The New Road

Neil Munro’s historical novel The New Road was first published in 1914 and John Buchan reviewed it in the Glasgow Herald -saying

It is a privilege to be allowed to express my humble admiration of what seems to me one of the finest romances written in our time. Mr Neil Munro is beyond question the foremost of living Scottish novelists…”

This tale of adventure and betrayal in the Highlands in the years between the two Jacobite risings stands comparison with Stevenson’s Kidnapped but despite this and the praise of Buchan and others it, and all Munro’s other novels, had gone out of print by the 1980s. I was fortunate enough to be able to persuade B&W to reprint this great Scottish novel and to be allowed to write an introduction to it. 

Click on the box below to order a copy from amazon.co.uk

Last of the Chiefs

 

Alasdair Ranaldson Macdonell of Glengarry was a Highland clan chief who died in 1828.  However he perhaps should have lived a hundred years earlier when his eccentric life style and flamboyant behaviour would have been more acceptable. He was an enthusiast for traditional Highland ways, he promoted the use of Gaelic, Highland dress and tartan, kept a domestic bard but at the same time was an enthusiastic clearer of his clanlands for sheep-farming and never seemed aware of the contradictions he represented.

My biography of him was published in 2001 and attracted such comments from reviewers as “well researched and highly readable” and “a fascinating picture of a bizarre life”. 

One of the incidents in his “bizarre life” was a duel he fought at Fort George – a duel which resulted in his trial for murder at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh. Click here for a link to my article Pistols on the Links  about the duel and the trial.

It was published in paperback at £9.99 but readers of this blog can buy direct from me at only £5.00 post free! 

Email me for details: brian@bdosborne.fsnet.co.uk