Modern Scottish Collections

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)

Sean Connery : the measure of a man, a new biography by Christopher Bray was amongst the new Scottish interest titles received by the National Library of Scotland this week. This book takes a particular interest in how Sean Connery’s image has changed over the years and examines his enduring superstar status. References to more items about Sean can be found on Scottish Bibliographies Online.

Edinburgh born writer Isla Dewar’s new novel Izzy’s war follows the experiences of a female pilot in the Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War. Isla is currently based in the East Neuk of Fife and has had a string of bestselling novels since her 1995 debut, Keeping up with Magda.

In Scottish baronial castles 1250-1450 Michael Brown examines the history, design and function of Scottish castles from the medieval period. Amongst the castles described and illustrated are Kildrummy, Tantallon and Caerlaverock. There’s a great deal more information about books, chapters and articles on Scottish castles to be found on Scottish Bibliographies Online.

More recent Scottish political history is the subject of Voting for a Scottish government : the Scottish Parliament election of 2007 by Robert Johns, David Denver, James Mitchell and Charles Pattie. This book explores the reasons why the 2007 Scottish Parliament election was won by the SNP by reference to data from a large scale survey of the Scottish electorate.