Eric Linklater

Eric Robert Russell Linklater (8 March 1899 - 7 November 1974) was a British writer, known for authoring more than 20 novels. He was also a writer of short stories, as well as an author on the subject of travel, military history and autobiographies.

Life

Linklater was born in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. He was educated in Aberdeen Grammar School and Aberdeen University, where he was President of the Aberdeen University Debater. He spent many years in Orkney, and identified strongly with the islands, where his father had been born. His mother was the daughter of a Swedish-born sea captain who had become a naturalized British citizen and married an Englishwoman. He thus had Scandinavian origins through both parents (the name Linklater is a local Orkney name derived from the Old Norse), and throughout life he maintained a sympathetic interest in Scandinavia.

He was initially a medical student and then went into journalism, becoming a full time writer in the 1930s.

He stood, unsuccessfully, in the East Fife by-election of 1933 as the National Party of Scotland candidate.

Family

Linklater had four children. His elder son, Magnus Linklater (born 1942), is a journalist and former editor of The Scotsman. His second son, Andro Linklater, is also a writer and journalist. His elder daughter, Alison, is an artist and was born in 1934. His younger daughter, Kristin Linklater, is an actor, voice teacher and author of Freeing the Natural Voice, and his grandson by Kristin, Hamish Linklater is also an actor.

Locations

• Hill of Fearn

Works

Novels

• White Maa's Saga (1929)
• Poet's Pub (1929)
• Juan in America (1931)
• The Men of Ness (1932)
• The Crusader's Key (1933)
• Magnus Merriman (1934)
• Ripeness is All (1935)
• The Impregnable Women (1938)
• Judas (1939)
• Private Angelo (1946) - war satire. ISBN 0-907675-61-1
• A Spell for Old Bones (1949)
• Mr Byculla (1950)
• The House of Gair (1953)
• The Dark of Summer (1956)
• A Man Over Forty (1963)
• A Terrible Freedom (1966)
• The Faithful Ally (1956)

Drama

• The Devil's in the News (1929)

Poetry

• A Dragon Laughed & other poems (1930)

Children's fiction

• The Wind on the Moon (1944), for which Linklater won the Carnegie Medal
• The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949)

Other

• Juan in China
• Ben Jonson and King James: Biography and Portrait) (1931)
• Ripeness is All (1935)
• The Man on My Back (1941) autobiography
• Laxdale Hall (1951)
• Figures in a Landscape (1952)
• A Year of Space (1953) travel
• The Ultimate Viking (1955) - the history of Sweyn Asleifsson
• A Sociable Plover and other Stories and Conceits - (1957) stories
• The Merry Muse (1959)
• Orkney and Shetland (1965)
• The Prince in the Heather (1965) - the story of Bonnie Prince Charlie's escape
• The Conquest of England (1966)
• The Survival of Scotland (1968) - history of Scotland's independence
• The Voyage of the Challenger (1972)
• The Campaign in Italy
• The Highland Division
• The Goose Girl and Other Stories
• The Northern Garrisons (1941)

Further reading

• Parnell, Michael (1984) Eric Linklater: a critical biography. London: John Murray ISBN 0719541093
• Massie, Allan (1999) Eric Linklater: a critical biography. Edinburgh: Canongate ISBN 0-86241-886-0

External links

• Biography

Academic offices
Preceded by Stafford Cripps	Rector of the University of Aberdeen 1945–1948	Succeeded by Baron Tweedsmuir