Bibliography of Scottish Literature
Introduction
General Further Reading
The following reading lists, organised to follow the six main period sections of the volume, although extensive, cannot be considered as comprehensive bibliographies, due to limitations of volume format and space.
The aim is to make the lists the basis of a more inclusive bibliography of Scottish Literature, arranged in the six period sections of the present volume (Early Scottish Literature, Eighteenth Century, Age of Scott, Victorians and Edwardians, Scottish Renaissance, and Scottish Literature since 1945). This inclusive bibliography will be continuously developed; e-mail contributions and suggestions are invited, which will be incorporated bi-annually. Email address: enquiries@scotlit.arts.gla.ac.uk.
The presentation of the lists is unusual, in that they track and pertain to individual chapters. By no means all Scottish writers of significance, and discussion of them, are included; at the end of many chapters an alphabetical list of the names of additional Scottish writers will indicate that the web-bibliography will carry details and information not possible within the volume, which simply aims to supply helpful material regarding the foregrounded authors and topics.
In the drama sections, dates of first performance are given in the main text; publication dates only in the reading lists. Brief suggestions only are given for non-fiction prose in Chapter 42, 'Widening the Range'. For the twentieth century as a whole, covering poetry, fiction, non-fiction prose and drama, a most helpful and compact bibliography is that produced by Robert Crawford for the British Council, Literature in Twentieth-Century Scotland: A Select Bibliography (London: The British Council, 1995), and where appropriate, as with prolific writers, reference is made to this under 'Crawford'.
Some useful catalogue web-sites are those of:
- The National Library of Scotland
- The British Library
- The Mitchell Library, Glasgow
- Aberdeen University Library
- Edinburgh Central Reference Library
- Edinburgh University Library
- Glasgow University Library
- St Andrews University Library
- Strathclyde University Library
- The Scottish Poetry Library
- The Scottish Theatre Archive, Glasgow University
Reference Works and Bibliographical Guides
The listings below are a selection of items covering the range of Scottish literature and culture. Items relating to particular periods will be found in the following Section reading lists.
Aitken, W.R., Scottish Literature in English and Scots: A Guide (Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1982). The most comprehensive guide so far.
Burgess, Moira, Directory of Authors in the Scottish Fiction Reserve (Edinburgh: National Library of Scotland, 1986) (alphabetical listing of authors and libraries holding their work).
Crawford, Robert, Literature in Twentieth Century Scotland: A Select Bibliography (London: The British Council Literature Department, 1995). A useful reference guide for the modern period. Includes general reference works, anthologies, poetry, prose, drama and a list of useful addresses.
Daiches, David (ed.), The New Companion to Scottish Culture (Edinburgh: Polygon 1993; London: Edward Arnold, 1981).A useful guide to Scottish achievement across the range of history, literature,philosophy, law and the like.
D'Arcy, Julian M., Scottish Skalds and Sagamen: Old Norse Influence on Modern Scottish Literature (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1996).
Glen, Duncan, The Poetry of the Scots: an introduction and bibliographical guide to poetry in Gaelic, Scots, Latin and English (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991).
Menzies, David (ed.), English Using Scottish Texts, Support Notes and Bibliographies (Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum, 1999). A guide especially for teaching purposes. Includes general works, drama, prose fiction and non-fiction, poetry and also media texts, Gaelic texts in translation and Scots language texts.
Reid, Alan and Osborne, Brian D., Discovering Scottish Writers (Edinburgh: Scottish Cultural Press, 1997). A short and introductory guide to Scottish writers and poets from the early to modern period.
Reid, Charlotte, List of Plays in Scots (Glasgow: Glasgow City Libraries, 1992)
Royle, Trevor, The Mainstream Companion to Scottish Literature (Edinburgh, Mainstream, 1993) (revised version of 1983 Companion). York: Macmillan, 1983). A comprehensive guide which provides a few paragraphs of biographical information on each writer with a list of primary and secondary reading where applicable.
Scott, Paul H. (ed.), Scotland: A Concise Cultural History (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1993). An excellent introductory survey by experts of the entire range of Scottish cultural achievement.
Scottish Education Department, Scottish Central Committee on English, Scottish Literature in the Secondary School (Edinburgh: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1976). Contains bibliographical material on novels, plays, poetry, short-stories and general works of particular use for teaching in schools.
Smith, Dennis, assisted by Barnaby, Paul and Moret, Ulrike, Scotland: World Bibliographical Series, vol. 34 (Oxford, Santa Barbara and Denver: Clio Press, 1998). A very general guide but useful as an initial point of reference. Includes references for bibliographies, reference works, periodicals and anthologies, a range of general critical works and specific references for the 17th to 20th centuries. It gives excellent helpful short descriptions to some of the key cultural and literary texts.
