Modern Scottish Collections

World Book Night is coming up on 23 April, and it is good to see that one of the classics of Scottish literature has made it to the list – Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I’ve been re-reading Stevenson’s adventure for the first time in years, and while the famous elements and characters are as familiar and vivid as ever, I was reminded of the author’s clever way with a plot and atmosphere. I am sure we all remember Jim Hawkins working at the Admiral Benbow inn and the various salty characters who turn up there – and we definitely remember Long John Silver, complete with leg and parrot, a figure who has lingered in the popular imagination far beyond the pages of the book.

Stevenson started Treasure Island during a wet August holiday in Braemar, ostensibly as an entertainment for his step-son, and the first chapters were published before the novel was finished. It has remained a favourite ever since in a variety of forms– so many famous illustrated editions, so many adaptations, so many sequels.

World Book Night gives us another opportunity to read Stevenson’s peerless adventure, and there’s a chance to hear more about the book and its author at our Treasure Island event, here at the National Library of Scotland, on 23 April.

November 13 was R.L.S Day, celebrating the life and work of our great writer Robert Louis Stevenson .

Stevenson has been in my mind recently as I re-read Kidnapped – still exciting – and did research on the various film versions of his books for our cinema exhibition.

I have also been thinking about the visit I made to his former home and his grave near Apia, Western Samoa many years ago. Like many tourists I climbed to the top of Mount Vaea to look at the monument for “Tusitala”, read the famous verses, and took in the view of the Pacific. It seemed a long way from Edinburgh, Heriot Row and Swanston.

Here is more information from the National Library of Scotland on our Stevenson website.

BBC Alba is currently showing the fondly remembered 1960s television version of Dr Finlay’s Casebook based on the short stories of Scotland’s best-selling author of yesteryear – A.J. Cronin, 1896-1981.

Cronin may not be a household name today but from his sensational debut with Hatter’s Castle in 1931 he was prized as a master story teller, with huge international sales. He drew on his experience of small-town Scottish life, including his family dramas and religious intolerance, and his early work as a doctor. Success meant he became a full-time writer by the time he was 35.

Inevitably Cronin’s highly dramatic novels like The Citadel , The Stars Look Down, and The Keys of the Kingdom were snapped up by film studios on both sides of the Atlantic. Most of his big titles made it to the screen in major productions starring, amongst others, Robert Donat, Carole Lombard, Michael Redgrave, Margaret Lockwood, Gregory Peck, and Dirk Bogarde.

Film versions of two of Cronin’s “Scottish” novels Hatter’s Castle and The Green Years feature in our current exhibition Going to the Pictures: Scotland at the Cinema. Deborah Kerr and James Mason shine from the original poster for Hatter’s Castle and there’s a US Forces edition of The Green Years, with an original leaflet promoting MGM’s film version which featured Tom Drake, the “boy next door” from Meet Me in St Louis, as … the boy next door in Victorian Scotland, who also wants to be a doctor.

Earlier in the week I had the great honour to show Peter Jewell round our current exhibition Going to the Pictures: Scotland at the Cinema.

Peter Jewell built up the fabulous cinema collection at the Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture at the University of Exeter with the late great Scottish film director Bill Douglas.

It was fascinating to go round the displays with a real expert on the history of cinema, and also to listen to his personal anecdotes of
Bill Douglas, the boy from Newcraighall – the mining village near Edinburgh – who grew up to be a filmmaker and left a slim but immortal legacy on screen.

In the exhibition we show iconic clips from the Bill Douglas Trilogy and copies of pages from the script and storyboard.

This weekend sees the 120th anniversary of the birth of one of our most famous Scottish poets – widely known as Hugh MacDiarmid, the author of A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle.

MacDiarmid was born as Christopher Grieve in Langholm, Dumfriesshire, on 11 August 1892, and spent much of his early career as a journalist with various Scottish newspapers. His reputation as a poet and editor of literary journals was often equalled by his iconoclastic views and opinions on politics and literature.

After a largely itinerant life and career, he settled in 1951 at Brownsbank cottage near Biggar with his second wife Valda, which is now maintained by the Biggar Museum Trust as a writer’s retreat in his memory.

In 1967 the National Library of Scotland celebrated his 75th birthday with an exhibition, and we hold an important collection of his manuscripts. He died in 1978.

Here is the poet himself, talking about his life on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 1972 in the film No Fellow Traveller from our collections at the Scottish Screen Archive.

