In a boarding house in West Port, an old army pensioner dies of natural causes. He owes the landlord rent. Instead of burying the body, the landlord, William Hare, and his friend, William Burke, fill the coffin with bark and sell the corpse to Dr. Robert Knox, an ambitious Edinburgh anatomist. They make a profit of GBP3 and 10 shillings. After this encouraging outcome, Burke and Hare decide to suffocate another sickly tenant. So begins the criminal career of the most notorious double act in serial killing. Here is the unvarnished, human story behind the infamous Burke and Hare murders. We delve into their past, their personalities and the circumstances that made them resort to murder as a money-making scheme. It's a tale of desperation and greed, of outsiders, ambition, corruption and betrayal. And it's all true!

Imaginary Friendship is the first in-depth study of the onset of the American Revolution through the prism of friendship, focusing on future US president John Adams and leading Loyalist Jonathan Sewall. The book is part biography, revealing how they shaped each other's progress, and part political history, exploring their intriguing dangerous quest to clean up colonial politics. Literary history examines the personal dimension of discourse, resolving how Adams's presumption of Sewall's authorship of the Loyalist tracts Massachusettensis influenced his own magnum opus, Novanglus. The mystery is not why Adams presumed Sewall was his adversary in 1775 but why he was impelled to answer him.

Imaginary Friendship is the first in-depth study of the onset of the American Revolution through the prism of friendship, focusing on future US president John Adams and leading Loyalist Jonathan Sewall. The book is part biography, revealing how they shaped each other's progress, and part political history, exploring their intriguing dangerous quest to clean up colonial politics. Literary history examines the personal dimension of discourse, resolving how Adams's presumption of Sewall's authorship of the Loyalist tracts Massachusettensis influenced his own magnum opus, Novanglus. The mystery is not why Adams presumed Sewall was his adversary in 1775 but why he was impelled to answer him.

Meet Dave. Dave is Prime Minister. Dave really wants to do the right thing. He keeps telling us he wants to do the right thing. Again and again and again. One afternoon he told us four times in half an hour. Then he went off and did the right thing. Every morning when he wakes up, he reminds himself to remind us that he's doing the right thing. But what is the right thing? And what is the wrong thing? And is doing the right thing the right thing or the wrong thing to do? Or is doing the wrong thing the right thing to do when doing the right thing might turn out to be the wrong thing, and doing the wrong thing might turn out to be the right thing? Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else WINSTON CHURCHILL Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing TONY BLAIR If I lose the ball, I lose it trying to do the right thing. That's the way it is. FRANK LAMPARD

Is Scottish independence incompatible with ‘Labour values’? Are ‘Labour values’ being realised within the Union? How much really divides Yes campaigners from Labour voters? Why Not? Scotland, Labour and Independence is a passionate and often personal appeal to Labour voters (and other progressive Scots) to consider the social, economic and political gains that could be won with Scottish self-government. Bringing together a range of diverse voices – some from within the Labour Party, some from within the SNP, some from the non-aligned Left – it presents the social justice case for a Yes vote and argues that independence offers the clearest route forward for socialist and centre-left Scotland. Urgent, original and provocative, Why Not? is a vital contribution to the independence debate – and essential reading for all Scots.

Following an introductory chapter exploring why political argument deals in probability and plausibility across interdependent areas of social activity not certainty in individual areas, this book offers a case for independence under six main headings – the democratic case, the economic case, the social case, the international case, the cultural case and the environmental case. Under each heading, the case is assessed against both the supportive evidence and the hostile evidence, from a variety of sources, concluding with a judgement of where the balance of the evidence points. The book concludes with a selection of populist objections to independence answered by summary rebuttals from the independence file.

I saw the field of battle… It still exhibits a most striking picture of desolation all the neighbouring houses being broken down by cannon-shot and shells. There was one sweet little chateau in particular called Hougomont which was the object of several desperate assaults and was at length burned to the ground… There was an immense carnage on this spot and the stench of the dead bodies is still frightfully sensible. WALTER SCOTT Why was the Battle of Waterloo so significant for Scottish history? How has the conflict been represented in Scottish art and literature? What did the Scots who witnessed the battle and its aftermath have to say about it at the time? The Battle of Waterloo represented a seismic shift in the tectonic plates of national identity for Scotland. In art and political rhetoric, the Scots became the poster boys of the British Empire at Waterloo. Ostensibly fighting alongside England against France, the battle also arguably saw Scotland move away from the Auld Alliance towards identification with the United Kingdom. Scotland’s Waterloo concentrates on how the battle was perceived at the time, showcasing the different ways that illustrious Scots documented and responded to the battle in its immediate aftermath. Owen Dudley Edwards starts with the painters and their patrons, before moving on to the fascinating eyewitness accounts of Scottish soldiers and doctors. He finally introduces the voices of two of the most famous Scottish writers who experienced the horrific aftermath of the battle first-hand, Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron.

After 'How David Cameron Saved Scotland', satirical author Owen Dudley Edwards comes back with a new book, 'Nations and Nationalisms'. This is a collection of defining moments, some rather peculiar, in the history of multiple nations. A wide and interesting assemblage of events that have never been gathered in a single book before. An insight on what it means to become a nation and what a defining moment might actually be. The book covers the defining moments in which nations such as Ireland, Brazil, Belgium, Haiti achieved independence.