From 1956 the annual supplement of the periodical The Bibliotheck, the Annual Bibliography of Scottish Literature, is useful; The National Library of Scotland has a Bibliography of Scotland covering the period 1976-87 in annual volumes, followed by updated databases (see internet details in previous General Further Reading.
Literary and Cultural Background
The first port of call here is The History of Scottish Literature, 4 vols., General Editor, Cairns Craig (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1987-88); the relevant volumes are listed in the appropriate reading list sections. Additional histories include:
Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).
Bennett, Margaret, Scottish Customs from the Cradle to the Grave (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1992).
Beveridge, Craig, and Turnbull, Ronald, The Eclipse of Scottish Culture: Inferiorism and the Intellectuals (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1989). Scotland After Enlightenment: Image and Tradition in Modern Scottish Culture (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1997).
Bhabha, Homi K., Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 1990).
Broadie, Alexander, The Tradition of Scottish Philosophy (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1990).
Buchan, David, Scottish Tradition, A Collection of Scottish Folk Literature (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984).
Calder, Angus, Revolutionary empire: the rise of the English-speaking empires from the15th century to the 1780s (London: Cape, 1981; Pimlico, 1998).
Chapman, Malcolm, The Gaelic Vision in Scottish Culture (London: Croom Helm, 1978).
Colley, Linda, Britons: Forging the Nation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
Cowan, Edward J., (ed.), The People's Past: Scottish Folk, Scottish History (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1980). - and Gifford, Douglas (eds.), The Polar Twins (Edinburgh: John Donald Limited, 1999).
Craig, Cairns, Out of History: Narrative Paradigms in Scottish and English Culture (London: Polygon, 1996).
Crawford, Robert, Devolving English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992; rev. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001).
Daiches, David (ed), The New Companion to Scottish Culture (Edinburgh, Polygon, 1993)
Davie, George, The Democratic Intellect: Scotland and Her Universities in the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1961; 1999). The Crisis of the Democratic Intellect (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1986).
Devine, T.M., The Scottish Nation 1700-2000 (London: Allen Lane, 1999).
Dick, Eddie, From Limelight to Satellite: a Scottish Film Book (London: BFI Publishing/Scottish Film Council, 1990).
Donachie, Ian, and Hewitt, George, A Companion to Scottish History: From the Reformation to the Present (London: Batsford, 1989).
Ferguson, William, The Identity of the Scottish Nation: An Historic Quest (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998).
Findlay, Bill, A History of Scottish Theatre (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1998).
Gellner, Ernst, Nation and Nationalism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983).
Gifford, Douglas and McMillan, Dorothy (eds.), A History of Scottish Women's Writing (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997).
Glendinning, Miles, MacInnes, Ranald, and MacKechnie, Aonghus, A History of Scottish Architecture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996).
Goring, Rosemary, Chambers Scottish Biographical Dictionary (Edinburgh, Chambers, 1992).
Hart, Francis Russell, The Scottish Novel: A Critical Survey (London: John Murray, 1978).
Hardy, Forsyth, Scotland in Film (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990).
Harvie, Christopher, Scotland and Nationalism: Scottish Society and Politics, 1707 to the Present (1977; London: Routledge, 1998).
Henderson, T.F., Scottish Vernacular Literature (1898; Edinburgh: John Grant, 1910).
Hewitt, David and Spiller, Michael (eds.), Literature of the North (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1983).
Hook, Andrew, From Goosecreek to Gandercleugh : Studies in Scottish-American Literary and Cultural History (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1999).
Hutchison, David, The Modern Scottish Theatre (Glasgow: Molendinar Press,1977).
Kinsley, James, Scottish Poetry: A Critical Survey (London: Cassell, 1955).
Lindsay, Maurice, A History of Scottish Literature (London: Hale, 1991).
Lynch, Michael, Scotland: A New History (London: Century, 1991).
McCrone, David, Kendrick, Stephen, and Straw, Pat (eds.), The Making of Scotland: Nation, Culture and Change (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989).
Macdonald, Murdo, Scottish Art (London: Thames & Hudson, 2000).
MacMillan, Duncan, Scottish Art, 1460-1990 (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1990).
Manlove, Colin, Scottish Fantasy Literature (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1994).
McNeill, Marion, The Silver Bough, 4 vols. (Glasgow: MacLellan, 1957-68).
Millar, J.H., A Literary History of Scotland (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1903).
Mitchison, Rosalind, A History of Scotland (London: Methuen, 1970).
