An instant bestseller when published (following serialisation) in 1894, ‘The Lilac Sunbonnet’ is an unashamed domestic romance. It has been sadly misunderstood latterly and is well worth more close inspection. It is important to appreciate the role of humour in the work. The narrator takes an ironic stance from the very beginning: ‘the young man was sufficient of a hero. And not too much.’  This view of the hero was to become stock in trade for Crockett.  While in ‘The Raiders’ we see Patrick Heron as his own retrospective ironic narrator, in ‘The Lilac Sunbonnet,’ the narrator stands outside the story but the deftness of ironic touch is the same. Crockett asks us, from the very beginning, to invest an ironic interest in seeing the young man taught a good lesson in love. 
Crockett writes of romance using a Romance style, offering a clever representation of the way young lovers behave. As such it explores emotion and the impossibility of using religion to control emotion. The prologue starts in media res, with an introduction to Ralph Peden as he meets Jess Kissock. This is not an irrelevancy to the main story, it is a vital part of an almost medieval interlacing pattern. This clever stylistic device allows the author to show parallels and patterns which reinforce his central notion that love is natural and God is love. Here Crockett has used the episodic form of serialised fiction and heightened it. And yet, he never loses the skill of the romancer. The story cracks along, drawing the reader with it. Crockett reveals the profound effect that even the most seemingly insignificant act by one character has on another, thus further illustrating the significance of love. The episodic patterning and interlacing of events builds to give the reader a deeper exploration of love than the basic boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl plot structure might suggest. At each stage of the journey, love is explored from a range of perspectives. The main story may be carried by the hero and heroine, but the minor characters add colour, depth and imagination to it. Crockett shows that nature is at the heart of both religion and love. He uses imagery effectively, especially natural imagery and there is and underplayed but underlying sexual tension and passion revealed in the most ordinary of things. All in all, if you come to this novel with an open mind, you may be surprised by the strength and depth you discover within. 

VOLUME 14 OF THE GALLOWAY COLLECTION. BUY THE BOOK ONLINE HERE

‘Mad Sir Uchtred of the Hills’ is short and shocking. Originally serialised in a popular magazine in 3 episodes, the thirteen chapters offer  a Gothic style story set in Covenanting Times. This in itself is intriguing.  The basic story is of Sir Uchtred who is cursed by a Covenanting Minister (Alexander Renfield.) We are swiftly taken into a world of allegory and symbolism (though you can ignore all this and simply read the fast paced and gruesome story) The curse is that of King Nebuchadnezzar  - which sees him cast out as a beast on the hills.  Crockett’s great strength in writing was his power of natural description and ‘Mad Sir Uchtred’ opens our eyes to this in an immediate fashion but the heavily laden symbolism of the popinjay and the wounded white mountain hare ensure that, for those who want to read a little deeper than the blood and guts and madness, there is much food for thought.
In Crockett’s day there was a furore about his title character’s name. And charges of plagarism. For the T.Fisher Unwin edition he offers an ‘advertisement’ which points out that the character is not based on the ‘real’ William McDowall of Garthland.  It is fiction not fact. The contemporary dispute illustrates something that was to dog Crockett all his career – arguments over the nature of ‘historical fiction.’  It was a relatively new thing in the 1890’s and Crockett could certainly be credited with an involvement in the emerging ‘genre’ of historical fiction.  Thus reading Crockett is of great interest both to those who like historical fiction and those who are interested in the development of historical fiction. Certainly the story has that nightmare, chaotic quality one would expect from such a work.  There are shades perhaps of Coleridge’s ‘dream’ poem Kubla Khan – but in prose form.  While not thoroughly typical of Crockett’s historical or adventure writing, it is a good place to start an exploration of the writer – if you like to be gripped and hurled along a story from beginning to end.

VOLUME 30 OF THE GALLOWAY COLLECTION. BUY THE BOOK ONLINE HERE 

‘The Play Actress’ was originally published in serial form under the title ‘The Great Preacher’ in 1894 and then as a novella in the Antonym Series by T.Fisher Unwin.  The ‘Great’ Preacher of the original title is rural minister Gilbert Rutherford. At the end of a Sunday service a woman dressed in black brings him a grand-daughter (Ailie) he never knew existed. This is the child of his now deceased son. Bessie (the child’s aunt) has taken Ailie from her dissolute mother,, who lives in London and moves in theatrical circles, (it was the dead son’s dying wish) and brought her to be reared by his father.  This unexpected event presents Gilbert with all sorts of emotional and practical challenges.  He does not shirk his duty but he also determines to challenge his prejudices and, once Ailie is set up happily in Galloway, he travels to London to find out what is behind this ‘story’  and deal with the family issues. Rutherford is drawn into what he has always believed is the immoral world of the theatre and finds himself both facing the reality of urban poverty, and challenging his views of ‘goodness.’   

The obvious  biblical analogy  is that of the prodigal son (daughter or even grand-daughter in this case) but it is a contemporary story which travels between the rural world of Galloway and the urban poverty of London.  While Crockett is known as a ‘romancer’ rather than a realist, he did not shy away from contemporary social issues in his work.   What Crockett describes is an urban reality we might recognise from a Dickens novel. He developed this story theme several times in his later work, most notably in ‘The Moss Troopers’ where he considers the ‘evils’ of London and in ‘Sandy’s Love’ where he delves into ‘the theatre’ and London life once again.

Crockett’s friend and contemporary J.M.Barrie enjoyed ‘The Play Actress’ so much that he wanted to adapt it for the stage and he took it on honeymoon with him in 1894. There is no record that it ever actually became a stage play.

Crockett  wrote of The Play Actress, ‘A great deal of nonsense is spoken in England about the Scotch Sabbath. I enjoyed my Sabbaths immensely. It is true that I was born to it. We used to drive over to the Cameronian Kirk at Castle Douglas (that  'Kirk on the Hill,'  of which  I  have written in my little book, ‘The Play Actress’-a book  written  to amuse myself, whilst I was writing ‘The Raiders’).

VOLUME 30 OF THE GALLOWAY COLLECTION. BUY THE BOOK AT UNCO HERE
LINK TO PLAYACTRESS125 HERE 

​The Raiders was first published on 20th March 1894 and was Crockett’s first novel.   It is the story of a bonnet laird, Patrick Heron and his adventures in Galloway in the early 18th century. His home, Isle Rathan (a fictionalised Heston Island) is central to the action and offers adventure, intrigue and not a little love-making.  In ‘The Raiders,’ Crockett takes the best of Stevenson in plot and the best of John Galt in narrative style and throws in his own unique powers of natural description, to provide us with a compelling story. The landscape of Galloway, from coast into the hills is every bit as much a star of the novel as the hero, or indeed the feisty heroine May Maxwell.   

Published by T.Fisher Unwin, the novel was a runaway success and enabled Crockett to give up the ministry and pursue a full time career as a writer. It is, however, the only one of his novels not serialised before publication. ‘The Raiders’ is the first part of a loose trilogy. Its sequel ‘The Dark o’ the Moon’ (1902) takes the story on a generation, focussing on Patrick’s son Maxwell and the gypsy Hector Faa.  Silver Sand (aka John Faa the ‘King of the Gypsies’) also features in both stories and is central to the final part of the trilogy, which is in the form of a prequel; ‘Silver Sand’(1914) tells the story of Silver Sand and Patrick’s father John Heron as young men. 

VOLUME   7 IN THE GALLOWAY COLLECTION. BUY THE BOOK AT UNCO 
SITE LINK TO RAIDERS125 HERE