More on Makars' Court - Edinburgh Museums

Makars’ Court
A literary celebration in stone
Introduction
Makars’ Court at The Writers’ Museum celebrates the lives and
works of Scottish writers.
The Scots word Makar stresses the role of the poet or author as a
skilled and versatile worker in the craft of writing.
This ongoing project to celebrate the lives and works of Scottish
writers was conceived in 1997, growing out of a desire to broaden
the remit of The Writers’ Museum and coinciding with the
International Conference of PEN (Poets, Essayists and Novelists)
which was being held in Edinburgh that summer.
Selected by the Saltire Society, the first twelve writers and
quotations were sponsored by Lothian and Edinburgh Enterprise Ltd
(LEEL) in association with the City of Edinburgh Council.
The first stone, dedicated to the fourteenth century poet, John
Barbour, was unveiled in 1997 by Ronald Harwood, President of
International PEN. In 1998 the next eleven stones, representing
Scotland’s main literary languages - Scots, Latin, Gaelic and English
- and ranging in date from Robert Henryson to Sorley MacLean,
were unveiled by the poet Iain Crichton Smith.
Each of the writers is commemorated by a quotation inscribed in
stone and set in the paving leading from both The Mound and the
Lawnmarket to the door of The Writers’ Museum.
The project was designed and implemented by Carter McGlynn,
Landscape Architects. The original twelve stones were carved by
David Lindsay and Graciella Ainsworth. All subsequent stones were
carved by David Lindsay of Stoneworks.
The enamel panel on the north wall of The Writers’ Museum,
overlooking Makars’ Court, was designed by Kathleen Gibson and
incorporates bas relief profiles, by Tim Chalk, of Robert Burns, Sir
Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson.

The Makars
There follows brief biographical details on the writers, setting the
quotations in context. Where longer passages are cited, the words
inscribed on the stones are underlined. Details of sponsors are
given for those writers commemorated since 1998.
John Barbour (c.1320-1395)
Clerk and auditor to the Exchequer of King Robert II, Barbour, "the
father of Scottish literature", is best-known for his epic poem, The
Bruce. Written in 1375, it is the earliest- surviving major poem
written in Scots and deals with the Wars of Independence, and the
Battle of Bannockburn in 1314:
A! Fredome is a noble thing,
Fredome mays man to haiff liking,
Fredome all solace to man griffis,
He levys at es that frely levys.
Lachlan Mor MacMhuirich (c1370 - 1438)
A Chlanna Cuinn cuimhnichibh
Cruas an àm na h-iorghaile
(Translation: O Children of Conn, remember
Hardihood in time of battle.)
[from the first verse of his poem the Harlaw Brosnachadh
(Incitement to Battle) written in Scots Gaelic, 1411]
Lachlan Mór MacMhuirich was a member of Scotland's longest lived
bardic dynasty, the MacMhuirich's. The MacMhuirichs (later
anglicised to "Currie") served for over 700 years as professional
poets to the Lords of the Isles and later to the MacDonalds of
Clanranald among other prominent Highland clans and families. The
Red Book of Clanranald, one of Gaelic Scotland’s literary treasures,
was penned by successive generations of the MacMhuirich family.

