Popular fiction : detective novels and thrillers from Holmes to Rebus

This chapter looks at detective novels and thrillers from Holmes to Rebus

Muriel Spark and the problems of biography

This Companion brings together an international 'Brodie set' of critics to trace the history, impact, reception and major themes of Spark's work, from her early poetry to her last novel. It encompasses the range of Spark's output, pursuing contextual lines of approach including biography, geography, gender, identity, nation and religion, and considering her legacy and continuing influence in the twenty-first century. Spark emerges here as a serious thinker on issues as diverse as the Welfare State, secularisation, decolonisation, and anti-psychiatry, and a writer whose work may be placed alongside Proust, Joyce, Nabokov, and Lessing. The critics collected here are mindful of how, although overwhelmingly known as a novelist, by the time of her first novel, The Comforters, in 1957, Spark already had a significant profile through poetry, biographical criticism, and literary journalism, as chair of the Poetry Society and editor of the Poetry Review, and as author or co-author of a number of scholarly studies of writers including Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, the Bröntes, Cardinal Newman, and John Masefield. Within a relatively modest space this Companion touches on the whole range of Spark's work and, in introducing the oeuvre thematically for those looking to explore this elegant and challenging author further, also sets the agenda for future Spark studies. Key Features * A collection of original, specially commissioned chapters by leading experts in the field * Covers the whole spectrum of Spark's work * Addresses the key issues and themes in Spark's work without losing sight of the questions of form and content * Provides original insights into the contexts of Spark's work as viewed through literary theor

Book review : Like Leaves in Autumn: Responses to the War Poetry of Giuseppe Ungaretti edited by Carlo Pirozzi and Katherine Lockton, translations by Heather Scott

A review of poetic responses by Scottish poets to the war poetry of Giuseppe Ungaretti

War memorials

This chapter looks at literature and the land between two world wars

'Twin Loyalties' : John Buchan's England

Depicts England at the time of writer John Buchan. He was a strong creative force in Scottish and English literature, politics and public life, from the fin-de-siècle to the Second World War

Robert Burns and the First World War

The Great War of 1914-1918 was the United Kingdom’s introduction to total war – the first international war to be contested by a whole, mobilised population rather than a representative army. It was also the first European war that the nation would fight with a universally-educated and literate population. The Education Acts of 1870 (in Scotland 1872) had ensured that every British person had undergone a compulsory primary education and might reasonably be expected to be able to read and write and be on nodding terms, at least, with the literary tradition and its canon of great writers. Poetry had a particular place to play in this, especially in the early years of the war when there was a sustained effort to endow the conflict with an elevated sense of purpose and moral strenuousness. Scotland was no exception to this trend, with all newspapers, from the thundering establishment dailies like the Scotsman and Glasgow Herald to popular weeklies such as the People’s Friend and People’s Journal and local papers such as the Paisley Daily Express and Kilmarnock Standard publishing a markedly increased number of poems in response to the early-war crisis, and turning for reassurance to its traditional writers. In most practical terms this, of course, meant Robert Burns

Hugh MacDiarmid : the impossible persona

By using previously uncollected creative and discursive writings, this international group of contributors presents a vital updating of MacDiarmid scholarship. They bring fresh insights to major poems such as A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, To Circumjack Cencrastus and In Memoriam James Joyce, and offer new political, ecological and science-based readings in relation to MacDiarmid's work from the 1930s. They also discuss his experimental short fiction in Annals of the Five Senses, the autobiographical Lucky Poet, and a representative selection of his essays and journalism. They assess MacDiarmid's legacy and reputation in Scotland and beyond, placing his poetry within the context of international modernism

Don't take the high road : tartanry and its critics

An historically and critically sound - and contemporary - evaluation of tartan and tartanry based on proper contextualisation and coherent analysis. This critical re-evaluation of one of the more controversial aspects of recent debates on Scottish culture draws together contributions from leading researchers in a wide variety of disciplines, resulting in a highly accessible yet authoritative volume. This book, like tartan, weaves together two strands. The first, like a warp, considers the significance of tartan in Scottish history and culture during the last four centuries, including tartan's role in the development of diaspora identities in North America. The second, like a weft, considers the place of tartan and rise of tartanry in the national and international representations of Scottishness, including heritage, historical myth-making, popular culture, music hall, literature, film, comedy, rock and pop music, sport and 'high' culture. From Tartan to Tartanry offers fresh insight into and new perspectives on key cultural phenomena, from the iconic role of the Scottish regiments to the role of tartan in rock music. It argues that tartan may be fun, but it also plays a wide range of fascinating, important and valuable roles in Scottish and international culture