Muir, Edwin, Scott and Scotland: The Predicament of the Scottish Writer (London: Routledge, 1936).
Nairn, Tom, The Breakup of Britain (Revised Edition, London: NLB and Verso, 1981).
O'Driscoll, Robert (ed.), The Celtic Consciousness (Edinburgh: The Dolmen Press and Canongate, 1992)
Petrie, Duncan, Screening Scotland (London: British Film Institute, 2000).
Pittock, Murray, The Invention of Scotland: The Stuart Myth and Scottish Identity, 1638 to the Present (London: Routledge, 1991).
Power, William, Literature and Oatmeal: What Literature has Meant to Scotland (London: Routledge, 1935).
Purser, John, Scotland's Music, A History (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1992).
Robinson, Mairi (ed.), The Concise Scots Dictionary (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1985).
Royle, Trevor, Precipitous City: The Story of Literary Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Mainstream; New York: Taplinger, 1980).
Said, Edward, Orientalism (London: Routledge, 1978).
Smith, G. Gregory, Scottish Literature: Character and Influence (London: Macmillan and co., 1919).
Smout, T.C., A History of the Scottish People 1560-1830 (London: Collins, 1969). A Century of the Scottish People 1830-1950 (London: Collins, 1986).
Speirs, John, The Scots Literary Tradition (London: Chatto & Windus, 1940; Faber, 1962, revised edition).
Thomson, Derick, An Introduction to Gaelic Poetry (London: Gollancz, 1974).
Trumpener, Katie, Bardic Nationalism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997).
Walker, Marshall, i (London and New York: Longman, 1996).
Watson, Roderick, The Literature of Scotland (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984).
Wittig, Kurt, The Scottish Tradition in Literature (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1958).
Womack, Peter, Improvement and Romance: Constructing the Myth of the Highlands (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988).
Wood, Harvey H., et. al., Edinburgh Essays on Scots Literature (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1933).
Period literary and historical studies are located in the appropriate section reading lists.
Anthologies
The most impressive general anthology available, covering all Scottish literature, is David McCordrick's huge and remarkably comprehensive three volume Scottish Literature: An Anthology. Details: McCordrick, David (ed.), Scottish Literature: An Anthology, vol. 1 Early Middle Ages to c1775 (New York: Peter Lang, 1996). Volume 2 [1775 to Robert Louis Stevenson] (New York: Peter Lang, 1996). Volume 3 [RLS to the present] (Edinburgh: Scottish Cultural Press, 2002).
Poetry
Bateman, Meg, Crawford, Robert, and McGonigal, James (eds.), Scottish Religious Poetry: An Anthology (Edinburgh: St Andrews Press, 2000).
Crawford, Robert and Imlah, Mick The New Penguin Book of Scottish Verse (London: Allen Lane, 2000).
Dunn, Douglas, The Faber Book of Twentieth Century Scottish Poetry (London: Faber, 1993), Kerrigan, Catherine (ed.), An Anthology of Scottish Women Poets, [with
translations from the Gaelic by Meg Bateman], (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991).
Lindsay, Maurice (ed.), Scottish Comic Verse: An Anthology (London: Hale, 1981)
MacDiarmid, Hugh (ed), The Golden Treasury of Scottish Poetry (London: Macmillan, 1940).
McQueen, Jack and Scott, Tom (eds), The Oxford Book of Scottish Verse (Oxford, Clarendon, 1966)
Morgan, Edwin (ed), Scottish Satirical Verse (Manchester: Carcanet, 1980).
McGonigal, James, O'Rourke, Daniel, and Whyte, Hamish (eds.) Across the Water: Irishness in Modern Scottish Writing (Glendaruel: Argyll, 2000).
Scott, Alexander (ed.), Scotch Passion: an Anthology of Scottish Erotic Verse (London: Hale, 1982).
Scott, Tom (ed.), The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970).
Watson, Roderick, The Poetry of Scotland: Gaelic, Scots and English, 1380-1980 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995).
Short Stories
Bradford, Alan, and MacDonald, Donald (eds.), Scottish Traditional Tales (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1994).
Dunn, Douglas (ed.), The Oxford Book of Scottish Short Stories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
MacDougall, Carl (ed.), The Devil and the Giro: Two Centuries of Scottish Short Stories (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1989).
Murray, Ian (ed.), The New Penguin Book of Scottish Short Stories (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983).
Philip, Neil (ed.), The Penguin Book of Scottish Folktales (London: Penguin, 1995).
Reid, J.M. (ed.), Scottish Short Stories (London: Oxford University Press, 1963).
Williamson, Duncan and Linda, A Thorn in the King's Foot: Stories of the Scottish Travelling People (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987).