at least shows the tensions between rural and civilisation from a different perspective – perhaps more akin to Romance than Modernism? But there is clearly a realism in both. As the weather shows us, often you don’t get much more ‘real’ than nature. It’s so easy to get bogged down by the detail of definition of words when we try to describe Kailyard. I will simply say – if Kailyard is properly described as writing which is cloylingly sentimental and unreasonably nostalgic – especially if it is simply written to ‘hit’ an audience emotionally in order to get them to put their hands in their pockets – then it is a bad thing. But if Kailyard simply means writing from the rural perspective then I have no problem about it. Writing about any past is in some sense nostalgic. More important, I suggest, is discovering where the honesty lies. Writing about one’s own experienced community (past or present) is different to ‘constructing’ something for narrative or profit driven purposes. Be that past or present. The seed I want to plant may grow up into a strong kail plant. And if so, I will be proud of it. It will not be a superfood, or a fashion accessory. It will be an honest, dare one say sonsy, plant which tells of the ground it grew in, reflecting on both good and bad from the perspective of one who was there, who observed, who was nurtured and grew in the very soil of which it smells. There is nothing wrong with that. I have no problem with good wholesome fodder. If those who require Michelin stars and designer dining do not appreciate my plant, that is their problem not mine. I, at least, am happy that the world is big enough for all of us to share. They can leave me in my field to my picnic and I will leave them in their posh restaurant to their tasting menu. In the ‘marketplace’ of publishing of course, fashion still holds sway. In the early 21st century I’d like to think we are beginning to have enough of a distance from the late 19th century to offer a mature reflection on it. We have moved beyond the knee jerk antipathy of Modernism towards what I might call ‘late Scottish Romance fiction’ and are beginning to see the value of the plant – whether or not we call it kail. I suppose a key issue I keep coming back to is whether we should be ‘proud’ of Kail, or whether we should ‘deny’ the appellation. This is only the same issue that every minority or oppressed group has to wrestle with. Colour, gender, ability all have had (and continue to have) the same issue. Do you find ‘queer’ a term of abuse or of pride? Are people disabled or is it society which disables them? It is in this same sphere that we should be looking at Kailyard as a literary term. I’m not giving you an answer here – just suggesting you think about it. Barrie is beginning to be dug out of the Kailyard by dint, ironically, of an attempt to ‘place’ him into a Modernist context. Crockett is following him. The case to clear Maclaren has not yet begun. One thing is sure, if you ask around for ‘definitive’ Kailyard texts to discuss, no one seems able to name any but ‘Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush.’ Even this text, set in rural Angus/Perthshire can be ‘read’ a number of ways. The relationship between reader and writer and the personal experience of both is, I suggest, one important way of defining or understanding the constructed terminology. An urban Modernist perspective is not the most appropriate one for a clear ‘reading’ and understanding of Scottish rural Romance style. how do you compare ‘The Cone Gatherers’ with ‘A Window in Thrums?' or 'Kidnapped’? To try and compare ‘Sentimental Tommy’ or ‘The Dark o’ the Moon’ with ‘Docherty’ is ridiculous. I'm not saying comparison is impossible, or even a bad thing - it depends on what you think you are comparing with what. Comparing ‘The Land of the Leal’ with ‘Rose of the Wilderness’ and ‘A Scots Quair’ or ‘Highland River’ with ‘Kit Kennedy’ can offer some fertile ground. If we take each for what they are rather than trying to shoehorn square pegs into round holes. It also goes without saying that trying to compare poetry with prose is akin to genetically modification of the crop. You may compare MacDiarmid with Burns (Modernism vs Romance) and you may compare Grassic Gibbon with Crockett – incidentally, if you do so you might find a lot more in common than you think – but denigrating Scots Romance fiction from the high ground of Scottish Modernist poetry is simply a pointless endeavour deriving, I suggest more from prejudice than from a positive desire to embrace Scots culture/s. I am sure there are (as in all types of creative endeavour) many poorly constructed ‘cheap imitations’ of the Kailyard ‘style’ , especially prevalent when it was ‘on the rise’ as a publishing phenomenon. But to dismiss a whole movement/style of fiction as ‘kailyard’ and thereby damn authors who are actually both diverse in their output and creatively pioneering as well as being popular, seems to be throwing any number of babies out with the bathwater. It is not an issue of separating the wheat from the chaff, the weed from the seed, that I’m talking about. I am interested in discovering what our seed is and what it may taste like when it is grown to its best potential. I have no problem with emotion or sentiment or ‘heart’ in my fiction. I do not look at Scotland through the blinkers of the contemporary, or the intellectual or the urban. There is room for all. Rural life may be a minority