Neil Miller Gunn (8 November 1891 – 15 January 1973) was a prolific novelist, critic, and dramatist who emerged as one of the leading lights of the

Scottish Renaissance The Scottish Renaissance ( gd, Ath-bheòthachadh na h-Alba; sco, Scots Renaissance) was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid-20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scott ...

of the 1920s and 1930s. With over twenty novels to his credit, Gunn was arguably the most influential

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

fiction writer of the first half of the 20th century (with the possible exception of

Lewis Grassic Gibbon Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell (13 February 1901 – 7 February 1935), a Scottish writer. He was best known for ''A Scots Quair'', a trilogy set in the north-east of Scotland in the early 20th century, of which ...

, the pen name of James Leslie Mitchell). Like his contemporary,

Hugh MacDiarmid Christopher Murray Grieve (11 August 1892 – 9 September 1978), best known by his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid (), was a Scottish poet, journalist, essayist and political figure. He is considered one of the principal forces behind the Scottish Rena ...

, Gunn was politically committed to the ideals of both Scottish nationalism and socialism (a difficult balance to maintain for a writer of his time). His fiction deals primarily with the

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

communities and landscapes of his youth, though the author chose (''contra'' MacDiarmid and his followers) to write almost exclusively in English rather than Scots or Gaelic but was heavily influenced in his writing style by the language.

Early life

Neil Miller Gunn was born in the village of

Dunbeath Dunbeath ( gd, Dùn Bheithe) is a village in south-east Caithness, Scotland on the A9 road. It sits astride the Dunbeath Water just before it enters the sea at Dunbeath Bay. Dunbeath has a very rich archaeological landscape, the site of numer ...

, Caithness. His father was the captain of a

herring Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, ...

boat, and Gunn's fascination with the sea and the courage of fishermen can be traced directly back to his childhood memories of his father's work. His mother would also provide Gunn with a crucial model for the types of steadfast, earthy, and tradition-bearing women that would populate many of his works. Gunn had eight siblings, and when his primary schooling was completed in 1904, he moved south to live with his older sister Mary and her husband Dr. Keiller, the local GP at Kenbank in

St John's Town of Dalry St John's Town of Dalry ( gd, Clachan Eòin), usually referred to simply as Dalry ( / 'dal-RYE'), is a village in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, in the historic county of Kirkcudbrightshire. Location St Johns Town is located close to the ...

Kirkcudbrightshire Kirkcudbrightshire ( ), or the County of Kirkcudbright or the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright is one of the historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Kirkcudbrightshire was an administrative count ...

. He continued his education there with tutors including the local schoolmaster, and the writer and poet J.G.Carter " Theodore Mayne". He sat the

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

exam in 1907. This led to a move to London, where the adolescent Gunn was exposed to both the exciting world of new political and philosophical ideas as well as to the seamier side of modern urban life. In 1910 Gunn became a Customs and Excise Officer and was posted back to the Highlands. He would remain a customs officer throughout the First World War and until he was well established as a writer in 1937.

Marriage

Gunn married Jessie Dallas Frew in 1921 and they settled in

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...

, near his permanent excise post at the Glen Mhor

distillery Distillation, or classical distillation, is the process of separating the components or substances from a liquid mixture by using selective boiling and condensation, usually inside an apparatus known as a still. Dry distillation is the heating ...

Beginnings as a writer

During the 1920s Gunn began to publish short stories, as well as poems and short essays, in various literary magazines. His writing brought him into contact with other writers associated with the budding

, such as Hugh MacDiarmid,

James Bridie James Bridie (3 January 1888 in Glasgow – 29 January 1951 in Edinburgh) was the pseudonym of a Scottish playwright, screenwriter and physician whose real name was Osborne Henry Mavor.Daniel Leary (1982) ''Dictionary of Literary Biography: ...

Naomi Mitchison Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison (; 1 November 1897 – 11 January 1999) was a Scottish novelist and poet. Often called a doyenne of Scottish literature, she wrote over 90 books of historical and science fiction, travel writin ...

Eric Linklater Eric Robert Russell Linklater CBE (8 March 1899 – 7 November 1974) was a Welsh-born Scottish poet, fiction writer, military historian, and travel writer. For '' The Wind on the Moon'', a children's fantasy novel, he won the 1944 Carnegie Meda ...

Edwin Muir Edwin Muir CBE (15 May 1887 – 3 January 1959) was a Scottish poet, novelist and translator. Born on a farm in Deerness, a parish of Orkney, Scotland, he is remembered for his deeply felt and vivid poetry written in plain language and w ...

, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, and

George Blake George Blake ( Behar; 11 November 1922 – 26 December 2020) was a spy with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. He became a communist and decided to work for the MGB while a pri ...

. Blake and George Malcolm Thomson were running the Porpoise Press, whose mission was to reestablish a national publishing industry for Scotland, by now an imprint of

Faber & Faber Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel Be ...

, and they became Gunn's publisher in the early 1930s. The first novels Gunn published were ''The Grey Coast'' in 1926 and ''The Lost Glen'' in 1928. During this period, Gunn was active in the

National Party of Scotland The National Party of Scotland (NPS) was a centre-left political party in Scotland which was one of the predecessors of the current Scottish National Party (SNP). The NPS was the first Scottish nationalist political party, and the first which ...

, which formed part of what became the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from t ...

The professional writer

Following the publishing success of ''Highland River'' (for which he was awarded the 1937

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Unit ...

for fiction), Gunn was able to resign from the Customs and Excise in 1937 and become a full-time writer. He rented a farmhouse near

Strathpeffer Strathpeffer ( gd, Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Ross and Cromarty, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469. Geography It lies in a strath west of Dingwall, with the elevation ranging from above sea level. Sheltered on t ...

and embarked on his most productive period as a novelist and essayist. ''Butcher's Broom'' and ''The Silver Darlings'' are historical novels dealing with the

Highland Clearances The Highland Clearances ( gd, Fuadaichean nan Gàidheal , the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860. The first phase result ...

. '' Young Art and Old Hector'' and '' The Green Isle of the Great Deep'' are both fantasies based on Scottish folklore. Gunn's later works in the 1940s and into the 1950s became concerned with issues of

totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regul ...

The Highland Zen master

Gunn's final full-length work was a discursive autobiography entitled ''The Atom of Delight''. This text showed the influence which a reading of

Eugen Herrigel Eugen Herrigel (20 March 1884 – 18 April 1955) was a German philosopher who taught philosophy at Tohoku Imperial University in Sendai, Japan, from 1924 to 1929 and introduced Zen to large parts of Europe through his writings. While living in ...

's ''

Zen in the Art of Archery ''Zen in the Art of Archery'' (Zen in der Kunst des Bogenschießens) is a book by German philosophy professor Eugen Herrigel, published in 1948, about his experiences studying Kyūdō, a form of Japanese archery, when he lived in Japan in the 19 ...

'' had upon Gunn. His utilisation of these ideas was not so much mystical as providing a view of the individual in a ''"small self-contained community, with a long-established way of life, with actions and responses known and defined"''. He took the playing of

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the ...

reels A reel is an object around which a length of another material (usually long and flexible) is wound for storage (usually hose are wound around a reel). Generally a reel has a cylindrical core (known as a '' spool'') with flanges around the end ...

as an example: ''"how a human hand could perform, on its own, truly astonishing feats – astonishing in the sense that if thought interfered for a moment the feat was destroyed"''. This thought-free state could be a source of deligh
Zen in the art of Neil Gunn
In his later years, Gunn was involved in broadcasting and also published in diverse journals such as '' Anarchy Magazine'' in London, ''

The Glasgow Herald ''The Herald'' is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. ''The Herald'' is the longest running national newspaper in the world and is the eighth oldest daily paper in the world. The title was simplified from ''The Glasgow Herald'' in ...

'', ''Holiday'' (USA), ''Saltire Review'', ''Scotland's Magazine'', ''Scots Review'', and ''Point'' magazine in

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...

. In his later years Gunn lived on the

Black Isle The Black Isle ( gd, an t-Eilean Dubh, ) is a peninsula within Ross and Cromarty, in the Scottish Highlands. It includes the towns of Cromarty and Fortrose, and the villages of Culbokie, Jemimaville, Rosemarkie, Avoch, Munlochy, Tore, a ...

. He died in Raigmore Hospital in Inverness on 15 January 1973, aged 81.

Legacy

Gunn is commemorated in

Makars' Court Makars' Court is a courtyard in central Edinburgh, Scotland. It forms part of Lady Stair's Close, which connects the Lawnmarket with The Mound to the north, and is next to the Writers' Museum. Described as an "evolving national literary monument ...

, outside the

Writers' Museum The Writers’ Museum, housed in Lady Stair's House at the Lawnmarket on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, presents the lives of three of the foremost Scottish writers: Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. Run by the City of Edin ...

Lawnmarket The Royal Mile () is a succession of streets forming the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland. The term was first used descriptively in W. M. Gilbert's ''Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century'' (1901), des ...

