Joanna Bannerman, capricious, selfish and warm-hearted, passionately seeks life and ‘loveliness’. Certainly the bustling streets of Glasgow at the turn of the century promise much greater excitement than the solid evangelical background she has known hitherto. Her studies in the School of Art open up new horizons – of independence and love – and Joanna reaches for them all. First published in 1920, this novel powerfully evokes the image of a young woman ensnared yet ultimately released by her...
Introduced by Thomas Crawford. First published in 1930 to an unprecedented storm of protest, Catherine Carswell's The Life of Robert Burns remains the standard work on its subject. Carswell deliberately shakes the image of Burns as a romantic hero – exposing the sexual misdemeanours, drinking bouts and waywardness that other, more reverential, biographies choose to overlook. Catherine Carswell's real achievement is to bring alive the personality of a great man: passionate,...