experience as a reality, but that does not make all rural fiction nostalgic and unreal. I might say of the kailyard that if, along with Leatham, we suggest that it (at least in terms of Galt) is not popular 'because people do not want to read the lives of the rural poor '–that in itself does not seem to be a criticism of the ‘quality’ of the writing. It suggests simply that fashions change and that where the dominant class or establishment do not value rural life (or writing) it will be pushed out of their self-created canon. The Scottish Literary Renaissance had no time for kail. Even if people wanted to consume it, the fiction was treated the same way as the vegetable for many years. Ironically of course, Kail, now a superfood, is becoming trendy once more. How long before the ‘Kailyard’ fiction follows? Where we have been told for generations to eat our greens they are good for us, so we have been told not to read ‘Kailyard’ fiction because it is bad for us. We avoid anything that might be tainted with the name as surely as many folk avoid broccoli (or kail/kale). You will note that Leatham doesn’t say there’s anything wrong with the subject matter of kailyard fiction per se. Others redefine ‘Old fashioned’ as ‘nostalgic’ and then criticise on that misguided definition. The main Modernist argument against ‘so called’ Kailyard is that it is twee and mawkishly sentimental. Leatham does not go along with this. He suggests: 'With the primitive housing of the village community, the garden would in any kind of feasible weather, be the natural place of resort both for ‘talking age and whispering lovers.’ Leatham’s use of the word Kailyard in his article on Galt does not aim to disparage. He then continues to look at the misunderstanding of what we might call ‘Scots humour.’ Barrie, Crockett and Maclaren all suffer from this. As Leatham says: In the ‘Thrums’ series of tales we are invited to smile at its absurdities, its gossip, its spying, and the hopeless contradictions of its outlook. A London journalist, misreading Mr Barrie, long ago visited Kirriemuir expecting to find a community of humourists and overlooking the patent fact that we laugh at and not with Sam’l Todds and Snecky Hobarts. He declared that the inhabitants of Thrums posed as humourists; but the results were ghastly. This was so entirely what he might have expected that one wonders why he went. Mr Barrie no more presented his fellow countrymen as humourists than George Eliot and Thomas Hardy conceive their chaw-bacons as humourists. To laugh with the inventor or discoverer of humour is one thing, and to laugh at unconscious absurdity is something totally different. The simple villager, one foot resting upon the bottom of an upturned pail, solemnly describing what he would say to Queen Victoria and how he would say it, and the simply bystanders solemnly drinking it in, all parties showing that they have no knowledge whatever of what the other world is like, is grotesque enough; but that the characters should be devoid of humour is an essential condition of the characterization. That is what the author means. If you don’t get ‘Scots humour’ you will not ‘get’ the work of writers such as Barrie, Crockett and Maclaren any more than if you do not ‘get’ the irony of Austen you will not enjoy her novels. So I suggest we should think of the literary construct ‘kailyard’ as defined by the likes of Millar and denigrated by the likes of McDiarmid, as simply that, a distortion which should now be defunct. It’s time to plant our own seeds, grow and nurture our own tastes and enjoy what we read without having to be told what is good for us. One thing is certain. There is much more to the kailyard than meets the eye. There is scope for (and the need to) engage with a wholesale re-evaluation of both the term, the ‘school’ and the reasons behind its adoption. Those engaged in the history of Scottish literature would do well to roll their sleeves up and get digging. It’s time to get down and dirty with the whole concept of Kailyard. From definition to finished work – from seed to plate – we need to question all that we have been told for generations about this neglected (and possibly non-existant) ‘school’ of Scottish writing. Digging up the Kailyard will take us on a journey into cultural politics – one I suggest which is still relevant to today and to how we as Scots see ourselves. We have been sold a pup. We’ve been told to avoid our greens and fed deep fried Mars Bars for too long. I challenge you to get out into the kailyard. Next month we'll get back to our Edinburgh Boys... The Orraman. 1. Preparing the ground. So you think you know your Kail?
