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| Founded | 1992 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Hugh Andrew |
| Country of origin | Scotland |
| Headquarters location | Edinburgh |
| Distribution | BookSource (UK) NewSouth Books (Australia) Independent Publishers Group (US) Casemate (US military books) [1] |
| Publication types | Books |
| Imprints | Polygon, Mercat |
| Official website | birlinn |
Birlinn Limited is an independent publishing house based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1992 by managing director Hugh Andrew. [2] [3]
Birlinn Limited is composed of a number of imprints, including:
Hogmanay is the Scots word for the last day of the old year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. It is normally followed by further celebration on the morning of New Year's Day and in some cases, 2 January—a Scottish bank holiday.
The Scottish Enlightenment was the period in 18th- and early-19th-century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By the eighteenth century, Scotland had a network of parish schools in the Scottish Lowlands and five universities. The Enlightenment culture was based on close readings of new books, and intense discussions which took place daily at such intellectual gathering places in Edinburgh as The Select Society and, later, The Poker Club, as well as within Scotland's ancient universities.
Scottish literature is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers. It includes works in English, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Brythonic, French, Latin, Norn or other languages written within the modern boundaries of Scotland.
Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, is a British writer. He was raised in Southern Rhodesia and formerly Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. He became an expert on medical law and bioethics and served on related British and international committees. He has since become known as a fiction writer, with sales in English exceeding 40 million by 2010 and translations into 46 languages. He is known as the creator of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. The "McCall" derives from his great-great-grandmother Bethea McCall, who married James Smith at Glencairn, Dumfries-shire, in 1833.
Neil Miller Gunn was a prolific 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.
Norman Alexander MacCaig DLitt was a Scottish poet and teacher. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.
The birlinn or West Highland galley was a wooden vessel propelled by sail and oar, used extensively in the Hebrides and West Highlands of Scotland from the Middle Ages on. Variants of the name in English and Lowland Scots include "berlin" and "birling". The Gaelic term may derive from the Norse byrðingr, a type of cargo vessel. It has been suggested that a local design lineage might also be traceable to vessels similar to the Broighter-type boat, equipped with oars and a square sail, without the need to assume a specific Viking design influence. It is uncertain, however, whether the Broighter model represents a wooden vessel or a skin-covered boat of the currach type. The majority of scholars emphasise the Viking influence on the birlinn.
Billy Kay is a Scottish writer, broadcaster and language activist. He developed an early interest in language, studying English, French, German and Russian at Kilmarnock Academy and English literature at the University of Edinburgh.
Canongate Books is an independent publishing firm based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
James Robertson is a Scottish writer who grew up in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire. He is the author of several short story and poetry collections, and has published seven novels: The Fanatic, Joseph Knight, The Testament of Gideon Mack, And the Land Lay Still, The Professor of Truth, and To Be Continued… and News of the Dead. The Testament of Gideon Mack was long-listed for the 2006 Man Booker Prize.
Hamish Brown M.B.E. FRSGS is a professional writer, lecturer and photographer specialising in mountain and outdoor topics. He is best known for his walking exploits in the Scottish Highlands, having completed multiple rounds of the Munros and being the first person to walk all the Munros in a single trip with only ferries and a bicycle as means of transport.
Dr John Lorne Campbell FRSE LLD OBE (1906–1996) was a Scottish historian, farmer, environmentalist and folklorist, and recognized scholar of Scottish Gaelic literature.
Mercat Press is an imprint of the Edinburgh, Scotland-based publishing company Birlinn Limited. It was established in 1970 as a subsidiary of the bookseller James Thin, and published facsimile editions of out-of-print Scottish works, such as the five-volume The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland by MacGibbon and Ross. Mercat was bought out by its management after James Thin went into administration in 2002, becoming an independent publisher. In 2007 Mercat Press was taken over by Birlinn Limited, another Edinburgh-based publishing house, who now publish outdoor books, such as walking, climbing and cycling guides, under the Mercat imprint.
Martin Charles Strong is a Scottish music historian known for compiling discographies of popular music including The Great Rock Discography. Strong has been described in broadsheet newspaper profiles as a "compiler of acclaimed mammoth discographies" and "a man who knows more about rock music than is healthy for one individual".
Mairi Hedderwick is a Scottish illustrator and author, known for the Katie Morag series of children's picture books set on the Isle of Struay, a fictional counterpart of the inner Hebridean island of Coll where Hedderwick has lived at various times for much of her life.
Kevin Macneil is a Scottish novelist, poet, screenwriter, lyricist and playwright. He was born and raised on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
Gordon James Brown is a Scottish author of primarily crime fiction.
Donkey Punch is a crime novel by Scottish author Ray Banks. It was first published in the United Kingdom by Edinburgh-based company Birlinn Ltd in 2007, and again by the same publisher in 2008. In the United States it was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2009, titled Sucker Punch, and was reprinted in 2011.
Andrew Dearg Wightman is a Scottish Independent politician, who served as a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Lothian region from 2016 to 2021. He was elected as a member of the Scottish Greens, but resigned from the party in 2020 and served out the rest of his term as an independent. He is also a writer and researcher best known for his work on land ownership in Scotland. He is the author of Who Owns Scotland (1996) and The Poor Had No Lawyers (2015).
Isabel Frances Grant MBE (1887–1983) was a Scottish ethnographer, historian, collector and pioneering founder of the Highland Folk Museum.
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