by Kirsty S

Created on: November 30, 2006   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

Perhaps the most famous of Scottish writers is Robert Burns. Many argue he is Scotland's Shakespeare. He was born in Ayrshire in 1759 and died at only 37 but left behind him a large body of work which is still discovered and enjoyed by many today. Most famous for his poetry, for example Tam O'Shanter, To a Mouse and For A' That, Burns also wrote many songs, the music for which still survives today. New year sees many people singing perhaps his best known song Auld Lang Syne, and his other songs include My Love is Like a Red Red Rose and The Gallant Weaver. On January 25th each year many people get together to celebrate the life of Burns by having a Burns Supper, traditionally reciting To A Haggis before it gets eaten with mashed potatoes and turnips.

A more recent writer Muriel Spark, born in 1918, is best known for her novel The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. This book is set in the restricted world of an Edinburgh all girls school in the 1930s. It examines the need that Jean Brodie had, as a teacher, for her pupils to need and rely on her and look up to her a role model. She starts with a group of young girls and for years spend time teaching them her own views and opinions of the world and telling them what she expects them to do in the future. The story then charts what happens to each of the girls in the wake of Miss Brodie. Muriel Spark also wrote non-fiction, for example studies on the work of Mary Shelly and John Masefield and Emily Bronte. She was a prolific short story writer and also wrote her biography. In a career that spanned more than 50 years she wrote more than 20 novels. She died April 2006 at age 88.

Also a poet but Glasgow born Edwin Morgan, chronicled the somewhat rougher side of the city. Born in 1920 he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the second world war before retuning to Glasgow to graduate in English Literature. From then on he worked as a lecturer at the university until his retirement in 1980. His first book of poetry was published in 1956 and since then he has become one of the twentieth century's best known poets.

James Hogg, known as the Ettrick Shepherd, is maybe not as well known outside Scotland but, born in 1770, Hogg lived and worked all his life as a farmer. He published several works of poetry but lost the money when trying to keep the farm afloat. His most famous work, however, is the novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

Robin Jenkins (1912 - 2005)id famous for his book The Cone Gatherers. Set during the second world war it is the story of two brothers, Neil and Calum, who work on a Highland estate collecting pine cone for seed. It is an ambiguous novel where each of the characters are not what they seem and have reasons behind their strange and dangerous actions. it has been speculated that the story may be an analogy of the war but it is left to the reader to form his or her own opinions. Robin Jenkins wrote many other novels including The Changeling, The Thistle and the Grail, and Guests of War which all resound with his complex and ambiguous style.

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