Annals of the Five Senses

MACDIARMID, Hugh

Published by Montrose: Privately published by the author, 1923

About this Item

MACDIARMID, Hugh. Annals of the Five Senses. Montrose: Privately published by the author 1923. Presentation copy from the author inscribed: 'To my very great friend/ Alexander Magill/ with compliments/ and best wishes/ Hugh MacDiarmid/ C. M. Grieve/ indecipherable (Glasgow?)/ 1938'. Bound in brown cloth with title and author lettered in gilt on spine and black on front cover. Top edge stained brown, other edges uncut, as issued. Laid in is an als of some 200 words from Gordon Bottomley dated 29th May 1928 from his home in Silverdale to Alexander Magill concerning a PEN Club dinner he is to attend in Glasgow before continuing on with his wife to Arisaig. Bottomley mentions that he had received a letter from Mr Grieve while I was at Cambridge, confirming the arrangements you and I had made for the dinner on 2nd June. Much of the rest of the letter deals with Bottomley s uncertainty concerning the dinner, I am writing to ask for more explicit directions as to . . . what is required of me . . . I have never had any details of your PEN club procedures. The letter has two fold creases, is slightly grubby and creased at the top edges. The book s boards are slightly stained and soiled with a thumb sized light stain on the front; bottom of spine and fore-edges bumped, with gilt lettering on spine no longer present otherwise a very good copy issued without dustjacket. Notes: Alexander McGill was a good friend of MacDiarmid as well as other literary figures of the time. The Scottish Educational Journal published a number of papers by McGill, and in 1925 he won the Robert Locke Bremner Memorial Prize, awarded by Glasgow University for studies in Scandinavian history. When MacDairmid was trying to convince Blackwood to publish Sangshaw he sent them a copy of an article by McGill which had appeared in the Glasgow Herald a fortnight before. In the article McGill had written: 'He (MacDiarmid) has discarded the regular newspaper dialects and out of a great and thorough knowledge of Scots words and idioms he has fabricated wilfully a Scottish literary language which is rooted in old Scots and in the unsleeping soul of the Scottish nation. He has eschewed merely Burnsian Scots and gone back to the language spoken and written by the Makars before the decay set in. Such was MacDiarmid s regard for McGill that he dedicated one of the poems in Sangshaw 'The Scarlet Woman' to him. Gordon Bottomley was an English poet and playwright. Engaged with the revival of verse drama, Bottomley composed poetry and plays exploring human consciousness, often grounded in stark realism. Inspired by Japanese Noh Theatre, he often set his plays in smaller spaces with minimal scenery. He was also president of the Scottish Community Drama Association and vice president of the British Drama League.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1713203836886

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Annals of the Five Senses
• Publisher: Montrose: Privately published by the author
• Publication Date: 1923
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Scottish Literature