Sorley MacLean : Poems 1932-82 : With Signed Letter + Compliments Card

Poems 1932-82

By Sorley MacLean

Published by Iona Foundation, Philadelphia, 1987. First Edition. Paperback book with 181 pages.

Comes with a compliments card and a signed letter written in November 1988 from Sorley to Lynn [Eluned Brown] . . .  she was CEO of the Scottish Arts Council in the 1970s and was also a lecturer in English Lit at Edinburgh University. The letter was sent from Sorley's home on Skye.

The letter reads:

Dear Lynne,

Thank you so very much for 'B from a Stags Heart' [here Sorley refers to the book 'Bone From A Stag's Heart' by Paul Merchant]. I find it very different or, I should say, individual, but i have not really got into it properly yet. I hope the merchants are all well and in good spirits, even if Moelwyn is not as busy as ever. Give them my dearest regards.

I have not been in Edinburgh for some time now. The book I sent ought to have been out in 1981 or Jan 1982 or Jan 1984, and it ought to have been bilingual and published simultaneously in Britain and in North America.

I have left things too long and have had difficulties with publishers. Dan Gillis is a good man but has no worldly wisdom, and i have not benefited from that. 

I hope things are going well in the Dept. Have you met Colin Matheson in language. He is a relative of mine, and i hope he is able and industrious. 

All the best, and i hope we meet again fairly soon.
Yours, Sorley

CONDITION
The book is in very good condition. Covers good and contents clean throughout.

Sorley MacLean (Scottish Gaelic: Somhairle MacGill-Eain; 26 October 1911 – 24 November 1996) was a Scottish Gaelic poet, described by the Scottish Poetry Library as "one of the major Scottish poets of the modern era" because of his "mastery of his chosen medium and his engagement with the European poetic tradition and European politics". Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney credited MacLean with saving Scottish Gaelic poetry.