A Scots Quair is a trilogy by the Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon, describing the life of Chris Guthrie, a woman from the north-east of Scotland during the early 20th century.
It consists of three novels: Sunset Song (1932), Cloud Howe (1933), and Grey Granite (1934). The first is widely regarded as an important classic (voted Scotland's favourite book in a 2005 poll supported by the Scottish Book Trust and other organisations). [1] [2]
The central character is a young woman, Chris Guthrie, growing up in a farming family in the fictional Estate of Kinraddie in The Mearns (Kincardineshire) in north-east Scotland at the start of the 20th century. Life is hard, and her family is dysfunctional. She marries a farmer, Ewan Tavendale, who dies in World War I.
Cloud Howe continues the story of Chris Guthrie. She marries for a second time to Robert Colquhoun, a Church of Scotland minister. At the end of the novel, he dies in the pulpit while delivering a sermon.
Grey Granite takes the story of Chris Guthrie further. She moves to the fictional city of Duncairn, which was earlier called "Dundon" in Cloud Howe; Gibbon points out in the introduction that Dundon/Duncairn is based neither on Aberdeen nor on Dundee (as some reviewers had surmised) but is "merely the city which the inhabitants of The Mearns (not foreseeing my requirements in completing my trilogy) have hitherto failed to build".[ citation needed ] An important character is her son by her first marriage, Ewan Tavendale, Jr., who becomes a left-wing political activist.
TV adaptations of all three works were made by the BBC in 1971, 1982 and 1983, respectively. They were scripted by Bill Craig, and Vivien Heilbron played Chris.[ citation needed ]
An adaptation of the trilogy by Alastair Cording was produced by TAG Theatre Company in 1991 and staged again at the Assembly Hall during the 1993 Edinburgh International Festival, with Pauline Knowles in the role of Chris Guthrie. [3]
Doric, the popular name for Mid Northern Scots or Northeast Scots, refers to the Scots language as spoken in the northeast of Scotland. There is an extensive body of literature, mostly poetry, ballads, and songs, written in Doric. In some literary works, Doric is used as the language of conversation while the rest of the work is in Lallans Scots or British English. A number of 20th and 21st century poets have written poetry in the Doric dialect.
Kincardineshire or the County of Kincardine, also known as the Mearns, is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area on the coast of north-east Scotland. It is bounded by Aberdeenshire on the north, and by Angus on the south-west.
Neil Miller Gunn was a prolific Scottish novelist, critic, and dramatist who emerged as one of the leading lights of the Scottish Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. With over twenty novels to his credit, Gunn was arguably the most influential Scottish fiction writer of the first half of the 20th century.
James Leslie Mitchell, known by the pseudonym Lewis Grassic Gibbon, was a Scottish writer. He was best known for A Scots Quair, a trilogy set in the north-east of Scotland in the early 20th century, of which all three parts have been serialised on BBC television.
The Scottish Renaissance was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid-20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance, although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics. The writers and artists of the Scottish Renaissance displayed a profound interest in both modern philosophy and technology, as well as incorporating folk influences, and a strong concern for the fate of Scotland's declining languages.
Spartacus is a historical novel by the Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon, first published in 1933 under his real name of James Leslie Mitchell.
Laurencekirk, locally known as Lournie, is a small town in the historic county of Kincardineshire, Scotland, just off the A90 Dundee to Aberdeen main road. It is administered as part of Aberdeenshire. It is the largest settlement in the Howe o' the Mearns area and houses the local secondary school; Mearns Academy, which was established in 1895 and awarded the Charter Mark in 2003.
Sunset Song is a 1932 novel by Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon. It is considered one of the most important Scottish novels of the 20th century. It is the first part of the trilogy A Scots Quair.
The Angel Mountain Saga of eight novels was written by Welsh author Brian John, and was first published at the rate of one volume per year in 2001-2005, with later volumes in 2007, 2009 and 2012. The publisher is Greencroft Books, based in Newport, Pembrokeshire. The novels tell of the life and times of Mistress Martha Morgan, a feisty heroine who starts the series in 1796 as a pregnant and suicidal eighteen-year-old and finishes it by going to her grave in 1855. In the sixth novel she is resurrected and has further adventures in Merthyr Tydfil and further afield. Volumes seven and eight are placed into gaps in the narrative related in Volume Three. The eight novels are "On Angel Mountain" (2001), "House of Angels" (2002), "Dark Angel" (2003), "Rebecca and the Angels" (2004), "Flying with Angels" (2005), "Guardian Angel" (2007), "Sacrifice" (2009) and "Conspiracy of Angels" (2012).
The Assembly Hall is located between Castlehill and Mound Place in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the meeting place of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
Drumlithie is a village in the Howe of the Mearns in southern Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Situated seven miles south of Stonehaven in the parish of Glenbervie, it is affectionately known by locals as "Skite", although the origin of this name remains disputed. The name "Drumlithie" may incorporate the Gaelic word druim, meaning "ridge".
Vivien Heilbron is a Scottish actress.
Elizabeth I of England has inspired artistic and cultural works for over four centuries. The following lists cover various media, enduring works of high art, and recent representations in popular culture, film and fiction. The entries represent portrayals that a reader has a reasonable chance of encountering rather than a complete catalogue.
Margery Greenshields Palmer McCulloch was a Scottish literary scholar, author and co-editor of the Scottish Literary Review.
Moira Armstrong is a Scottish television director whose career has expanded over nearly fifty years.
Literature in modern Scotland is literature written in Scotland, or by Scottish writers, since the beginning of the twentieth century. It includes literature written in English, Scottish Gaelic and Scots in forms including poetry, novels, drama and the short story.
Scots-language literature is literature, including poetry, prose and drama, written in the Scots language in its many forms and derivatives. Middle Scots became the dominant language of Scotland in the late Middle Ages. The first surviving major text in Scots literature is John Barbour's Brus (1375). Some ballads may date back to the thirteenth century, but were not recorded until the eighteenth century. In the early fifteenth century Scots historical works included Andrew of Wyntoun's verse Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland and Blind Harry's The Wallace. Much Middle Scots literature was produced by makars, poets with links to the royal court, which included James I, who wrote the extended poem The Kingis Quair. Writers such as William Dunbar, Robert Henryson, Walter Kennedy and Gavin Douglas have been seen as creating a golden age in Scottish poetry. In the late fifteenth century, Scots prose also began to develop as a genre. The first complete surviving work is John Ireland's The Meroure of Wyssdome (1490). There were also prose translations of French books of chivalry that survive from the 1450s. The landmark work in the reign of James IV was Gavin Douglas's version of Virgil's Aeneid.
Kevin Guthrie is a Scottish former actor. His best known roles are Ally in Sunshine on Leith (2013), Ewan Tavendale in Terence Davies's Sunset Song (2015), and Abernathy in the first two Fantastic Beast films - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018). He also performed the lead role in Peter Pan at the King's Theatre, Glasgow, in 2011.
Sunset Song is a 2015 British drama film written and directed by Terence Davies and starring Agyness Deyn, Peter Mullan and Kevin Guthrie. It is an adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's 1932 novel of the same name. It was shown in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United Kingdom on 4 December 2015. The film follows Chris Guthrie, the daughter of a Scottish farmer in the early 1900s.
Sunset Song is a 1971 BBC Scotland adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's novel of the same name for television.