Lachlan Mór MacMhuirich’s, Harlaw Brosnachadh, or Incitement to
Battle was delivered by MacMhuirich on the eve of the Battle of Red
Harlaw on July 24, 1411 to inspire the army of the Lord of the Isles
to victory in the following day's battle. This battle, one of the
fiercest ever fought on Scottish soil, was occasioned by the claim of
Donald, Lord of the Isles, to the earldom of Ross: a claim vigorously
contested by the Earl of Mar, whose uncle the Duke of Albany,
brother of the late Robert III, was ruling as regent for the
imprisoned James I.
The poem begins ‘Children of Conn, remember hardihood in time of
battle’ - addressing Clan Donald with reference to their putative
descent from Conn of the Hundred Battles, a heroic king of Irish
tradition.
Sponsored by the Clan Currie Society, Inc.
Robert Henryson (c.1425 - c.l490)
A schoolmaster in Dunfermline and one of Scotland’s greatest
poets, Henryson’s best-known works are the narrative poem, The
Testament of Cresseid, and the collection of allegorical tales, The
Moral Fabillis, which are largely based on the fables of Aesop. The
Two Mice is the story of the town mouse and the country mouse:
Blissed be sempill lyfe withoutin dreid;
Blissed be sober feist in quietie.
Quha hes aneuch, of na mair hes he neid,
Thocht it be littill into quantatie.
William Dunbar (c.1460 - c.1520)
A poet in the brilliant Renaissance Court of King James IV, Dunbar
was a most accomplished and versatile craftsman in his mastery of
words and metres. His Lament for the Makars, is a lament for his
brother poets who have died; the works of many of them have since
disappeared:
Our plesance here is all vane glory,
This fals warld is bot transitory,
The fesche is brukle, the Feynd is sle;
Timor Mortis conturbat me.

Sir David Lyndsay (c. 1486 – 1555)
Lat us haif the bukis necessare
To commoun weill
(Translation: Let us have the books necessary
To our common good)
[from Ane Dialog betuix Experience and Ane Courteour, lines 678-
79, first printed 1554]
The son of a Fife landholder, David Lyndsay (c. 1486–1555) became
a celebrated poet and herald. Lyndsay was promoted master usher
to the infant James V in 1513, after James IV’s death at Flodden,
and for the next decade was the king’s much-loved companion. The
minority’s end brought brief loss of favour, but Lyndsay’s wife,
Janet Douglas, continued as royal seamstress and by 1530 Lyndsay
was a herald. In this key role he traveled extensively on the king’s
business, devised Scotland’s public pageantry and compiled the first
native armorial. He also wrote vivid poems for king and court,
including The Dreme and The Testament of the Papyngo. By 1542
he had been knighted and appointed chief herald, the Lyon King of
Arms. In Mary’s minority Sir David continued to combine his
heraldic and literary activities, writing The Tragedie of the Cardinall,
Squyer Meldrum, the theatrical masterpiece, Ane Satyre of the Thrie
Estaitis, and the enormously popular Ane Dialog betuix Experience
and ane Courteour. Although he wrote before the Reformation of
the Scottish kirk, Lyndsay’s eloquent commitment to education and
to social and religious reform ensured that his influence continued
long after his death.
Sponsored by The Sir David Lyndsay Society
George Buchanan (1506 - 1582)
Born in Killean, Stirlingshire, Buchanan is the greatest of the
Scottish Latinists, a court poet and, later, tutor to the young King
James VI. He is famous for his Latin poems, drama, a history of
Scotland, and political treatises which include De lure Regni apud
Scottos (The Law of Sovereignty among the Scots):
Populo enim jus est ut imperium cui velit deferat
[For it is right that the people confer power on whom they please]

James Boswell (1740 - 1795)
I rattled down the High Street in high elevation of spirits.
[from Journal, 15 November 1762]
James Boswell, biographer and diarist, was born in Edinburgh on 29
October 1740. The author of the most popular biography in the
English language, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Boswell
arguably invented modern literary biography. In a unique, dramatic
style, he represented the wise and witty conversation of Johnson
(1709-1784), the great English lexicographer and author. Boswell
also wrote a successful Account of Corsica in 1768 and the
acclaimed Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides in 1785, along with
numerous shorter works.
The discovery and subsequent publication of Boswell's journals and
other private papers in the early 20th century changed the nature
of his literary fame. Few writers revealed their thoughts and
recorded their actions in such honest and engaging detail. Boswell's
London Journal of 1762-63, first published in 1950, became a
worldwide bestseller.
Boswell lived in Edinburgh, where he worked as a lawyer, and in
Ayrshire at his family estate, Auchinleck. He married his cousin
Margaret Montgomerie in 1769 and produced five children. The
eldest, Alexander, became an accomplished poet and James Jr. an
editor of Shakespeare. James Boswell died in London on 19 May
1795, at the age of 54.
Sponsored by the Boswell Museum and Mausoleum Trust
Robert Fergusson (1750 - 1774)
Born in Edinburgh, Fergusson’s work has had considerable influence
on later writers, including Burns, Stevenson and Garioch. His poems
in Scots contain detailed descriptions of daily life in late 18th
century Edinburgh (known as Auld Reikie or Old Smoky):
Auld Reikie, wale o ilka town
That Scotland kens beneath the moon;
Where couthy chiels at e `ening meet
Their bizzing craigs and mous to weet;
And blythlv gar auld care gae bye
Wi blinket and wi bleering eye

