How many May dawns
have I slept right through,
the trees courageous with blossom?
Let me number them…
—Kathleen Jamie, “Blossom”
published in SELECTED POEMS (Picador, 2018)
https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/selected-poems/9781509882953
The battle of Culloden – the last pitched battle fought on British soil – took place 280 years ago #OTD, 16 April 1746. A major turning point in Scottish, British, European & indeed world history, it has, unsurprisingly, left a significant imprint in the literature & culture of Scotland. A 🧵
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https://www.ambaile.org.uk/asset/9514/
#Scottish #literature #history #18thcentury #Culloden #Jacobites
Typographica Scoto-Gadelica: Scottish Gaelic Typographic Visual Identity through Print & Book Culture
3 Dec, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Skye, & online – free
Visual identity of language – the use of distinct characters, diacritics, & conventions – is a key factor in cultural identity & national heritage. This talk will explore Scottish Gaelic’s contemporary visual identity.
https://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/edwin-pickstone/?lang=en
#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #BookHistory #printing #typography #identity #design
Hoy Sound Unscrolled
a poetry reading with Heather H. Yeung
9 Dec, Stromness, ticketed
On the 9th anniversary of the creation of her 9-metre-long scroll-poem KENNINGS, Orkney poet Heather Yeung (楊希蒂) launches the book version of her poem/artefact
So on the bus through late November running
by yellow lights tormented, darkness falling,
the two girls sang for miles and miles together…
—Iain Crichton Smith, “Two Girls Singing”
Published in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS, ed. by John Greening (Carcanet, 2021)
https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800170940/deer-on-the-high-hills/
The Many Primes of Muriel Spark
First broadcast in 2018. Available on BBC iPlayer until 27 December.
Kirsty Wark celebrates the life and work of Dame Muriel Spark, author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and one of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic cultural figures.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09qlx14
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #MurielSpark
Creative Conversations: Kristie de Garis
1 Dec, University of Glasgow & online – free
Kristie de Garis’s Drystone: A Life Rebuilt is unflinchingly honest and unexpectedly funny. A story about the weight of the past, resilience and the hard work of living on your own terms.
Some things may never change. What matters is the life you build anyway.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-conversations-kristie-de-garis-tickets-1828297881179
#OTD in 1886.
The "Symbolist Manifesto" is placed in the French newspaper Le Figaro by a Greek-born poet Jean Moréas, who calls Symbolism hostile to "plain meanings, declamations, false sentimentality and matter-of-fact description," and intended to "clothe the Ideal in a perceptible form" whose "goal was not in itself, but whose sole purpose was to express the Ideal."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolist_Manifesto
Symbolism at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Symbolism&submit_search=Search
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."
The History of Rasselas
British author, linguist & lexicographer Samuel Johnson was born #OTD in 1709.
Johnson’s most famous achievement is his Dictionary, which was the first major comprehensive dictionary of English. It became the standard reference work for decades and influenced the way dictionaries were compiled.
Samuel Johnson at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/297
English philosopher, painter, and critic William Hazlitt died #OTD in 1830.
He is considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language. He is also acknowledged as the finest art critic of his age. His works includes "On the Pleasure of Hating" (1826), "The Fight" (1822), "On the Fear of Death" (1822), "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays" (1817).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hazlitt
Books by William Hazlitt at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/800
American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, poet and political activist Katherine Anne Porter died #OTD in 1980.
Her 1962 novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her short stories received much more critical acclaim. In 1966, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the U.S. National Book Award for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter.
Reading Scotland with Margaret Bennet
Why Scotland Celebrates St Andrew's Day
2 Dec, online – free
Dr Margaret Bennet talks about the relevance of celebrating St Andrew’s Day today & dives into the origins of this national holiday
The Little White Rose
(To John Gawsworth)
The rose of all the world is not for me.
I want for my part
Only the little white rose of Scotland
That smells sharp and sweet—and breaks the heart.
