Naomi Mitchison was one of the most prolific, skilled and original writers of the twentieth century, whose novels range in setting from prehistory to outer space. Her work displays a breadth of knowledge and a sympathetic understanding for humanity: whatever out time, or our culture, or our beliefs, we are all still very much the same under the skin. Moira Burgess's SCOTNOTE study guide covers three of Mitchison's historical novels: Early in Orcadia, a sequence of stories set in prehistoric Orkney; The Big House, a children's fantasy of time-travel back to the early nineteenth century; and Travel Light, following a young Viking girl on a magical quest. Each novel is examined, and the plots, and the author's beliefs and influences, are discussed and explained for senior school pupils and students at all levels.

This collection, which Naomi Mitchison published in 1957, is recognisably a 'Carradale book', containing as it does vivid and realistic stories and poems of the landscape and the people. Mitchison had moved to the village in Kintyre, on the west coast of Scotland, some twenty years before and was still much involved in its affairs, supporting the fishing fleet and running her own small farm. Yet, as Moira Burgess suggests in her Introduction to this new edition, these thirteen stories and fourteen interspersed short poems and songs do not make a straightforward, celebratory, collection. The first five stories have historical settings in Caithness and Orkney, with the rest set in the contemporary West Highlands - some drawing on Highland myth and legend. And then, as Burgess writes, 'tucked modestly and apparently at random' is 'Five Men and a Swan' - 'a fine story, probably her best, a classic of Scottish literature'. Mitchison's years of intense involvement with the community were in fact drawing to an end. From the early 1960s onwards, she applied her energy and enthusiasm to the cause of the Bakgatla tribe in the newly independent country of Botswana. Her writing would turn to African themes, and, in 'a marvellous late flourish', to science fiction. Seen in this light, the book may be not so much a celebration as a coda to Mitchison's Carradale years.

Early in Orcadia was first published in 1987, and consists of five stories, set hundreds of years apart in time and dealing with different characters, but connected by their location in a particular corner of Orkney during the period known as the Stone Age. Mitchison links them formally by interpolating passages of fact and explanation between the fictional episodes, and by speculating in her own voice about what happened in prehistory, as far as it can be known from archaeological research, and how it fits in with the world of today. The slightly awkward jumps from one story to the next indicate that the development of the human race was not a completely smooth and seamless process. There must have been significant moments when a highly important discovery or invention took place. The structure of the book is demonstrating its theme - that there are sudden advances but just one story running from the earliest times to the present day, and it is the story of humankind. From the Introduction.

The south side isn't just a location, a neighbourhood, an area on a city map. In these brilliantly perceptive novellas, all set in Glasgow, it stands for the flip-side of the psyche, the darkness behind the facade. The title story, The South Side, with its echoes of the Bible John murders, finds Matthew, newly widowed and remarried, glimpsing and trying to deny events from his past which he has repressed for years. Machinery deals compassionately with an elderly woman whom others might describe as a neighbour from hell. The magical realism of Below takes Belle, a feisty bag-lady, on a phantasmagorical trip through present and past in search of a lost village under the city, or perhaps in search of herself. (Belle is a recurrent character in Moira Burgess's writing, and her companion Pat Brady features in the novel The Day Before Tomorrow, recently republished by Kennedy & Boyd.) After you read these novellas, neither the streets of Glasgow nor the people in them will ever look quite the same again. Moira Burgess is a novelist, short story writer and literary historian, born in Campbeltown, Argyll, and now living in Glasgow. Writing has been the most important part of her life since childhood and she has published two novels, The Day Before Tomorrow (1971, reprinted 2009) and Speak, Adam (published in 1987 as A Rumour of Strangers, reprinted 2009). For some years she worked mainly on non-fiction, publishing The Glasgow Novel: a bibliography (3rd edition 1999) and a book on the same topic, Imagine a City (1998). Author of Mitchison's Ghosts, a study of the supernatural and mythical elements in the work of Naomi Mitchison, she is now working on an edition of Mitchison's collected prose.

The Big House is a children's book with much to say to adult readers. On one level it is a charming and absorbing fantasy novel with a fairy hill, a Brounie and an enchanted piper all drawn from Celtic myth and legend, set in a West Highland village which is clearly Carradale in Kintyre, Naomi Mitchison's home for many years. On another level it is an examination of the social relationships in such a village at the time (it was first published in 1950), and this too is rooted in Mitchison's Carradale life. Su from the Big House and Winkie the fisherman's son have the same ancestry and their time-travel adventures show that their respective positions have changed back and forth over the years. Why should there be any difference between them now? Moira Burgess is a novelist, short story writer and literary historian who lives in Glasgow, but was brought up in Kintyre, the setting of The Big House. She is the author of Mitchison's Ghosts (Humming Earth, 2008), on supernatural and mythical elements in the writing of Naomi Mitchison, and is working on a collected edition of Mitchison's essays and journalism to be published in several volumes by Kennedy & Boyd.