Robert Burns (1759 - 1796)
Born on 25 January 1759 at Alloway, Ayrshire, Burns is celebrated
the world over as Scotland’s national poet. His collection of poems,
Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, published at Kilmarnock in 1786, was
followed by songs and poems of enduring popularity; one of the
best-known, Is there for honest poverty, ends with the lines:
Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that)
That Sense and Worth o'er a' the earth
Shall bear the gree an' a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's comin yet for a' that,
That man to man the world o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that.
Sir Walter Scott (1771 - 1832)
Born in Edinburgh, and educated at the High School and University,
Scott was an advocate and Clerk of the Court of Session and a
writer of prodigious output. Few, if any, other writers have gained
such prestige and influence, nationally and internationally, by their
writing alone. His early reputation was as a narrative poet, including
The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) from which the following
quotation is taken:
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Scott then turned to a series of historical novels which were not
only an important influence on literature, painting and music in
many countries, but changed attitudes towards the past. The first
was Waverley (1814), which gave its name to the whole series, and
the others include Old Mortality, Rob Roy, The Heart of Midlothian
and Redgauntlet.

John Galt (1779 - 1839)
John Galt was born in Irvine, Ayrshire, on 2 May 1779 and his
family moved to Greenock when he was ten. He travelled widely,
living in Canada for two years, and wrote plays, poetry and
biography before turning his attention to novels. Annals of the
Parish (1821), like many of Galt’s novels, is set in the west of
Scotland and is a lively and entertaining account of life and social
change narrated in the first person:
..he published at Edinburgh a volume of Moral Essays, of which he
sent me a pretty bound copy and they were greatly creditable to his
pen, though lacking somewhat of that birr and smeddum that is the
juice and flavour of books of that sort.
Galt returned to Greenock in 1834 and continued to write short
stories until his death on 11 April 1839.
Sponsored by The Saltire Society, 2002.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)
Born in Edinburgh on 13 November 1850, Stevenson spent most of
his life travelling in search of good health, finally settling in Samoa
(1890), where he died on 3 December 1894. His principal novels
are Treasure Island (1883), The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr
Hyde and Kidnapped (1886). He also wrote poems, and essays
including The Scot Abroad from The Silverado Squatters (1883):
no society of the wise and good, can repay me for my absence
from my country. And though I think I would rather die elsewhere,
yet in my heart of hearts I long to be buried among good Scots
clods. I will say it fairly, it grows on me with every year: there are
no stars so lovely as Edinburgh street-lamps. When I forget thee,
Auld Reekie, may my right hand forget its cunning!

Violet Jacob (1863 - 1946)
Born Violet Kennedy-Erskine, a daughter of the 18th Laird of Dun,
she grew up at the family home, House of Dun, near Montrose in
Angus. ln 1894 she married Arthur Jacob, an army officer, and
travelled widely. She wrote an historical novel, Flemington (1911),
other novels, short stories, books for children and travel diaries, but
she is best known for her poetry, written in good, natural Scots. It
often shows a longing for her home country, as in The Wild Geese:
But saw ye naethin, leein Wind, afore ye cam to Fyfe?
There’s muckle lyin yont the Tay that’s mair to me nor life
My man, I swept the Angus braes ye haena trod for years
O Wind forgie a nameless loon that canna see for tears.
Neil Munro (1863 - 1930)
Born in Inveraray on 3 June 1863, Munro followed a career in
journalism, becoming assistant editor of the Glasgow Evening News.
He published many articles, novels and short stories, including the
popular series chronicling the adventures of Para Handy and the
crew of the West Highland coaster ‘Vital Spark’, a humorous social
commentary on contemporary events. The constant theme of
Munro’s work is the impact, for good and ill, of social change on the
Highlands, found most notably in his novel The New Road (1914):
It means the end of many things, I doubt not all to be despised, -
the last stand of Scotland, and she destroyed. And yet, and yet, this
New Road will some day be the Old Road, too, with ghosts on it and
memories.
Munro died on 22 December 1930 and was buried in Kilmalieu
Cemetery, Inveraray.
Sponsored by the Cromarty Arts Trust, 2002.

