Neil Gunn

An old man living at the height of his powers of recall and memory tells the story of his life on the day of his death from the vantage point on a hill above the village where he was born. Quietly narrated and yet raging with will and the passion of youth, this is a novel about fathers and sons, hope and hope’s death, and how we might live in the world before leaving it. In the company of such masterpieces as Seethaler’s A Whole Life and Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich. A wildly immersive story, The Serpent will grip the reader from the outset and is a provocative and an-putdownable study of what it is to be human.

A compelling, dramatic and deeply psychological story of youthful love and trapped hopes set in the startling landscape of the far North. First published by Jonathan Cape in 1926, this centenary edition celebrates a major talent and the work of one of Scotland’s most important and neglected writers. The wide-open skies, fierce seas and the ever-changing weather of Scotland’s farthest reaches, provides the setting for this gripping and emotionally acute study of young love and youthful ambition and the constraints and violence of a traditional community. Maggie and Ivor struggle to connect in a world that seems fixed on keeping them apart. The Grey Coast is a magnificent novel of land and the people who live upon it. Timeless, uncompromising and exhilarating, this is a work that marks the arrival of a startling new talent. It introduces a host of compelling characters and way of life that – though vastly different to our present age – demand our attention as much now as ever. Gunn is a major Scottish writer with an international reputation; this beautiful new edition aims to re-establish him as a central figure in Scottish letters.

This tense, psychically aware thriller hooks the reader from the first page when a local policeman arrives at the home of an isolated crofter in search of a young fugitive. Blood Hunt is a tale of, love, murder, divided loyalties and the awful human instinct to hunt a fellow animal down - even to death. From the moment Sandy opens his door we enter into the ancient world of crime and punishment, action and retribution, of passion and the centrality of a woman’s power, brought bang up to date by a precise, psychologically acute narrative of the killed and the killer. Who is right? Who is wrong? What is the story behind this tale of terror and revenge? Blood Hunt plots these questions and more, as, step by step, it takes the reader across a wild and remote landscape that is the stuff of myth and fable. Gunn is a major Scottish writer with an international reputation; this beautiful new edition aims to re-establish him as a central figure in Scottish letters.