Island on the Edge of the World: The Story of St Kilda

Description

For more than 2000 years the people of St Kilda remained remote from the world. Its society was viable, even Utopian; but in the nineteenth century the island was discovered by missionaries, do-gooders and tourists, who brought money, disease and despotism. St Kildan culture gradually disintegrated and in 1930 the few remaining islanders asked to be evacuated.

Charles Maclean was born in 1946, eldest son of Sir Fitzroy Maclean of Strachur, Argyll. He was educated at Eton and Oxford. Before becoming a full-time writer he had a variety of jobs, including periods as a merchant seaman and as a cowboy; he also played in a rock and roll band. In a diverse and international writing career, he has been on the staff of Vogue and the Ecologist. He has also written prose fiction, including The Pathetic Phallus (1977), The Watcher (1982) and The Silence (1996). In the mid-70s he spent two years writing and researching The Wolf Children, a true story of two girls found living with wolves in the jungles of Bengal and published to wide praise in 1977. He has also written a number of books on the landscape and culture of Scotland, including Malt Whisky (1997), Scottish Country (1992) and Romantic Scotland (2000).

* A story like a marvellous pebble, wet from the sea, strange and comic like all things out of step with time, sad as the old songs the women sang, splendidly told... Sunday Times * A fascinating book ... Charles Maclean is an excellent writer ... he describes the story of St Kilda with powerful compassion. -- Magnus Magnusson * What the St Kildan story, as told by Maclean, did for me was to reawaken my awe at the strangeness of our world. -- Will Self