John Buchan (1875 - 1940)
We can only repay our debt to the past by putting the future in debt
to us.
[from an Address to the people of Canada on the Coronation of
George VI, 12 May 1937]
Born on 26 August 1875 in Perth, Buchan was greatly influenced by
his predecessors Scott and Stevenson, finding a rich source of
literary material in Scotland’s history and landscape. He wrote more
than 100 books, which included novels, biographies, histories, short
stories and verse, including The Thirty Nine Steps (1915). Also a
politician, he crowned his career as Baron Tweedsmuir, Governor-
General of Canada (1935-1940) and Chancellor of Edinburgh
University. He died in Canada on 11 February 1940.
Sponsored by the John Buchan Society, 2001.
Helen Cruickshank (1886-1975)
Helen Burness Cruickshank was born and educated in Angus, before
joining the Civil Service and working first in London and then, from
1912, in Edinburgh, where she lived until her death. Best known as
a poet, she was also a cultural and political activist, and a close
friend and supporter of many writers, including Hugh MacDiarmid
and Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Writing in both English and Scots her
work shows a range of mood with shrewd observations on human
life; her poem Spring in the Mearns (1935) is a tribute to Lewis
Grassic Gibbon:
Life goes on; the spirit
endures for ever,
wresting from death itself
a brave new birth.
Sponsored by The Friends of the City of Edinburgh Art Centre and
Museums, 2000.

James Bridie (1888 - 1951)
Who knows the heart of a man and what moves in that darkness?
[from ‘Susannah and the Elders’ (1937)]
James Bridie was the pen-name of Dr. O. H. Mavor (1888-1951).
Born in Glasgow, he studied medicine and served in the R.A.M.C. in
the First World War near Ypres and on the Somme. He returned
from a posting in Baku and took up General Practice in Langside,
later becoming a 'Chief' with his own wards at the Victoria
Infirmary, Glasgow. He commenced playwright, and The Anatomist
and Tobias and the Angel (both 1931) were directed by Tyrone
Guthrie in London with considerable success. He wrote some 40
plays in all, mostly performed in Scotland and in London. He was
the major founder of the College of Drama in the Royal Scottish
Academy of Music, and of the Citizens’ Theatre, also influencing the
presentation of drama at the Edinburgh Festival. He died on 29
January 1951.
Sponsored by the Citizens’ Theatre and Glasgow University
Department of Drama: Professor Jan McDonald, Rosemary Burton,
David West and Ronald Mavor, 2006.
Neil Gunn (1891 - 1973)
Neil Miller Gunn was born in Dunbeath, Caithness, the son of a
fishing boat owner and skipper. He spent over ten years as an
excise officer, travelling extensively in the Highlands before
becoming a full-time writer. Gunn lived all his life in the Highlands,
drew nourishment from his roots in the Highlands, and worked
tirelessly for their economic and cultural regeneration. Yet he was
never merely a regional novelist and in over 20 varied books,
including the highly appraised modern classics The Silver Darlings
and Highland River, dealt with the whole universe of man and the
other landscape of the mind. The quotation in Makars’ Court is
drawn from his profound fable The Green Isle of the Great Deep
(1944):
Knowledge is high in the head as nuts on a tree,
but the salmon of wisdom swims deep
Sponsored by the Neil Gunn Memorial Trust, 2002.