(Image from Biggar Museum Trust)

Scottish audiences are getting ready for the unveiling of the latest Scottish heroine when the much anticipated Brave opens in cinemas across the country. For a few weeks now there has been no escape from images of the gallus wee lassie with the red curls, her bow, and her kenspeckle family.

When we were working on the summer exhibition Going to the Pictures: Scotland at the Cinema we had to ensure that we included Brave in advance of its premiere. For a brief wonderful moment we thought we were going to get a life-size figure of the bonnie wee princess – but settled for a “teaser” poster and the only one of the official books available in early June.

We already had however, at least one other independent curly-headed lassie in the exhibition, from another era altogether. In 1917 Mary Pickford – then the biggest female star in the world – took the title role in The Pride of the Clan. Here “Little Mary” plays Marget MacTavish, the leader of her community on a remote Scottish island. She’s a feisty wee thing who whips them all into shape –literally – and who wears the full tartan rigout, and sports a head of golden curls. This was Mary’s trademark till she bobbed them in the 1920s and caused a sensation.

Nearly a century has passed since audiences all round the world saw their favourite in her Scottish guise as Marget MacTavish, and here we are welcoming another Scottish heroine, just as wee, just as independent, and just as blessed in the hair department – Princess Merida in Brave.

With the Olympics now upon us, it is good to report that our current exhibition Going to the Pictures: Scotland at the Cinema has not forgotten to include Scolympians – even if one of them is a work of fiction!

Most film audiences wont need to be reminded about Chariots of Fire, which memorably told the story of athlete and missionary Eric Liddell and others. With the late Ian Charleson as Liddell, and many Scottish locations, including the West Sands at St Andrews in the iconic opening sequence, Arthur’s Seat, and the splendours of the interior of Edinburgh’s Café Royal, the film has recently been restored and is back out in cinemas, thirty years after it won the Best Picture Oscar. We’ve got a “book of the film” in the displays, as well as the famous run along the sands.

There’s room in the exhibition also though for Geordie, in the strapping person of Bill Travers. The 1955 Highland comedy also featured Alastair Sim as the laird, and tells the tale of the wee boy who takes a bodybuilding course by mail and grows up to compete in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics – as a hammer thrower, and in a kilt of course.

In the exhbition we’ve got a clip from the film – the scene where big Geordie discovers his talent – and a programme for the world premiere in Glasgow. Here’s a longer version of the scene we use – ours has better colour for the scenery but check out that familiar postman …

One of the great things about working on our summer exhibition Going to the Pictures: Scotland at the cinema was the chance to look again at some of the classic films set in Scotland – as well as to pick the best clips!

In a wet Scottish summer it seems appropriate to take another look at the Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger 1945 favourite – I know where I’m going! For those of you not yet familiar with this magical Celtic romance the film tells the story of Wendy Hiller’s trip to the west coast of Scotland to marry a millionaire. The weather intervenes, she is stranded on Mull, and finds a husband right enough, but not the one she is expecting.

Much admired by film-makers Martin Scorsese and Mark Cousins, I know where I’m going! is the sort of film that inspires love and devotion – and pilgrims to Tobermory and other Mull locations. We have a short clip from the film in our exhibition – the scene where Wendy Hiller is introduced to the eccentric household of the lady laird on Mull, complete with eagle and wolfhounds- as well as the 1946 “film of the book”.

Audiences in Glasgow have the chance to take the trip to the islands this week where I know where I’m going! is showing at the Glasgow Film Theatre on Thursday 12 July. GFT has got a wonderful clip on their website- five minutes long!

Glasgow’s Aye Write! book festival comes to an end this weekend. For me one of the most interesting aspects this year has been the launch of Scotland’s Bookshelf.

It is a simple idea – a panel of experts have selected 20 books – 2 per decade of the best of one hundred years of Scottish books. And more than that they have published a free book – introduced by Rosemary Goring - with selections from all of them and the longlists! What a fabulous introduction to modern Scottish literature and more.

Of the 20 names 17 are novelists, 3 are poets, 1 is a historian, 4 are women, 1 is a Gaelic writer, and 7 of them are still writing. Lorna Moon, A.J. Cronin, and Alexander Trocchi are 3 of the welcome surprises perhaps and so is the distinguished historian Christopher Smout who represents the 1960s along with Dame Muriel Spark.

The book can be downloaded from the Aye Write! website.

Last summer we added to the collection some lovely Robert Burns works by the lettering artist Liz Mathews .

Today’s blog entry from Liz Mathews gives a great impression of the delights hidden within the covers of these Robert Burns inspired artist’s books.