Eric Linklater: 19 books

Eric Linklater was one of the most respected and prolific Scottish writers of this century, yet more than twenty-five years have passed since his last collection of short stories was published. This selection covers Linklater's entire writing life. The settings are as various as the places...

It is a tale of defeat, but when defeat is characterised by valour of a certain pitch and quality, its memory may outlast a tale of victory. And like the Burghers who came with ropes about their necks, to offer their lives that a whole people might be spared, the men who fought at Calais, and helped...

Introduced by Magnus Linklater. Angelo, a private in Mussolini’s ‘ever-glorious’ Italian army, may possess the virtues of love and an engaging innocence but he lacks the gift of courage. However, due to circumstances beyond his control, he ends up fighting not only for Italy but also for the British...

A major film starring Oscar nominated actress Saoirse Ronan and BAFTA award winner Margot Robbie. ‘She was always in the lead, thrusting herself against the storm, tireless in pursuit’ Mary, Queen of Scots was only eighteen years old when she came to the throne of Scotland in 1542....

The Northern Garrisons visits the soldiers of WWII in some of the most barren and inhospitable of outposts. Eric Linklater, in his mission to document the lives, trials and achievements of these men, travelled to Shetland, Orkney, the Faeroes and Iceland. In Iceland Linklater notes how quickly the...

"When the giants fell, old bones revived" - there is the rubric for Eric Linklater's new story, first published in 1949. There may be no historical foundation for his tale of a fantastic war, in the First century A.D., between the giant Furbister and the abominable Od McGammon, his neighbour...

Eric Linklater's command of language and situation, and his gifts for humour and storytelling have seldom been better displayed than in A Man Over Forty, first published in 1963. Edward Balintore is the archetypal television personality: big, loud, and assertive, given to reactionary sentiments...

A literary Cheers—filled with British charm and wit Comprised of an entertaining series of vignettes that occur at the Pelican Pub in Downish, England, Poet's Pub is a humor-filled collection of stories by award winner Eric Linklater—one of the original titles commissioned by Penguin Classics...

First published in 1966, Eric Linklater's brilliant novel tells the story of a double existence. Evan Gaffikin, sixtyish, grumpy and bored with his dull commercial success, discovers and develops his power to dream: to dream in such depth and in such glowing reality that he is able to escape...

The Highland Territorials were made up of the 51st Division, who had fought bravely in the Great War, and entered WWII with a fearsome and loyal reputation. Here Erik Linklater draws from letters and War diaries alongside the official table of movements to construct a vivid picture of the battles,...

In the early years of the Second World War an army officer is sent to the Faroe Islands to investigate rumours of a collaboration with the Nazi regime in Norway. What he finds changes lives, not least his own. No one who reads this book will forget the frozen corpse tied to a chair in an icehouse...

A hitherto unknown pornographic manuscript of Robert Burns is found in the effects of a dead schoolmaster of impeccable reputation. Max Arbuthnot, an Edinburgh lawyer and a rich man, who at the age of sixty has a rampant appetite for the pleasures of the flesh, takes charge of it. As the manuscript...

Introduced by Douglas Gifford. This hilarious novel charts the rise and fall (and perhaps the rise again) of Magnus Merriman—would-be lover, writer, politician, idealist and crofter—moved by dreams of greatness and a talent for farcical defeat. Convinced that ‘small nations are safer to live...

The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea, written for children, is a fantasy, in which Davy Jones and all the drowned pirates under the sea are discovered guarding the great knots that tie latitudes and longitudes together to keep the world from splitting.