Hugh MacDiarmid (1892 -1978)
Born Christopher Murray Grieve on 11 August 1892 in Langholm
('the Muckle Toon'), MacDiarmid was the main instigator of the 20th
century Scottish Renaissance, a great creative force and a tireless
campaigner for the political and cultural revival of Scotland. In
all, MacDiarmid published some thirty major books and was
awarded a Civil List Pension for his services to Scottish literature. A
Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926), a long poem or poem
sequence, on Scotland and the Infinite, is generally considered his
most important work:
Drums in the Walligate, pipes in the air,
The wallopin’ thistle is ill to bear
Nan Shepherd (1893 - 1981)
It’s a grand thing to get leave to live
[from The Quarry Wood (1928)]
Anna (Nan) Shepherd was born in West Cults, three miles from
Aberdeen and lived there most of her adult life. She attended
Aberdeen High School for Girls and Aberdeen University, from which
she graduated in 1915. She lectured in English Literature at
Aberdeen College of Education until her retirement in 1956, and
was a great encourager of other writers such as Jessie Kesson and
Neil Gunn. She wrote three novels, a volume of poetry, and a
volume of non-fiction, The Living Mountain (not published until
1977), which celebrates her love and knowledge of the hills.
Her work is greatly influenced by her deep understanding of the
spiritual qualities of landscape, and her analysis of human emotion,
particularly in her treatment of her female characters, is conveyed
with perception and realism.
Sponsored jointly by the Aberdeen and Edinburgh branches of The
Saltire Society, 2000.

Naomi Mitchison (1897 - 1999)
Go back far enough and all humankind are cousins
[from the novel Early in Orcadia]
Born Naomi Haldane on 1 November 1897 in Edinburgh, she
married the barrister and Labour politician G. Richard Mitchison,
later Baron Mitchison, and from 1937 lived at Carradale in Kintyre.
Her first novels came out of her interest in classical mythology and
history, including The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1931), and
wrote over 70 books including novels for children, science fiction,
two biographies, poetry, and short stories.
Sponsored by the family and friends of Naomi Mitchison, 2001.
Fiona MacColla (1906 - 1975)
Fiona MacColla was the pen-name of Thomas Douglas Macdonald.
Born on 4 March 1906 in Montrose, he trained as a teacher in
Aberdeen, working in various schools in the Highlands and Western
Isles. His novels are set against the changing way of life in the
Highlands — his first novel, The Albannach, published to critical
acclaim in 1932, depicts the rediscovering of the importance of
community and tradition:
…the land of the people of my blood - my fathers of the thousands
of years, over the face of the world my roots in the soil of Alba.
Although his literary output was relatively small, he was a major
figure in the Scottish Renaissance and his ideas about Scotland,
Scottish history and Scottish writing have greatly influenced
subsequent writers. He died in 1975 in Edinburgh.
Sponsored by the MacDonald Family, 2006.

Robert McLellan (1907 - 1985)
The pouer to bigg a braw warld in his brain
Marks man the only craitur that can greit.
[from the closing lines of the play The Carlin Moth (1947)]
Born on 28 January 1907 at Linmill, Kirkfieldbank, Lanarkshire,
McLellan’s childhood was spent on his grandparents’ farm, which
provided the inspiration for his Linmill stories. From 1938 McLellan
lived on Arran, the setting for the long dramatic poem Sweet Largie
Bay(1956), and Arran Burn (1965) written for a BBC TV programme
about the island.
Influenced by the leading writers of the Scottish Renaissance, such
as MacDiarmid, McLellan was skilled as a poet and short storywriter.
However, McLellan is best-known as a playwright, writing
over 15 plays in a vigorous earthy Scots dialogue. His first major
play was Jamie the Saxt, produced in Glasgow in 1937 and revived
many times since. Although he always wrote in Scots about Scottish
subjects and characters, he avoided sentimentality and, through
comedy, focussed on major issues such as relationships, religion,
politics, and the rights of ordinary citizens. McLellan lived and
worked on the Isle of Arran until his death on 27 January 1985.
Sponsored by the Arran Theatre and Arts Trust, 2007.
J K Annand (1908 - 1993)
Sing it aince for pleisure
Sing it twice joy
James King Annand was born and brought up in Edinburgh. He
attended Broughton Secondary School and Edinburgh University
before becoming a teacher of English and history.
Best known for his bairnsang (short rhymes for children, often
about birds or animals or imitating street games and rhymes), he
also wrote poetry for adults in Scots and English, and translated
work from German and mediaeval Latin into Scots.
Annand edited Lines Review and Lallans (the magazine of the Scots
Language Society, of which he was a founder member) and was an
important figure in the Scottish literary scene.
Sponsored by the Annand Family, 2008