Mon Dieu! The extraordinary, sabre-rattling adventures of Gerard, a young French cavalry officer in the time of the Napoleonic wars, introduce a hero who will be adored by fans of Flashman and Sherlock Holmes alike. Gathered here in one edition are both volumes of Conan Doyle's much loved tales, which will delight modern readers with their absurdist humour, infectious warmth and swash-buckling energy.

Some of the best of Fred Urquhart's ghost stories are gathered in this volume. They include humorous and satirical tales, depicting an afterlife in which dispirited spirits, although perhaps unionised themselves, are oppressed by what they see as the banal horrors of modernity. Other stories, such as 'The Saracen's Stick' and 'Proud Lady in a Cage', convey a real sense of evil, often rooted in the genuine horrors of the historical past. The title story reflects Urquhart's lifelong interest in the theatre, economically telling the story of the great actress Ellen Terry through the reminiscences of her ghost. Throughout he displays the great skill in characterisation and dialogue that he is noted for, and, as in all his work, his native Scotland is seldom far away.

David Cameron was Prime Minister throughout the campaign for Scottish Independence. People thought if the Scots voted YES for Independence that he may lose his job. But Scotland voted NO, so where does that leave him? As leader of the Unionist campaign, it is sensible to ask ourselves how he won the victory. One method might be to write and ask Mr Cameron how he did it. But, as Prime Minister, he may be too busy to reply, so Owen Dudley Edwards has helpfully written to inform Mr Cameron how he did it, sometimes telling him things he may not know or has only dimly guessed. The book explains to Mr Cameron what the wilder psychiatric shores of Premiership involve, whether he knows it or not, what sort of people he recruited to gain his victory and whether they knew they were recruits, what his opponents were like and why they opposed him, how Scotland reversed the UK fall in voter interest and involvement, and why. It works out how far the victory was won on the playing fields of Eton, and how the generalissimo's lieutenants in all three major Unionist parties did what he wanted. We hope the book leaves him purring.

"At Hame Wi' Freedom" marks the tenth anniversary of Hamish Henderson's death in 2002. It is the third book of a loose trilogy: "Borne on the Carrying Stream" (Grace Note Publications, 2010), followed by '"Tis Sixty Years Since" (Grace Note Publications, 2011) - all revolving around the life and legacy of Hamish Henderson and the Scottish Folk Revival he did so much to inspire and sustain.

At Hame wi' Freedom focuses on Hamish Henderson's involvement in the revival, his association with Perthshire and the North-East, the emergence of his poetic voice, and his political activism.

It also features Pino Mereu's poetic evocation of the Anzio (Beachhead) Pipe Band and the 2011 Hamish Henderson Memorial Lecture by Owen Dudley Edwards. Further contributions are from Eberhard Bort, Maurice Fleming, Fred Freeman, George Gunn, Tom Hubbard, Alison McMorland, Ewan McVicar, Hayden Murphy and Belle Stewart.

Praise for At Hame Wi' Freedom

HAMISH Henderson, poet, folklorist and genial patriarch of the Scottish folk revival, and Pink Floyd, iconoclasts of English psychedelia, might seem to offer little in common.

Yet in "At Hame Wi' Freedom," the third of a trilogy of essay collections celebrating Henderson's work, Pino Mereu's poem sequence Anzio Pipe Band is dedicated not only to Henderson's memory, but to that of Eric Waters, father of Pink Floyd founder member Roger Waters. Waters Snr, like Mereu's father, died during the Battle of Anzio in 1944.

At Anzio, Henderson formed a morale-boosting pipe band which entered Rome with the triumphant Allied forces. Mereu's poem in Italian, influenced by Henderson's Elegies For "The Dead In Cyrenaica" as well as by Pink Floyd's Final Cut, is accompanied by a Scots translation from Tom Hubbard.

Such unlikely connections come as no surprise in a book, edited by Eberhard Bort, containing some wonderfully circuitous discourses. None more so than Owen Dudley Edwards's lecture, ostensibly titled "Sectarian Songs," which before getting to grips with "The Ould Orange Flute," recounts how Henderson persuaded the future PM Gordon Brown of the importance of Antonio Gramsci, the Italian revolutionary writer.

Ten years on from Henderson's death, these essays reflect the sometimes bewildering variousness of the man, remembered with affection by poet Hayden Murphy, while accordionist Jim Bainbridge recalls a never-to-be forgotten visit to an early Blairgowrie festival. Alison McMorland's essay on the Fetterangus Stewarts taps into Henderson's championing of the Travellers as tradition-bearers, while George Gunn and Fred Freeman deal with his fluidity of language and the place of poets in general.

Maurice Fleming, born in the same road in Blairgowrie as Henderson, gives an insightful picture of the Perthshire which shaped the man and where, on the slopes of Ben Gulabin, overlooking his Glenshee birthplace, his ashes were scattered. Jim Gilchrist, "The Scotsman" >

C.C.O'Brien's early writings contain the early on the mature, magisterial style and substance that have made him one of the finest political philosophers alive and active today. Edited with notes by Professor Edwards, this is the first collection of O'Brien's precient discourses on Ireland, Ulster, diplomacy, the UNO, the UN and Africa and more.