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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. In a few contexts, the word Hogmanay is used more loosely to describe the entire period consisting of the last few days of the old year and the first few days of the new year. For instance, not all events held under the banner of Edinburgh's Hogmanay take place on 31 December.
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.
Sir Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith is a Scottish legal scholar and author of fiction. He was raised in Southern Rhodesia and was 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.
Norman Alexander MacCaig was a Scottish poet and teacher. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.
Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, legal name Alexander MacDonald, or, in Gaelic Alasdair MacDhòmhnaill, was a Scottish war poet, satirist, lexicographer, and memoirist.
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.
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.
John Lorne Campbell FRSE LLD OBE was a Scottish historian, farmer, environmentalist and folklorist, and recognized scholar of both Celtic studies and 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.
A shieling is a hut or collection of huts on a seasonal pasture high in the hills, once common in wild or sparsely populated places in Scotland. Usually rectangular with a doorway on the south side and few or no windows, they were often constructed of dry stone or turf. More loosely, the term may denote a seasonal mountain pasture for the grazing of cattle in summer. Seasonal pasturage implies transhumance between the shieling and a valley settlement in winter. Many Scottish songs have been written about life in shielings, often concerning courtship and love. The ruins of shielings are abundant landscape features across Scotland, particularly the Highlands.
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".
Kevin MacNeil is a Scottish novelist, poet, screenwriter, lyricist, playwright and educator. 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.
Events from the year 1949 in Scotland.
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.
Margaret Fay Shaw was a pioneering Scottish-American ethnomusicologist, photographer, folklorist, and scholar of Celtic studies. She is best known for her meticulous work as a folk song and folklore collector among Scottish Gaelic-speakers in the Hebrides, Canadian Gaelic-speaking communities in Nova Scotia, and among Connaught Irish speakers in the Aran Islands.
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