Fire from a Black Opal is the fourth of this series of Stories and Sketches. It contains the collections, Charity, A Hatchment and Brought Forward, published between 1912 and 1916, immediately prior to and during the First World War. Cunninghame Graham was by now in his sixties, yet many of the stories demonstrate his amazing powers of recall for the experiences and feelings of his youth. Equally the later stories reveal a close empathy with the terrible demands that the war was making on people of different nations. "Honour and virtue do not of necessity take with them charity; neither can base estate nor any adverse circumstance of life stifle it in the hearts of those, to whom it comes, just as the fire shines out from a black opal, almost without their ken." Charity, Preface. Alan MacGillivray is a specialist in Scottish Literature, who has lectured at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, and is a former President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. John C. McIntyre taught Spanish Language and Latin American Literature at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He holds a postgraduate Diploma in Scottish Literature. James N. Alison is a retired HM Inspector of Schools with specialist interests in Scottish literature, children's books and landscapes.

This fifth and final volume of Cunninghame Graham stories and sketches brings together the three collections he published in the last decade of his life. Redeemed, and Other Sketches appeared in 1927, followed in 1933 by Writ in Sand, and in 1936, the year of his death, by Mirages. There is a sense of winding down in the pieces presented. The characteristic Graham astringency and irony are less intense, and there is more conventional sentiment. However, some of the familiar targets for his distaste and anger are still being picked off. Graham shows himself to be fully alive to the increasingly menacing world of 1930s Europe. If he had lived, there is little doubt about where his sympathies would have lain. Graham died on the 20th March 1936. Exactly four months later, the Spanish Civil War began. "I thanked the stationmaster for his horse, unsaddled him, emptied a tin mug of water over his sweating back, and threw him down a bundle of fresh Pindo leaves to keep him occupied till he was ready for his maize. Then I strolled into the station cafe, where Exaltacion Medina, Joao Ferreira, and, I think, Enrique Clerici were playing billiards, whilst they waited for me." (Writ in Sand, "The Stationmaster's Horse"), Preface Alan MacGillivray is a specialist in Scottish Literature, who has lectured at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, and is a former President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. John C. McIntyre taught Spanish Language and Latin American Literature at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He holds a postgraduate Diploma in Scottish Literature. James N. Alison is a retired HM Inspector of Schools with specialist interests in Scottish literature, children's books and landscapes.