Robert Garioch (1909 - 1981)
Robert Garioch Sutherland was born in Edinburgh on 9 May 1909
and, like so many other writers, was educated at the Royal High
School and Edinburgh University. For most of his life, Garioch was a
reluctant schoolmaster. He translated a number of works into Scots
from Latin, French, Greek and Italian. A kindred spirit to Robert
Fergusson, Garioch was a shrewd and irreverent observer of the life
of Edinburgh, on which he commented in a "coorse and grittie"
Scots. His Embro to the Ploy is a comprehensive account of one of
the early Edinburgh Festivals:
They toddle hame doun lit-up streets
filled wi synthetic joy;
aweill the year brings few sic treats
and muckle to annoy.
There’s monie haelsom braw high-jinks
mixed up in this allay
in simmer, whan aa sorts foregether
in Embro to the ploy.
Nigel Tranter (1909 - 2000)
Novelist and historian, Nigel Tranter was born on 23 November
1909 in Glasgow and was educated in Edinburgh. After training as
an accountant he became a full-time writer in 1936, becoming one
of Scotland’s most prolific writers with over 140 books to his credit.
He was best-known for his historical novels but also wrote about
Scottish architecture and championed many public and political
causes. He was a past-President of the Scottish Centre of
International PEN. He died on 9 January 2000.
You intend to bide here?
To be sure. Can you think of anywhere better?
[from Columba (1987), chapter 6]
Sponsored by his daughter, Mrs Frances May Baker, 2005.

Somhairle MacGill-Eain (1911 - 1996)
Born on the island of Raasay off the east coast of Skye, Somhairle
MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean) was a contemporary and friend of
Robert Garioch at Edinburgh University, where he studied from
1929 to 1933. He followed a career in teaching, becoming
Headmaster of Plockton Seconday School, Wester Ross, where he
remained until his retirement in 1972.
Greatly influenced by the work of Garioch and MacDiarmid, MacLean
was a major force in the literary revival of Gaelic and one of the
finest poets in the language for about 200 years. His work combined
the Gaelic poetic tradition with modem international influences and
the personal and the political, as in Am Boilseabhach (The
Bolshevik):
nan robh againn Alba shaor,
Alba co-shinte ri ar gaol,
Alba gheal bheadarrach fhaoil,
Alba gheal shona laoch…
if we had Scotland tree,
Scotland equal to our love,
a bright spirited generous
Scotland,
a beautiful happy heroic
Scotland...
David Daiches (1912 - 2005)
Bridge-building is my vocation
[from "Natural Light: Portraits of Scottish Writers" (1985)]
David Daiches was born on 2 September 1912 in Sutherland, son of
a Rabbi, but grew up in Edinburgh. He studied in Edinburgh and
Oxford, where he became a Fellow before leaving in 1937 to take up
a post at the University of Chicago. He held various posts in the
USA and England until in 1977 he retired to live in Edinburgh. One
of the world’s leading literary scholars and critics, he wrote many
books in the field of Scottish literary studies, and also on aspects of
Scottish history and on whisky. He died in July 2005 in Edinburgh.
Sponsored by Jenni Calder, family and friends, 2006.

