Scotland and the Scottish Diaspora
"It's part of me, Scotland. I'm still immersed in it even though I am not there." -- Irvine Welsh (1958 - ), Scots novelist, short story writer, playwright, author of Trainspotting among many other works).
All my life I have been interested in the history of Scotland and the profound consequences of the Scottish diaspora throughout the world. Scotland and the Scots are appealing in so many ways -- the beauty of the land- and seascapes, the food and drink, the extraordinarily resourceful and creative people, the dramatic history from antiquity to the present, the great literature and history and philosophy and religion. The subjects are themselves enough to inspire writing, but there is great satisfaction in the fact that the Scots have lived up to the subjects on their own writ.
Over many years I have researched the history of Cumberland Valley, and I have often talked about the Scots, the Scots-Irish, and the settlement of this part of the New World by these willing and not-so-willing exiles. In recognition of the history and significance of the Scots to our area, I fly the Saltire and carry these books and cds. I am always on the lookout for more.
P.S. Due to listing limitations, I have moved Ian Rankin and Denise Mina, two fine writers of the Scots Noir movement, over to our International Mystery page.
Robert Louis Stevenson: The Scottish Novels
Robert Louis Stevenson: The Scottish Novels
Kidnapped - Catriona - The Master of Ballantrae - Weir of Hermiston
These four great novels take us deep into Robert Louis Stevenson’s imaginative and bitter-sweet relationship with his native country.
Kidnapped, and its sequel Catriona, are renowned the world over as supreme stories of adventure and romance. On another level they also explore the subtle divisions of Scottish history and character in the eighteenth century, and (some would say) the present day.
The Master of Ballantrae takes a darker and more disturbing turn, with its tale of rival brothers caught in a webof hatred, obsession, love and betrayal which draws them to their end in the frozen wastes of North America.
Stevenson’s fascination with the divided nature of the human self (most obviously demonstrated in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) appears again in the Weir of Hermiston with its terrible confrontation between a father and his son.
With an unsurpassed combination of physical adventure and psychological insight, The Scottish Novels have moved and thrilled readers and writers from Stevenson’s contemporaries to the present day.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) was a Scottish novelist, poet and essayist who achieved worldwide acclaim for Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Born and educated in Edinburgh, Stevenson began with essays, short stories and travel writing, most notably Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879). He is best remembered for his first novel Treasure Island (1883) and for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). The great Scottish novels followed, with Kidnapped (1886), The Master of Ballantrae (1889), and Weir of Hermiston (1893), which was left unfinished at his death. Catriona (1893), was always planned as the immediate sequel to Kidnapped, but had been delayed in the writing. Stevenson spent seven years in the South Seas, settling for the last five on the island of Upolu in Samoa, where he died suddenly from a cerebral stroke at the age of forty-four.