Samuel Rutherford Crockett
LITERATURE
‘Whatever I have written for other people I have always kept the best for you, and if I forget Galloway, my little Fatherland, may my right hand forget its cunning.’
Crockett’s output is extensive. His greatest success was in serialisations most of which were subsequently published as novels. From a total of nearly seventy published volumes over a third were set in Galloway. These include stories of his own boyhood.
He wrote works of history, adventure and romance. His influences included Scott, Stevenson, Galt and Hogg. He was contemporary with J.M.Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle. His style, however, was all his own. He generally wrote from the perspective of the ordinary rural dweller and his writing spans Scottish and European history from the fifteenth century up to the contemporary early twentieth century.
His popularity was at its height in the 1890s and his most famous works remain ‘The Raiders’, ‘The Lilac Sunbonnet’ and ‘The Men of the Moss Hags,’ though other works such as ‘Cleg Kelly,’ ‘Kit Kennedy’ and most appropriate to Balmaghie ‘The Standard Bearer’ are also popular among his readership.
In a career spanning more than two decades, he experimented in style and structure. With the benefit of hindsight it is possible to see how important and influential his work is in the history of Scottish literature.
‘In Scotland literature begins on the principle that hungry dogs hunt the best.’
Crockett’s output is extensive. His greatest success was in serialisations most of which were subsequently published as novels. From a total of nearly seventy published volumes over a third were set in Galloway. These include stories of his own boyhood.
He wrote works of history, adventure and romance. His influences included Scott, Stevenson, Galt and Hogg. He was contemporary with J.M.Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle. His style, however, was all his own. He generally wrote from the perspective of the ordinary rural dweller and his writing spans Scottish and European history from the fifteenth century up to the contemporary early twentieth century.
His popularity was at its height in the 1890s and his most famous works remain ‘The Raiders’, ‘The Lilac Sunbonnet’ and ‘The Men of the Moss Hags,’ though other works such as ‘Cleg Kelly,’ ‘Kit Kennedy’ and most appropriate to Balmaghie ‘The Standard Bearer’ are also popular among his readership.
In a career spanning more than two decades, he experimented in style and structure. With the benefit of hindsight it is possible to see how important and influential his work is in the history of Scottish literature.
‘In Scotland literature begins on the principle that hungry dogs hunt the best.’
