Birlinn (publisher)

Birlinn

Founded	1992
Founder	Hugh Andrew
Country of origin	United Kingdom (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.co.uk

Birlinn Limited is an independent publishing house based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1992 by managing director Hugh Andrew. ^{[2] [3]}

Imprints

Birlinn Limited is composed of a number of imprints, including:

• Birlinn, which publishes Scottish interest books, from biography to history, military history and Scottish Gaelic. (Its name comes from the old Norse word birlinn , meaning a long boat or small galley with 12 to 18 oars, used especially in the Hebrides and West Highlands of Scotland in the Middle Ages. ^[4] )
• Polygon Books, which publishes literary fiction and poetry, both classic and modern, from Scottish writers such as Robin Jenkins, George Mackay Brown, and the author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency , Alexander McCall Smith. It was founded in the late 1960s by students of the University of Edinburgh. ^[5]
• Mercat Press , founded in 1970 and acquired by Birlinn in 2007, which publishes walking and climbing guides. (Mercat is the Scots language word for "market" or "trade". ^[6] )
• John Donald, publishing academic books about Scotland. ^[7]

Digital Publishing and Ebooks

Birlinn makes its titles available as ebooks through its own website as well as through other online retailers. ^[8]

In collaboration with TannerRitchie Publishing and Edinburgh University Press, Birlinn publishes Scotland's History Online, a major collection of new and backlist academic Scottish historical research aimed at academic libraries and individual researchers. ^[9]

Notable authors and works

• Alexander McCall Smith ^[10]
  • Love in the Time of Bertie (2021)
  • The People's City (2022)
• Martin C. Strong ^[11]
  • The Great Folk Discography, Vol. 1: Pioneers & Early Legends (2010)
  • The Great Folk Discography, Vol. 2: The Next Generation (2011)
• Andy Wightman
  • The Poor Had No Lawyers (Third Edition, 2015) ^[12]

References

1. "Catalogues :: Birlinn Ltd" . Retrieved 4 December 2017.
2. Royalsoced.org.uk
3. Goring, Rosemary (28 July 2017). "Birlinn marks 25 years of producing 'seminal' books about Scotland". The Herald . Retrieved 11 October 2020.
4. The Birlinn or Heraldic Galley Archived 25 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine
5. Polygon Publishers
6. Mercat - definition of Mercat by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia
7. "John Donald | Birlinn Ltd". Birlinn Ltd. 1 February 2026.
8. "Birlinn Ltd - Independent Scottish Publisher - buy books online". Birlinn Ltd. Retrieved 1 February 2026.
9. "Scotland's History Online". 1 February 2026.
10. "Alexander McCall Smith - You have to know the places you're writing about". The Bookseller. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
11. Folklib.net
12. Combe, M. M. (2011). Review of Andy Wightman, 'The Poor had no Lawyers: Who Owns Scotland (and how they got it)'. Environmental Law Review, 13(3), 242-243. https://doi.org/10.1350/enlr.2011.13.3.131

External links

• Birlinn