Scotland's Books

From Treasure Island to Trainspotting, Scotland's rich literary tradition has influenced writing across centuries and cultures far beyond its borders. Here, for the first time, is a single volume presenting the glories of fifteen centuries of Scottish literature. In Scotland's Books poet Robert Crawford tells the story of Scottish writing and its relationship to the country's history. Stretching from the medieval masterpiece of St Columba's Iona - the earliest surviving Scottish work - to the imaginative, thriving world of twenty-first-century writing with authors such as Ali Smith and James Kelman, this outstanding collection traces the development of literature in Scotland and explores the cultural, linguistic and literary heritage of the nation. It includes extracts from the writing discussed to give a flavour of the original work, full quotations in their own language, previously unpublished works by authors and plenty of new research. Informative and readable, this is the definitive guide to the marvellous legacy of Scottish literature.

Robert Crawford was born in Lanarkshire in 1959 and educated at the universities of Glasgow and Oxford. He is Professor of Modern Scottish Literature at the University of St Andrews and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His Selected Poems was published by Jonathan Cape in 2005 and he is author of six other collections of poetry. His many other books of criticism and literary history include Devolving English Literature (second edition, 2000) and The Modern Poet (2001). In 2006 Penguin Classics published The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse, which he edited with Mick Imlah. Robert Crawford has read and lectured widely in Britain and North America.