Digging up the Kailyard is a long overdue task. But it’s difficult ground to turn over. As Scots we’ve been eating Deep Fried Mars Bars for too long (and calling it haute cuisine) when it comes to our consumption of fiction. Note I use the word fiction because at the root of this whole debate is a battle for ‘literature.’ It is interesting that at the very time the term Kailyard was coined, this battle really commenced. Scots exude duality (we are told) as part of our psyche, and there was no bigger cultural duality in the late 19th century than the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘quality’ literature and ‘mass’ or ‘popular’ fiction. I leave that battle aside for now, though it must be tackled head on at some point. But this is just the first stage in a big project. In this first article I am barely breaking ground, and if I manage to prepare, or clear some ground around the weed infested mess that we are faced with, I will feel I have achieved something. To quote Dougie Maclean’s ‘Scythe Song’ (is contemporary Scots folk music an illustration of a penchant for kail?) ‘this is not a thing to learn inside a day’! You’ve got to hold it right feel the distance to the ground Move with a touch so light until its rhythm you have found Then you’ll know what I know. But we must start somewhere, so I’ll begin just before the very beginning. A very good place to start! While the Kailyard ‘school’ is accused of parochialism and ‘smallness’ you will soon find that the ground we are digging up is huge – especially if we get down to soil level rather than use machinery fashioned for us by later generations. Kailyard, and ‘the Kailyard School’ it has to be said is pretty much a literary construct. The most recent work on the subject, Andrew Nash’s excellent ‘Kailyard and Scottish Literature’ (2007) begins the digging up process in the academic field. I take a stance outside academia. I’ll confess, the ground there is too claggy for me. I find for a good, loose soil, one needs to step away from the critical milieu and look at the world from, dare one say it, a less rarified view. While I can mix ‘meta’ with the best of them, I’m a son of the soil and I read fiction (whether it is then ‘elevated’ to literature or not by critical or popular endorsement) for enjoyment. Which isn’t to say I don’t like to learn, or that I don’t believe you can find profound truth within fiction. My opinion is quite divergent from that of Leatham in this month’s cultural piece ‘The Place of the Novel’ I can see a value in fiction he could not. I don’t have a problem with that. He prefers history to novel and the world is big enough for all of us. But fiction, for me, is perhaps a more personal thing, a communicative relationship between the writer and the reader. It may be the case that narrative is significant in the battleground of politics and culture, and of course one’s political and cultural beliefs will colour what one reads, but I don’t think the scapegoating of individual stories (or authors) adds anything to the overall fight. Reading can offer some freedom and the chance to experience the world differently – I think we embark upon a dangerous path when we begin to lay claims or establish categorisations for stories (and authors) beyond or outwith their individual experience and expression. Kale is and always will be a brassica. It will only be a ‘superfood’ for a limited time. The ‘fame’ attached is a double edged sword. As an academic outsider, usually when I engage with literary criticism it just makes me angry. I think my unease may stem from confusions in explorations and explanations of ‘narrative’. Narrative is a word that is being made to work very hard these days and its meaning is becoming increasingly loose. Personally, I’ve moved beyond thinking about fiction as ‘text’ and simply see it as ‘story.’ I don’t do show competitive show vegetables. Kale may or may not be a superfood at present, but for me it’s just a good, nutritious ‘green’ which doesn’t need to be mucked about or juiced or smoothied. Just plant, grow, eat, enjoy. Easy. It seems to me that the world (and by this I include the academic world) has embraced (at its perils) the vastness of our technological revolution in a counter-productive way. Primary sources appear to seem less and less important to literary criticism. Favour is given to the latest comment (or article) on an existing theory or position. To give him his due, Nash tries to push the Kailyard debate on. To get out of the box if you like. But the very box the debate is contained in, seems to hold him back. Wittgenstein said ‘all the world is in the box.’ I find that profound and scary at the same time. And I don’t want it to be true. Either way, it is a lonely and long furrow we plough when we seek to go against the dominant ideology. ‘Twas ever thus. Scratching at surface weeds does little to deal with the deep rooted problems which must be dug out by hand. I am advocating some hard hand weeding of the ground as a proper preparation for the planting. It’s time to get our hands dirty – in good clean soil! Surveying the soil. In digging up the Kailyard, you could be excused for thinking the place to start is with the authors (or purported) Kailyard authors. Our Edinburgh boys J.M.Barrie and S.R.Crockett are two of the three ‘named’ (and shamed) as Kailyard novelists. But to build a clearer picture, we actually need to look at the men behind the authors. That is the publishers. And the soil we are inspecting is the soil of publishing as it was circa 1890. Here we see the sort of branding battle that is familiar to us today in consumer goods such as Nike/Addidas or Pepsi/Coke. In those days however, the battle was between two major publishing houses (and their ‘front-men’), Hodder & Stoughton and Longmans. (Other brands and battles were then, as now, available). While Hodder was established in the 1840s it only became Hodder & Stoughton in 1868, and one William Robertson Nicoll (oft claimed as the godfather of Kailyard) was in on the ground floor of the business. They published religious and secular work and their roots were firmly Non-Conformist. They are still a big publishing ‘player’ although they’ve had many name changes with the mergers and acquisitions over the