Douglas Young (1913 - 1973)
Born in Tayport, Fife, on 5 June 1913, Douglas Young was one of
the most charismatic and distinguished Scots of his day. Described
by Nigel Tranter as a ‘Poet, scholar, author, linguist, raconteur and
fighter of causes’, he was a genuine polymath, an intellectual giant,
and his range of interests was exceptional. A brilliant Classical
scholar, who studied and later taught Latin and Greek, he had a
great facility for languages. Above all he was fluent in ‘Lallans’ or
Lowland Scots, in the tradition of Burns, Scott and Stevenson.
Young was one of the leading ‘Scottish Renaissance’ poets or ‘neo-
Lallans Makars’, and his two notable volumes of his poetry were
Auntran Blads: an outwale of verses (1943) and A Braird O Thristles
(1947), which includes the poem For Willie Soutar, October 1943 -
He was eident
he was blye,
in Scotland’s cause
He died at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA, where he was Paddison
Professor of Greek, on
24 October 1973.
Sponsored by the family and friends of Douglas Young, 2003.
Sydney Goodsir Smith (1915 - 1975)
Bards hae sung o lesser luves than I o thee
Oh my great follie and my granderie
[from Under the Eildon Tree (1948)]
Born on 26 October 1915 in Wellington, New Zealand, Smith came
to live in Edinburgh in 1927 when his father took up an appointment
at the University. By 1940 he was writing verse in Scots, based
largely on the cadences of spoken Scots, reinforced with the
vocabulary of the Makars. His work is vibrant and rich with contrast
of mood and emotion. Under the Eildon Tree (1948) is generally
considered to be his best sustained piece of writing, but his later
lyrics, in collections such as So Late into the Night (1952) and Figs
and Thistles (1959), are no less powerful with their emotional
intensity and subtle rhythms.

Smith was also a poet of Edinburgh, in the tradition of Robert
Fergusson, and his long poem Kynd Kittock’s Land (1965) is a
loving description of his adopted city in all its different moods.
Before his death on 15 January 1975 he had come to be regarded
as the most important writer in the second generation of the
Scottish Renaissance.
Sponsored by the family of Sydney Goodsir Smith, 2003.
Muriel Spark (1918 - 2006)
Best known for her novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, based
largely on her schooldays at James Gillespie’s School, Edinburgh,
Muriel Spark was one of the most original and influential writers of
the late twentieth century. She left Edinburgh for Rhodesia (now
Zimbabwe) on her marriage at the age of 18. After her divorce, she
spent her whole working life (in London, New York and Italy) in the
literary world; firstly in publishing and, following her conversion to
Catholicism at the age of 46, as a writer of biographies, novels,
radio plays and poetry. She won many prizes and awards and was
conferred a Dame in 1993. She died, and is buried, in Tuscany,
Italy.
The inscription The Transfiguration of the Commonplace is taken
from the last page of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: ‘And there was
that day when the inquiring young man came to see Sandy because
of her strange book of psychology, The Transfiguration of the
Commonplace…
Spark ‘transfigures the commonplace’ in every novel: she writes of
ordinary men and women and their domestic, emotional or
psychological problems in a witty, succinct, dark and daring way.
Although her resting place is in Italy, it is fitting that a lasting
memorial to her is in Edinburgh; the city she describes as ‘the place
where I was first understood.’
Sponsored by the Muriel Spark Society

