Isobel Wylie Hutchison was many things: a botanist, traveller, poet and artist. She travelled solo throughout the arctic collecting plant samples, wrote and published extensive volumes of essays and poetry, and was - in short - one of the most remarkable Scottish figures of her time. However, since her death in 1982 her legacy has been forgotten compared with her male counterparts. Now Isobel can speak for herself again. While better known for her solo journeys across the Arctic, these essays detail Isobel's journeys across Scotland, including visits to Skye, John O' Groats and the various literary shrines across the country. Written with characteristic wit and a keen interest in both science and myth and folklore, the essays serve as important cultural markers not just of Scotland as it was and has developed, but of a woman's experience of travelling alone and a testament to the importance of cultural connection, exploration and communication.

Town planning. Interest-led, open-minded education. Preservation of buildings with historical worth. All are so central to modern society that our age tends to claim these notions as its own. In fact they were first visualised by Sir Patrick Geddes, a largely forgotten Victorian Scot and one of the greatest forward thinkers in history. In turns a gardener, biologist, conservationist, social evolutionist and town planner, he spent many years conserving and restoring Edinburgh’s historic Royal Mile at a time when most decaying buildings were simply torn down. With these plans of renovation came the importance of education – as the development of the Outlook Tower, his numerous summer schools and his Collège des Ecossais in Montpellier illustrate. It is in India where his name is most widely known. It was here that possibly the greatest example of Geddes’ belief in ‘people planning’ can be seen and which took the form of pedestrian zones, student accommodation for women, and urban diversification projects in Edinburgh. Indeed, his influence travelled around the world, through the people he met and inspired, and has survived after his death.