years. The history of publishing is a lot more interesting a subject that you might think (and one that isn’t as easy to research as you’d think!) In 1882 one of the other key workers at H&S, Thomas Fisher Unwin struck out on his own (store this information for use later on) in something of an early example of entrepreneurship or perhaps ‘diversification’. Certainly it was a time of expansion in publishing. By the 1890’s T Fisher Unwin was ‘the’ publishing company for ‘new’ writers and many authors of note got their start here, including our Edinburgh boys J.M.Barrie, S.R.Crockett and others including Joseph Conrad, John Buchan and J.R.R.Tolkein. The Players: Nicoll versus Millar. William Robertson Nicoll. (1851-1923) was a very influential man in his day. A very successful man. Yet all but forgotten today. He’s not even a heritage variety. The son of a minister from Aberdeenshire, he was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and University. Ill health meant he had to abandon the ministry as a career and instead he moved to London to pursue a journalistic career. He certainly ‘made good’ in London. In 1886 he became editor of the influential British Weekly magazine.(A Hodder & Stoughton publication). By the early 1890’s his ‘stable’ of writers were becoming the commercial success of their day. Robertson Nicoll was big on success. Backed by Hodder & Stoughton he took full advantage of the opportunities for mass publishing amongst the newly literature working classes. We might see Robertson Nicoll as a prime example of Barrie’s quote a ‘Scotsman on the make’ This did not make him popular in all quarters of course. Nicoll’s level of commercial success irritated at least as much as his Nonconformist stance. Nicoll was profoundly religious but he was also profoundly commercially driven. It may seem strange to us today that religious organisations were in the forefront of the ‘propaganda’ battle for hearts and minds which found its natural home in the mass market publishing of the day. But it’s just a variant on today’s secular equivalent – the capitalist press barons. The late 19th century saw the transformation of reading matter (especially fiction) from expensive stand alone items into serialised penny (or cheap) magazines. This was the crop of the day. Publishing was then, as now, a battleground for competing sales. Today ‘sex’ sells. Then a sort of ‘morality’ may have been touted in preference. Who is to say which is better or worse. Either way, fiction was a vehicle for something beyond ‘story.’ And the new breed of ‘professional’ writers learned that they had to please, not just the public, but the publishers. As with all publishers everywhere, the avowed goal of ‘giving people what they want’ stands in close proximity to the darker arts of how to convince people they want what it is you have to sell. Nicoll had a clear plan on both counts and his papers delivered. They were very successful. I cannot tell you hand on heart which came first, the supply or demand, but Nicoll hit pay dirt. He was a man on a mission, and he had a curious belief that success and morality were parts of the same plant. He was, if you like, an early exponent of Miracle Grow. Robertson Nicoll’s publications sold to a rural and an urban working class (and lower middle class) both in Scotland and in England. There was (or was manufactured) a desire to read about times as they were before urbanisation. You have to remember that many of the readers were either first or second generation ‘migrants’ to the cities and so could either remember for themselves, or at one step removed, that ‘their’ Scotland used to be different. This is not in and of itself nostalgic – though that is the first of the mud to be thrown in the Kailyard debate. A rural life can be just as ‘real’ as an urban one. But it is certainly a different reality, then as now. Nash deals with this in his book and begins to outline the way in which Kailyard had a lot less to do with the writers and a lot more to do with the cultural and political jockeying for position. Nash points out that at the time many so called Kailyard stories were realistic stories of their locale. But they were then (mis)represented as Scottish – meaning the whole of Scotland – and from that of course, a lot of trouble ensued. Kale is a great thing, a superfood even, but it isn’t actually Broccoli. Nor does it represent the entirety of the Brassica genus. This is where J.H.Millar comes in to the fray. John Hepburn Millar (1864-1929) came from quite different stock than that of William Robertson Nicoll. You might say he was in an entirely different class. (And you might begin to realise the significance of class in this whole debate!) He was the son of Lord Craighall, a senator of the College of Justice. From Edinburgh, he was educated at Edinburgh Academy and Balliol College, Oxford. He was called to the Scottish Bar in 1889 and after lecturing in law at Edinburgh University he was appointed Professor of Constitutional Law and Constitutional History in 1909, a post he held until his retirement in 1925. It was Millar who first coined the phrase ‘Kailyard’ in literary critical circles in an article in The New Review (edited by W.E.Henley and published by Longmans.) The article ‘The Literature of the Kailyard’ appeared in The New Review, April 1895. We will make that article available as a Public Domain article next month. In his subsequent work A Literary History of Scotland (1903) which was for many years the standard work on Scottish literature and he maintained his attack on the then fashionable kailyard writers, though he does credit Henley with the phrase. Henley had just died at this time and wasn’t there to defend himself any longer. I still don’t know what Henley’s position actually was regarding our Edinburgh Boys/Kailyard authors – but he was friends with Stevenson and it seems therefore he would not necessarily be hostile to other writing in similar vein. More digging needed! Back to the soil structure. Might I suggest that if nothing else, Roberston Nicoll represents non-conformity whereas Millar represents the Establishment. And each represent opposed commercial enterprises. So much of the Kailyard debate was manufactured like so many GM crops. But is it the fault of the plant that it can be genetically modified? Is it the fault of the writer that they are ‘adopted’ into critical schools? I think not. We need to be very careful when treading around the conceptual Kailyard. It’s a big place, covering many acres. I am more interested in a few small fields and specimen plants than in engaging in a wholescale battle regarding the genus. And I am particularly interested in discovering to what extent, and whether at all, our Edinburgh Boys could be described or categorised as ‘Kailyard’ writers. You’ll note we’ve still not arrived at a comfortable definition of what this is. We don’t know what we’re looking at plant-wise. We’ve not even planted them yet. I did tell you it was a big field and we were only at the start of the whole affair. In articles that follow I will look at our Edinburgh Boys and their impact on the Kailyard ‘field’. Next month I will start by selecting seeds, with a little help from Leatham and not a modicum of confusion from Millar. Orraman The Mystery of the Class of 76 and a cautionary tale on the dangers of believing secondary sources, wherever they may be.
This month I promised you all about the Edinburgh Boys ‘Class of 76’. It’s a fact that Robert Louis Stevenson, James Matthew Barrie, Samuel Rutherford Crockett and Arthur Conan Doyle were all educated at Edinburgh University. RLS first matriculated in 1867. His university career was less than distinguished and probably best not dwelt on. Besides, he’s too early for our class. When I sat down to write this piece I soon discovered that I have been working on the potentially erroneous assumption that nine years later, the other three writers all arrived, fresh faced at Edinburgh to matriculate for the first time. It’s easily done. Dates in 19th century history are notoriously unreliable. The way people kept records there in that pre computer age, is, frankly, terrifying. On closer inspection, I realised that there is more to this than meets the eye. For example, Barrie did not in fact go to Edinburgh University in 1876… the plot, as they say, thickens. Once again, the facts get in the way of a good story. However. I shall plough on regardless with what I DO know! The first fact is that all these men did study at Edinburgh University and so we can happily call them ‘the Edinburgh Boys.’ So here’s a few things about J.M.Barrie, S.R.Crockett and Arthur Conan Doyle – being called the ‘class of 76’ isn’t the only wrongly attributed label any of them have had to carry! James Matthew Barrie. Born 9th May 1860 died June 19th 1937. He was born in Kirriemuir, son of a weaver. His secondary education was at Glasgow Academy for three years from 1868-1871 then a year in Forfar, then Dumfries Academy from 1873. (This is largely because he had a minister –or was it a schoolteacher – brother with whom he lodged which will have helped defray costs.) At Dumfries, inspired by the Theatre Royal (the oldest working theatre in Scotland) Barrie wrote his first play ‘Bandelero the Bandit’ which was performed by the Dumfries Amateur Dramatic Club in 1877. I noticed that recently Edinburgh University have added JMB onto their list of famous alumni (along with Arthur Conan Doyle, though Crockett is conspicuous by his absence from the list!) But they need to check their dates. The site says that Barrie went there aged 22. This would be in 1882. However, they also state that he graduated in 1882, which would make his University career the fastest one ever! It just goes to show that Wikipedia is not the only unreliable source on the web. Richard D. Jackson who has done a lot of research on S.R.Crockett (among others) and has definite evidence of Barrie matriculating in 1878. He is matriculating into the Junior Arts course so the strong suggestion is that this is his first year at University. While Barrie was at Edinburgh he wrote theatrical reviews and on his graduation in 1882 he took off to London, via a stint at Nottingham, to pursue his literary career, first in journalism, then novel writing (his first novel Better Dead was published in 1891) and then drama. It is worth pointing out that university degrees in the 1870’s were quite unlike those of today. Jackson’s research reveals that many students who matriculated never actually studied for full degrees. However he notes: ‘For those who did wish to obtain an MA degree the University of Edinburgh Calendar for 1876-77 sets out, under the heading of ‘The Curriculum in Arts’, the procedures to be followed. The ordinary curriculum extended over four Winter sessions. Students were required to attend not less than two Sessions (Junior and Senior or First and Second) on the Classes of Humanity (Latin), Greek and Mathematics and not less than one Session on the Classes of Logic and Metaphysics, Moral Philosophy and Natural Philosophy. They were also required to attend the class of Rhetoric and English Literature. It was possible to acquire an MA in three Winter Sessions if you passed certain examinations entitling you to go straight into the Senior classes in Humanity, Greek and Mathematics. Degrees were not held to be conferred on any student who was not present at the Graduation Ceremony even if all the required examinations had been passed.’ The Winter session ran from October to April, allowing a six month period where students could pursue other endeavours – working being one of them! Back to the inappropriately named class of 1876. S.R.Crockett definitely first matriculated at Edinburgh in 1876. Jackson has undertaken much research which offers insight into his time at University. But there is always uncertainty. In 1895, at the height of his fame, an article on Crockett in ‘The Idler’ magazine contains plenty of inaccuracies and these were taken as gospel by Harper, who wrote the only contemporary biography of SRC. Crockett is a perfect case in point about how you can’t trust even legal documents in history. If you go to Crockett’s memorial at Laurieston you’ll find that it has the wrong date of birth for him. This was an error that stood for years – the truth is he was born in 1859, NOT in 1860 as the memorial, and many other sources state. Born in September 1859 he was some eight months older than J.M.Barrie. There is not one of Crockett’s ‘official’ documents in history that can be claimed as fully accurate from his birth certificate to his marriage certificate to his death certificate. In an age where we see such documentation as sacrosanct, it can be hard to deal with the vaguaries of such earlier record keeping, but it’s just something you have to get used to. What we do know is that Crockett sat for, and won, the Galloway Bursary, which allowed him to go and study at Edinburgh, though not without taking on other work to support himself. We also know that he first matriculated as ‘Sam Crocket’. His tranformation to Samuel Rutherford Crockett took quite some years. In his first year at Edinburgh Sam lodged with his cousin William Crocket. His diaries have proved a good source of information for Jackson. From him we find: The annual examination was held at Castle Douglas on 21 and 22 September 1876, when Crockett was still sixteen going on seventeen. [ his 17th birthday was on 24th September 1876 ] The examiner was Dr John Gordon, one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools and a number of the members of the Association were also present. In his diary William records that on 4 October he was told that “Sam had got the bursary.” On 11 October he “received a letter from Sam stating that he would lodge with me” and on Thursday 26 October he records that he “met Sam at Princes St. Station. After tea we arranged books etc. We had a walk as far as the University.” Crockett wrote an account of his first arrival in Edinburgh in a work published in 1909 entitled ‘My Two Edinburghs: Searchlights Through The Mists Of Thirty Years,’ though it conflicts on some dates with his cousin’s diary. He notes: “October 20th, 1876.- A third class carriage hurrying eastward from Carstairs, that black wild cave of the winds set on the moorland. Out of the window in defiance of regulations, a boy of sixteen was hanging to the risk of his neck and to the annoyance of sundry other fellow passengers less enthusiastic than he. That eager, impressionable nuisance of a boy, with poetry-filled head protruding Edinburgh-wards, was the present writer. “Smuts flew in his eyes. Weird illuminations from paraffin shale mines challenged his sidelong regard. But he saw them not. He was looking for Wallace, and Bruce, and John Knox, and Queen Mary, and Claverhouse (though him he hated) riding out of the West bow with all his troopers behind him. He watched long and the wind blew chill. Suddenly the train swerved and he saw, swimming in a pale green windy sky, the Castle rock, tower-crowned, no bigger than a toy. It was purple of the deepest, but to the boy’s eyes looked infinitely remote and solitary. Then he sat back in his hard cushionless bench with something like a sob, and his long-suffering neighbour told him, if he was quite done, to put the window up. But he did not care. He had seen. “That night I took my cousin’s arm (he had been there a few weeks earlier than I) and he piloted me. He also helped me with my box upstairs. It had been made by a country joiner and even when empty was about as heavy as a piano. We lived next the sky in a many-storied grey house, but one of our two windows, by God’s grace, looked up to the mural battlements of the Salisbury Crags and across the valley to the western shoulder of Arthur’s Seat. That seemed in some far-off way to suggest home. But from the other window, looking down on the twinkling lamps receding into the distances by the city dusk – frankly, to go near them, they made me giddy. And what is stranger still, after years of mountain climbing and uneasy muleback, the giddy feeling of that first night comes back to me in dreams, always connected with my old lodgings and my first glimpse of the long lines of yellow Edinburgh lights. I had never been in a city before, so my cousin was very kind and compassionate.” They were lodging with Mrs Christina Clow, a widow who lived in a tenement at 50 St Leonard’s Street in the Pleasance which held about fourteen households and some sixty-five people. Crockett later described this as “a garret in an old house, which looked on the Park and Arthur’s Seat.” There is a lot of information about Crockett’s time at University career, which I shall spare you at the moment and put into a separate article. For now, we’ll move on to the third of our ‘triumvirate’ Arthur Conan Doyle. (22nd May 1859-7 July 1930) The third member of our mysterious class of 76 is a man for whom mystery became a career. Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, though his parentage was Irish. His schooling at Stoneyhurst was paid for by Jesuit uncles until 1875, then he did a final year at the Jesuit school Stella Matutina in Feldkirch, Austria. But by the time he matriculated at Edinburgh University in October 1876 he had given up religion. Like Crockett, he won a bursary, but on arrival at the University it turned out that the bursary was only for students studying Arts courses and Conan Doyle was enrolled for Medicine. Once again some mysterious (mis) information to be found on his website states: ‘The young medical student met a number of future authors who were also attending the university, including James Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson.’ It is quite possible, but unrecorded, that he might have met Barrie, but Stevenson left Scotland in 1876 so the chance that he ever mingled with Conan Doyle as a student is unlikely. Later in life, Conan Doyle and Barrie did collaborate in writing a play, but we have no way of knowing whether this was because they were friends at University. It seems even less likely that their paths would have crossed than that Crockett and Barrie shared a classroom. All of our Edinburgh Boys were writing for publication while at university. In Conan Doyle’s case ‘The Mystery of Sasassa Valley’ was accepted in Chamber's Journal, which had published Thomas Hardy's first work. His second story ‘The American Tale’ was published in London Society, making him write much later, "It was in this year that I first learned that shillings might be earned in other ways than by filling phials." All of our three needed to supplement their income as students. As far as I know Barrie did it solely through journalism. Crockett combined journalism with work as a tutor, both in Edinburgh and abroad. And in 1880, when Conan Doyle's was in his third year of medical studies, he signed on as ship’s surgeon on a whaling boat ‘The Hope.’ A return to classes in October 1880 must have seemed dull by comparison! After University, Barrie took the direct route, straight into journalism. Crockett went into the ministry and Conan Doyle became a doctor. But the lure of writing was too great for both of them. All three men were well experienced and well positioned for their ‘break through’ in the early 1890’s, a time when mass market publishing was seeing an explosion in opportunities. All three wrote serially, for money and then had novels published. All three had ‘bestsellers’ and became to some extent blighted by them. But that’s another story. For another episode. If I’ve learned anything from these serial writers, it’s to leave the audience on a ‘hook.’ And if I’ve learned anything else, it’s that one has to be really careful in checking and rechecking and cross-checking historical sources because the most obvious view is rarely the most factually correct – especially when dealing with writers of fiction. Next month, in what is a connection, though not necessarily a linear one, I shall start ‘Digging up the Kailyard.’
I’ve never been a fan of E.M.Forster, but over the years I’ve pondered from time to time (in idle moments) what the ‘Only Connect…’ which sits provocatively resplendent on the title page of my ancient Penguin copy of the novel means. These days one can find answers at the click of a mouse and so I went online to see if I could get any joy. I discovered the full quote from Chapter 22 (I admit, I may have lost the will to live by that stage in reading the novel all those years ago) and here it is: ‘Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.’ I certainly like the suggestion that ‘prose and passion’ should be exalted. I also like the invective to ‘live in fragments no longer.’ But I suspect the meaning I make from this quotation isn’t that close to the meaning Forster was intending to be derived from it. One of the good things about a post post-modernist world, is that we are all free to have our own opinions on things and can make commentary (and argument for discussion) without fear of being plain ‘wrong.’ Of course the author’s intention may not be what I ‘read’ into the piece, but my ‘reading’ is also valid. Sometimes I am uplifted by this and sometimes I fear it’s the start of a slippery slope. However, taken all in all, I find that making meaning in the field of literature is something best undertaken with a degree of free spiritedness. Post-modernism may tend towards a nihilistic stance or suggest a level of ‘meaninglessness’ about fiction, but if you take it as part of a dialectic from thesis Modernism, antithesis Post-Modernism and synthesis post post Modernism (I don’t know another word for where we are – critical reflection maybe?) then it need not be so damning. Further online research about ‘only connect’ suggests that Forster is talking about the connection of personal relationships. All well and good. But before I go much further, I shall point out that this article is not about Forster. And in so far as it is about ‘connections’ it is about my own interest in connections. We are pattern-makers. Meaning-makers. We find patterns in any and everything and then we attribute meaning to them. But whether the meaning is personal or universal, that’s often debatable. So here I am, about to start a series of explorations in which I find patterns and make meaning from them. And why I have to ditch Forster here, because this is about Scottish writers. I am going to explore two sets of ‘connections’ and in doing so I hope to say something interesting and different , perhaps thought provoking if not profound, about the history of Scottish literature. I also have, to some extent, to ditch my own dialectic. After all, I’m substantially looking at the period immediately preceding modernism – a period that is generally thought of as a ‘dark age’ in Scottish fiction. This in itself is false. The fiction of the 1880’s through to the First World War (which is the period I shall concern myself with) is actually an incredibly rich and vibrant one. It is a time when publishing changed fundamentally (and I think for the better!) Authorship was no longer the province of the gentlemanly classes. It became a viable career. Reading was no longer the privilege of good breeding or high class, but became a mass pastime, with mass-market publications available for all classes and tastes. Of course, this presented something of a challenge to the established order. I submit that in the same way as the Romantic poets posed a fundamental challenge to the 18th century Enlightenment, so the writers of the fin de siècle (especially may I say the 1890s) offer a substantial slap in the face to the old way. Modernism was the rebound and the triumph in Scotland of modernism via the manufactured Scottish ‘Renaissance’ has cast a long shadow on too many of Scotland’s writers. It’s time to throw away the dark age perception and start to draw other patterns – make other meanings. And that’s what I’m going to do in the next few months. I shall start by posing you a question. What connects the following authors? Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, S.R.Crockett, J.M.Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle and John Buchan? You may come up with many answers. The one I’m looking for (and at) is their Edinburgh Connection. Let me explain the link: Robert Burns had his poetry published as ‘The Edinburgh Edition’ ( in 1787 ) and Robert Burns met Walter Scott around that time. Walter Scott was a boy of 15. Walter Scott attended Edinburgh University (in 1783) as did Robert Louis Stevenson (1871) S.R.Crockett (1876) J.M.Barrie (1876) and Arthur Conan Doyle (1876). John Buchan was Chancellor of Edinburgh University (1937-40). So one area of interest, at least for me, is ‘The Edinburgh Boys’ – particularly the class of ’76. Within this subset (and including RLS and John Buchan) I see another connection. That of being blighted by bestsellers. Stevenson is best known for ‘Treasure Island’ and ‘Kidnapped,’ often dismissed as children’s novels; Crockett for ‘The Raiders,’ ‘The Lilac Sunbonnet’ and ‘The Stickit Minister’, damned as ‘Kailyard.’ J.M.Barrie is hog-tied by ‘Peter Pan,’ Conan Doyle couldn’t kill off ‘Sherlock Holmes’ quickly enough and John Buchan’s ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’ dogged him for his entire publishing life. In each case the books were bestsellers and brought wealth and fame for their respective writers. But in no case are these the apogee of the writer’s talent or ambition. This suggests to me that there is some mileage in considering the double edged sword of publishing success. So over the next few months I’m going on a journey, to explore some of these connections and I hope you’ll come with me. We might all learn something. This is just a brief heads-up. Why not reconnect with some of these writers – especially some of their lesser known work – in advance of the series commencing for real next month? You can obtain all their work in digital format these days. Let’s start a new revolution and get reading the ‘forgotten Scots from the dark ages!’ Stevenson, Barrie, Conan Doyle and Buchan’s ‘Complete Works’ are all available as ebooks from Delphi www.delphiclassics.com and well worth the £3 a pop that the ‘parts’ editions cost. For Crockett the place to go is The Galloway Raiders and/or the ‘unco’ store. There is as yet no ‘Complete Crockett’ and many of the works you can find online as digit al downloads are poorly scanned documents, but Ayton Publishing Ltd are in the process of bringing his work back into print. You can get about half of his oeuvre via The Galloway Raiders in paperback and ebook formats. www.thegallowayraiders.co.uk is the place to start your quest. Or if you know which book you’re looking for go direct to http://www.unco.scot/store/c26/S.R.Crockett.html There’s plenty there to get you started. And if you really can’t splash the cash – why not see what your local library has in stock. Venture beyond the current bestsellers list and start exploring bestsellers of a byegone era. You may be pleasantly surprised. It’s time to join the reading revolution! See you next month for Part One of ‘The Edinburgh Boys: Class of ‘76’ The Orraman |
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