Tom Scott (1918 - 1995)
Born on 6 June 1918 in Glasgow, he was educated there and in St
Andrews. He was a mature student at the University of Edinburgh,
where he did research on the poetry of William Dunbar. He edited
two collections of Scottish poetry and in 1966 published a critical
study of Dunbar’s poems. His first published verses were
translations - Seevin Poems o Maister Francis Villon (1953). His
greatest achievement as a poet in Scots is the often anthologised
Brand the Builder (1975), which stands in the tradition of Robert
Fergusson and Robert Burns, and in which the solid character and
warm humanity of Brand springs to life through the controlled
emotion of Scott’s language -
Weird hou men maun aye be makin war
lnsteid o things they need
Sponsored by the family of Tom Scott, 2003.
James Allan Ford CB, MC (1920 - 2009)
Sing out the silence, fill for ever and ever the emptiness.
[from A Statue for a Public Place (1965)]
James Allan Ford was a powerful, award-winning novelist and
notable cultural activist. He was born in Auchtermuchty on 10 June
1920 but was brought up in Edinburgh. He was educated at the
Royal High School and the University of Edinburgh. In 1940, he
joined the Royal Scots and served in the Far East where he was
captured and held by the Japanese for four years. On release in
1945 he was awarded the Military Cross and returned to Edinburgh
where he resumed work with the civil service.
In the 1960s and 1970s Ford wrote five novels. His first, The Brave
White Flag, tells of the despairing days leading up to the fall of
Hong Kong; two years later he wrote Season of Escape, about the
life and death of his brother Douglas who was executed in a
prisoner of war camp. This novel won the Frederick Niven Award.
Two of his later novels are about his life in Edinburgh: A Statue for
a Public Place and A Judge of Men; his final novel The Mouth of
Truth is set in Rome. In retirement, as President of Scottish Pen, he
regenerated the organisation. He died on 30 March 2009.
Sponsor Mrs Isobel Ford

George Mackay Brown (1921 - 1996)
The poet and novelist was born on 17 October 1921 in Stromness,
Orkney, where he spent most of his life. His first poems were
published while he was a student in Edinburgh, and show a concern
with death and resurrection, themes which are central to his poetry.
His poems, short stories and novels are firmly rooted in the life of
Orkney - with the heritage of the islands and everyday life closely
interwoven. He won several literary prizes and was awarded an OBE
in 1974. He died on 13 April 1996.
One of his most popular poems is Hamnavoe, from the collection
Loaves and Fishes (1959):
In the fire of images
Gladly I put my hand
Sponsored by friends in Orkney and all over Britain, with support
from Stromness Community Council, Orkney Heritage Society, Leith
Shore Poets, and the Scottish Poetry Library, 2005.
Dorothy Dunnett (1923 - 2001)
Where are the links of the chain … joining us to the past?
[from Checkmate (1975)]
Author of The Lymond Chronicles and The House of Niccolo series of
historical novels and the Johnson Johnson series of detective
stories, Dorothy Dunnett was an accomplished writer, distinguished
portrait painter and a tireless contributor to the cultural and literary
life of Scotland.
Born Dorothy Halliday on 25 August 1923 in Dunfermline, Fife, she
grew up in Edinburgh. Her writing career began in 1962 with the
publication of Game of Kings, the first in the Lymond series. She
went on to publish 23 books in all, attracting a worldwide following
of readers who still meet regularly to discuss her work.
She was awarded an OBE in 1992 for her services to literature, and
was Honorary Vice- President of Scottish PEN from 1997 until her
death on 9th November 2001, aged 78.
Sponsored by the Dorothy Dunnett Readers’ Association, 2006.

Iain Crichton Smith (1928 - 1998)
Let our three-voiced country sing in a new world
[from ‘The Beginning of a New Song’, one of his last works, read at
the opening of the Scottish Parliament, 1 July 1999]
Born on 1 January 1928 on the island of Lewis, he was a teacher in
schools in Clydebank and Oban, before retiring in 1977 to
concentrate on his writing. He was made an OBE in 1980. Bilingual
in English and Gaelic (published under the name ‘Iain mac
a’Ghobhainn’), the isolation and pain of exile run through his work
in both languages - work which includes poetry, short stories,
novels, and drama.
Sponsored by the SCRAN Project, 2001
Makars’ Court - the future
It is intended that Makars’ Court will grow and develop into a
Scottish national literary monument as more writers are
commemorated.
Organisations, interest groups or individuals wishing to
commemorate a Scottish writer can offer to sponsor additional
stones. Further information is available online at
http://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/sponsoringastone or via:
The Writers’ Museum, Lady Stair’s House,
Lady Stair’s Close, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh EH1 2PA
Alternatively, email museumsandgalleries@edinburgh.gov.uk