Galloway Raiders
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A Galloway Herd

27/2/2020

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Published in a pirated edition in the United States, A Galloway Herd was turned down by T.Fisher Unwin in 1894. It was originally serialised in The Christian Leader Magazine in 1891-2 and as such marks Crockett’s first serial fiction. Some of the chapters were later integrated into Bog Myrtle and Peat (1895). It was never revised for novelisation and thus the loose episodic style is somewhat .uneven. However, it is well worth the read. 'A Galloway Herd' also introduces us to the fictional setting of Drumquhat, which is to become familiar in many of Crockett’s later novels.  The pastoral setting is realistic but elevated through the eyes of Wattie to become an adventure which ranges even into revolutionary France at the time of the Paris Commune.  This gives us the first taste of one of Crockett’s strongest literary skills, placing the ‘ordinary’ characters in the foreground while ‘history’ runs along in the background. ‘A Galloway Herd’ shows us the romantic power of the book as clearly as it shows us the domestic power of women and the stigma of illegitimacy.  The minister in the story wants Wattie to become a ‘shepherd’ for Jesus, but Wattie, and Crockett were destined to be Galloway Herds of quite a different kind. The later novel Kit Kennedy (1899) covers much of the same ground but with more mature writerly skill, however this is a very interesting story in its own right. The central character is Wattie Anderson and his story is told initially from the first person dialect voice of Saunders McQuhirr, later to become one of Crockett’s strongest and best loved characters, and a fairly loosely disguised version of his own grandfather.  The story shifts into the third person as it develops into Wattie’s romantic view of his life – because for all the third person narrative, we feel like this is a boy, telling us his own story.  The adventures and events that happen to Wattie could all be explained away from an adult perspective, but from the child’s view they are heightened, romanticised and offer an insight into both the world of a boy with a vivid imagination, and the melodramatic style itself. 

VOLUME 16 OF THE GALLOWAY COLLECTION. BUY THE BOOK ONLINE HERE 
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    THE COMPLETE CROCKETT

      1886    Dulce Cor  
    1893    The Stickit Minister 
    1894    Mad Sir Uchtred
    1894    The Play Actress
    1894    The Raiders
    1894    The Lilac Sunbonnet
    1895    Bog Myrtle and Peat
    1895    A Galloway Herd
    1895    Men of the Moss Hags
    1896    Cleg Kelly
    1896    The Grey Man
    1896    Sweetheart Travellers 
    1897    Lads' Love
    1897    Lochinvar
    1897    Sir Toady Lion
    1898    The Red Axe
    1898    The Standard Bearer
    1899    The Black Douglas
    1899    Kit Kennedy
    1899    Ione March
    1900    Joan of the Sword Hand
    1900    Stickit Minister's Wooing
    1900    Little Anna Mark
    1901    Cinderella
    1901    The Firebrand
    1901    Love Idylls
    1901    The Silver Skull
    1902    The Dark o' the Moon
    1902    Flower o' the Corn
    1903    Adventurer in Spain
    1903    The Banner of Blue
    1904    Love of Miss Anne
    1904    Strong Mac
    1904    Raiderland
    ​
    1904    Red Cap Tales
    1905    Maid Margaret
    1905    The Cherry Ribband
    1905    Kid McGhie
    1905    Sir Toady Crusoe
    1906    White Plumes of Navarre
    1907    Me and Myn
    1907    Little Esson
    1907    Vida
    1908    Deep Moat Grange
    1908    Princess Penniless
    1908    Bloom o' the Heather 
    1908    Red Cap Adventures 
    1909    The Dew of Their Youth
    1909    Men of the Mountain
    1909    My Two Edinburghs
    1909    Rose of the Wilderness
    1910    Young Nick and Old Nick
    1911    The Lady of a 100 Dresses 
    1911    Love in Pernicketty Town
    1911    The Smugglers
    1912    Anne of the Barricades
    1912    Sweethearts at Home
    1912    The Moss Troopers
    1913    Sandy's Love
    1913    A Tatter of Scarlet
    1914    Silver Sand
    1915    Hal o' the Ironsides
    1917    The Azure Hand
    1920    The White Pope
    1926    Rogues' Island
    2016   Peter the Renegade 

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  • HOME
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    • 2024
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