—Hugh MacDiarmid, “The Little White Rose”
A poem for St Andrew’s Day 🏴
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46800/the-little-white-rose
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #Scotland #HughMacDiarmid #StAndrewsDay
"He's not quite blue yet, but that will come, you shall see!"
#OTD in 1908.
Maurice Maeterlinck's L'Oiseau bleu is premièred, at Konstantin Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre.
The French composer Albert Wolff wrote an opera (first performed at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1919) based on Maeterlinck's original play, and Maeterlinck's inamorata Georgette Leblanc produced a novelization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Bird_(play)
The Blue Bird at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/8606
100 years on, T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men is a poem for our populist moment
His 1925 poem "The Hollow Men," published 100 years ago, bridges the nihilism of "The Waste Land" (1922) and his spiritual rebirth, reflecting his evolving faith journey.
by Luke Johnson
Eliot at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/599
Imagine you are driving
nowhere, with no one beside you;
with the empty road unravelling and ravelling
in sympathy as the wheel turns in your hands…
—John Glenday, “Imagine You are Driving”
published in GRAIN (Picador, 2009)
Listen to John Glenday read “Imagine You are Driving” online via the Poetry Archive:
Literary Maps: Real Maps for Imaginary Places
https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2025/12/literary-maps-your-imaginary-guide-to-famous-fictional-places/
Treasure Island at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Treasure+Island
Let’s Not Forget Charles Dickens’s Other Christmas Ghost Stories!
He loved writing these. There are very many.
By Olivia Rutigliano
https://crimereads.com/lets-not-forget-charles-dickenss-other-christmas-ghost-stories/
There are several editions of Christmas Carol in the PG collection:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19337
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24022
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30368
“Helen Adam marched through her life to the beat of her own drum”
—Kristin Prevallet
Helen Adam (1909–1993) – fey child prodigy (published by Faber & Faber at 14) & daughter of the manse; bardic matriarch of the San Francisco Beats; Worm Queen – was born #OTD, 2 Dec.
A 🎂🧵
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https://caesuramag.org/posts/kristin-prevallet-poems-by-helen-adam
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #gothic #supernatural #ballads #SanFrancisco #BeatPoets #poetry
Australian writer Miles Franklin died #OTD in 1954.
She is best known for her pioneering novel "My Brilliant Career". She was an outspoken advocate for women's rights and played a key role in advancing Australian literature, particularly through her contributions to the depiction of rural life in Australia. The Miles Franklin Award was set up according to the her will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Franklin
Books by Miles Franklin at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/4051
“I met people who gave me books, who handed me a thousand lives so that I might learn to live my own”
—Andrew O’Hagan, on why he supports the Scottish Book Trust Christmas appeal
The Visual Art and Design of Famous Writers, Part 2
By Steven Brower via PrintMag (from the archives)
https://www.printmag.com/illustration-design/the-visual-art-and-design-of-famous-writers-part-2/
Part 1 is available here:
https://www.printmag.com/design-books/the-visual-art-and-design-of-famous-writers/
"A poet of one mood in all my lays,
Ranging all life to sing my only love,
Like a west wind across the world I move,
Sweeping my harp of floods mine own wild way."
British writer and poet Alice Meynell was born #OTD in 1847.
She was considered for the position of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom twice, first in 1892 on the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and later in 1913 on the death of Alfred Austin, but was never appointed to the position.
French writer Juliette Adam was born #OTD in 1836.
She gave an account of her childhood, rendered unhappy by the dissensions of her parents, in Le roman de mon enfance et de ma jeunesse. She published in 1858 her Idées antiproudhoniennes sur l'amour, la femme et le mariage, in defense of Daniel Stern (pen name of Marie d'Agoult) and George Sand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliette_Adam
Books by Juliette Adams at PG:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliette_Adam
Fossil hunter, folklorist, evangelist, stonemason, newspaper editor, social justice campaigner, & geologist, Hugh Miller (1802–1856) – born #OTD, 10 Oct – deserves to be remembered in the company of Carlyle, Ruskin, Matthew Arnold & JS Mill as one of the leading moral & social thinkers of the 19th century
A 🎂🧵
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#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #geology #fossil #HughMiller