, Edinburgh. Selections for Makars' Court are made by the Writers' Museum; the

Saltire Society The Saltire Society is a membership organisation which aims to promote the understanding of the culture and heritage of Scotland. Founded in 1936, the society was "set up to promote and celebrate the uniqueness of Scottish culture and Scotland’s ...

; the

Scottish Poetry Library The Scottish Poetry Library is a public library specialising in Scottish poetry. Since 1999, the library has been based at 5 Crichton's Close, just off the Canongate in Edinburgh's Old Town. History and status The library was founded in 1984 ...

. The Neil Gunn Trust was established in 1986, and in October 1987 a monument to the writer was unveiled on the Heights of Brae, Strathpeffer. The Neil Gunn Writing Competition was established in 1988 by Ross & Cromarty District Council (later becoming the Highland Council) and the Trust. The competition is now organised by High Life Highland and the Trust.

Bibliography

;Novels * '' The Grey Coast '' (1926) * '' The Lost Glen'' (1928) * '' Morning Tide'' (1931) * ''The Poaching at Grianan'' (1930 as serial in ''Scots Magazine'') (2005) * '' Sun Circle'' (1933) * ''

Butcher's Broom ''Ruscus aculeatus'', known as butcher's-broom, is a low evergreen dioecious Eurasian shrub, with flat shoots known as cladodes that give the appearance of stiff, spine-tipped leaves. Small greenish flowers appear in spring, and are borne singly ...

'' (1934) * ''

Highland River ''Highland River'' is a novel by Neil M. Gunn. Its plot revolves around a young boy called Kenn who grows up next to the Dunbeath river, then going on to experience the horrors of the First World War and his attempts to rediscover inner peace a ...

'' (1937) * '' Wild Geese Overhead'' (1939) * ''

Second Sight Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke Universit ...

'' (1940) * ''

The Silver Darlings ''The Silver Darlings'' is a 1947 British film about Scottish fishermen, based on a 1941 novel by Neil M. Gunn. The film is set in the early 19th century and after the highland clearances. Catrine and her family, like many other dispossessed Sc ...

'' (1941) (filmed in 1947) * '' Young Art and Old Hector'' (1942) * '' The Serpent'' (1943) * '' The Green Isle of the Great Deep'' (1944) * '' The Key of the Chest'' (1945) * '' The Drinking Well'' (1946) * '' The Silver Bough'' (1948) * ''

The Shadow The Shadow is a fictional character created by magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by writer Walter ...

'' (1948) * '' The Lost Chart'' (1949) * ''

The Well at the World's End ''The Well at the World's End'' is a high fantasy novel by the British artist, poet, and author William Morris. It was first published in 1896 and has been reprinted repeatedly since, most notably in two parts as the 20th and 21st volumes of th ...

'' (1951) * '' Blood Hunt'' (1952) (adapted for

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, e ...

in 1986) * ''The Other Landscape'' (1954) ;Short stories * ''Hidden Doors'' (1929) * ''The White Hour'' (1950) * ''The Tax-Gatherer'' ;Essays and autobiography * ''Whisky and Scotland'' (1935) * ''Off in a Boat'' (1938) * ''Highland Pack'' (1949) * ''The Atom of Delight'' (1956)

Literary criticism

* Burns, John, ''Neil M. Gunn: Celebration of the Light'', in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), ''

Cencrastus ''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a ...

'' No. 11, New Year 1983, pp. 29 - 31, * Burns, John, ''Celebration of the Light: Zen in the Novels of Neil M. Gunn,'' Edinburgh: Canongate, 1988 * Gifford, Douglas, ''Neil M. Gunn and Lewis Grassic Gibbon''. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1983, * Laplace, Philippe, ''Les Hautes-Terres, l'histoire et la mémoire dans les romans de Neil M. Gunn''. Besançon: PUFC, 2006 * McCulloch, Margery, ''The Novels of Neil M. Gunn: A Critical Study''. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1987 * Price, Richard, ''The Fabulous Matter of Fact: The Poetics of Neil M. Gunn''. Edinburgh University Press, 1991 * Scott, Alexander and Douglas Gifford, ''Neil M. Gunn: The Man and the Writer''. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1973

References

External links

Dunbeath Heritage Centre website

hydrohotel.net
wildcatfilms.com
An independent film company site with a link to their screenplay adaptation of "The Other Landscape". * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gunn, Neil M. 1891 births 1973 deaths Scottish novelists Scottish essayists People from Caithness James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Scottish historical novelists Scottish fantasy writers Place of death missing 20th-century Scottish novelists Scottish male novelists 20th-century essayists 20th-century British male writers Scottish Renaissance