This groundbreaking book, an important contribution to Naomi Mitchison criticism,examines three novels,The Bull Calves (1947), The Big House (1950) and Lobsters on the Agenda (1952),and a selection of short stories, with particular regard to the supernatural, fairy-tale and mythical content which is a recurrent element in her work. Naomi Mitchison (1897-1999) was a highly practical person -- a social and political activist, a feminist and a pacifist -- yet was drawn to the idea of an 'irrational' dimension to life, and reported inexplicable experiences from her childhood onwards. An awareness of the supernatural and mythical pervades her writing. This book shows that Mitchison perceived a strong connection between 'the irrational' and questions of creativity, sex and fertility, which she saw as being themselves interconnected and central to her life. Moira Burgess is a professional writer in the genres of fiction, drama and poetry, and has published widely on Scottish literature and women's writing. Dr Burgess is the author of The Glasgow Novel: A bibliography. Her novels The Day Before Tomorrow and A Rumour of Strangers are shortly to be reprinted by Kennedy & Boyd, and she is working on an edition of Naomi Mitchison's collected prose. Like Mitchison, she comes from Kintyre.

n the fast disappearing slums of the Claggans district of a big Scottish city, only a few tenements still stand. In this strange half-world a small group of men and women live out one hot summer week of their lives. Experience is heightened by the presence of a maniac among them-a man whom some of them at least must know, a sex killer who already has his eye on his next victim and is planning to strike again. But this is in no way a whodunit. It is a warm and human story of the loves, fears and hopes of simple people: of Mrs Sheehan, feeling lost and useless with her family grown up and gone; of old Pat Brady and his sons in the neglected, womanless apartment opposite, tossed in cross-currents of pity, love and hate; of Eugene Carty, tied to a tyrannical invalid mother, whose problems have an unexpected end; of young Bernadette Sheehan, whose return home after eighteen months working in London, dramatically changes the course of several lives. Moira Burgess has drawn on her own experience while working as a librarian in Glasgow to create the lives and background of her characters, and her natural powers as a storyteller to weave these into a convincing whole. Moira Burgess is a novelist, short story writer and literary historian, born in Campbeltown, Argyll, and now living in Glasgow. Writing has been the most important part of her life since childhood and she has published two novels, The Day Before Tomorrow (first published in 1971) and Speak, Adam published as A Rumour of Strangers in 1987 and reprinted in 2009. For some years she worked mainly on non-fiction, publishing The Glasgow Novel: a bibliography (3rd edition 1999) and a book on the same topic, Imagine a City (1998). Author of Mitchison's Ghosts, a study of the supernatural and mythical elements in the work of Naomi Mitchison, she is now working on an edition of Mitchison's collected prose. Douglas Gifford is Professor Emeritus of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow.

The writing career of Naomi Mitchison (1897-1999) stretched over some seventy years, encompassing at least seventy works of fiction as well as non-fiction, poetry and plays. Almost unknown, however, is the mass of shorter prose pieces - journalism, essays, polemics, reminiscences - which Mitchison produced during her long career. There are many hundreds of these pieces, covering a tremendously wide range of topics, an untapped resource both in Mitchison biography and in the wider field of social history. Volume 2 in the seven-volume edition of Naomi Mitchison's Essays and Journalism is devoted to her writing about the West Highland village of Carradale, to which she moved in the late 1930s and where she lived for over sixty years. She writes about many aspects of Carradale: her farm, the local fishing industry, the big garden which was particularly dear to her heart, and 'the village and the Big House'. A long essay, 'Rural Reconstruction', never reprinted before, is a snapshot of Carradale in the 1940s and a spirited presentation of Mitchison's dreams for its future. These digressive, charming, combative pieces show both the practical and the thoughtful sides of her writing, often to touching effect: she cared deeply for Carradale and its people, and the book is a wonderful introduction to a beautiful part of Scotland and a major writer.

Speak, Adam, formerly published as A Rumour of Strangers in 1987, is the second novel by the literary historian, Moira Burgess. Returning to her former home area of Argyll, Speak, Adam is set in the gossiping town of 'Finavay' where little escapes the notice of the local tongues. The arrival then of highly-strung Christa Beresford and her husband Billy, who are attempting to open their new home as a bed-and-breakfast establishment, is grist to the mill for the prying and judging nature of Finavay folk. Christa's intent to blend into the local area is conditioned by her childhood memories of Finavay and, having recently suffered a personal trauma, she looks to inappropriate comforts to make some sense of her present self. These comforts circulate around a group of itinerant travellers - a young child and a lustful young man holding particular fascination for Christa. As the novel develops the imperfect human behaviour patterns of this small town community emerge. These culminate in an illustration of what happens when the desires of the physical body take precedence over the intelligent. Speak, Adam is then an explicit anti-Kailyard portrayal of a West Highland village which assertively refuses the lure of sentiment and romanticism but nonetheless is still capable of a measure of grace. Moira Burgess is a novelist, short story writer and literary historian, born in Campbeltown, Argyll, and now living in Glasgow. Writing has been the most important part of her life since childhood and she has published two novels, The Day Before Tomorrow (1971, reprinted 2009) and Speak, Adam. For some years she worked mainly on non-fiction, publishing The Glasgow Novel: a bibliography (3rd edition 1999) and a book on the same topic, Imagine a City (1998). Author of Mitchison's Ghosts, a study of the supernatural and mythical elements in the work of Naomi Mitchison, she is now working on an edition of Mitchison's collected prose.