Orkney and Shetland: An Historical, Geographical, Social, and Scenic Survey

by Eric Linklater

Eric Linklater, famous as novelist, playwright and historian was one of Orkney's most distinguished sons and knew the topography and the past and present of Orkney and Shetland as few other people. The author, who died in 1974, wrote about them with both understanding and affection.Orkney and Shetland have a unique place in British history. Indeed the two groups of islands did not become part of Scotland in any sense until the fifteenth century. They still retain that feeling of separation that has long since disappeared from other islands off the Scottish mainland. Both Orkney and Shetland are a delight for the archaeologist (the Stone Age remains are collectively the finest in the United Kingdom), the fisherman, and above all for anyone with a feeling for the remote and unspoilt.Here is landscape, sometimes rugged, sometimes gently undulating, but always hung between sea and sky, peopled with individualists, men of strength and endurance. Linklater saw the island communities as a product of geography and history, not as relics of the past but a society struggling to retain its identity, but at the same time moving with the twentieth century.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Eric Robert Russell Linklater was a Welsh-born Scottish writer of novels and short stories, military history, and travel books. For The Wind on the Moon, a children's fantasy novel, he won the 1944 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association for the year's best children's book by a British subject.

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the author's writing style, and I learned some items of interest about both Orkney and Shetland. While the book was published in the 1970s, obviously the history remains unchanged, so there is still much that is relevant for today's reader.

On the downside, I found that the book majored too much on Orkney and not enough on Shetland. The first section on Orkney is by far the longest, and even when we do get on to Shetland, he spends a lot of time comparing it to Orkney or referring back to Orkney, whereas Shetland was barely mentioned in the Orkney half! Since the author was a native Orcadian, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by the strong Orkney bias though.

The other thing I found difficult about this book was the sheer number of names involved in the history of Orkney. It would have been very helpful to have a genealogy to refer to, to help link everyone up. Instead, the author used long complicated sentences, pointing out that his subject was the fourth son of the cousin of....who was married to....the widow of....who was the nephew of... etc, etc, etc!

An ok read, but I think I will be looking out for a more modern title on the same topic.