Alias MacAlias, Writings on Songs, Folk & Literature, H. Henderson

Alias MacAlias: Writings on Songs, Folk & Literature

By Hamish Henderson.

Published by Berlinn Limited, Edinburgh, 2004. Paperback, 455 pages. Includes black & white photography.

CONDITION
Overall very good condition, see photos. No names or writing. Images crisp & clear.

Hamish Henderson was one of the most significant figures in the cultural life of twentieth-century Scotland; he was a man of extraordinary intellectual versatility, a committed Republican and socialist, and, as the pioneer of the great post-war Scottish folk revival, he made an important contribution to Scotland's culture and to the growth of a national consciousness.

Henderson was continually drawn to the North-East and its folk art heritage; in particular, the tinker-gypsies, whose contribution to folk culture he gave full recognition. He was a scholarly song and folktale collector, a songwriter, a serious political fighter who rejected Margaret Thatcher's offer of an OBE, and a poet whose sequence of war poems Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica won the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1949.

The essays in this collection, extensively expanded by friend and editor Alec Finlay, range from humorous autobiographical reminiscences, wartime memoirs, flytings, chatty reviews and scholarly critiques of songs and tales, to his introductory essay to Gramsci's famous Prison Letters. Subjects include Hugh MacDiarmid, Lorca, the tinker-gypsies, ballads, the burgeoning folk scene and the Clearances. Completing the volume are tributes to individuals such as Jeannie Robertson, Ewan McCall and Roy Williamson.

(Loc: Shop; Bindery red shelves A4 )