Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk in the Parish of Pyketillim, with Glimpses of the Parish Politics about AD 1843

by William Alexander

This novel, set in the fictional north-east parish of Pyketillim, tells of the struggle for democratic control which shattered the Church of Scotland in the great Disruption of 1843 and the parallel contest for control of the land between, on the one hand the lairds and capitalistic muckle farmers and smaller tenants who were seen by Alexander as the last bastion of the Scotland he knew.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1870

About the author

William Alexander was born in the Garioch, near the foot of Benachie. He found his feet as a writer through the Mutual Instruction movement which flourished in North-East Scotland at this time under the direction of William McCombie of Cairnballoch, farmer, philosopher, economist and newspaper editor, who offered Alexander a job in the autumn of 1852. He eventually succeeded McCombie as editor of the Aberdeen Free Press, and went on to become one of the leading professional journalists in Victorian Scotland. Politically, he was a radical, supporting land reform and the abolition of hereditary privileges.

Alexander was a prolific novelist of wide thematic range and considerable variety of style, from austere realism at one end of the scale, to mellow social comedy at the other. His works were serialised in popular newspapers. He consciously avoided the book as a publication vehicle.

Sketches of Rural Life in Aberdeenshire ran in the Aberdeen Free Press during 1853. The Authentic History of Peter Grundie appeared in the Penny Free Press in 1855, and is the earliest novel of substance to be written specifically for publication in a newspaper. There followed The Laird of Drammochdyle in 1865, Ravenshowe and the Residenters Therein in 1867, and Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk in 1869.

His later short stories, Mary Malcolmson's Wee Maggie, Baubie Huie's Bastart Geet, Francie Herregerie's Sharger Laddie and Couper Sandy show the harsh consequences of economic and social change for cotters, labourers and small tenant farmers.

Alexander's last full novel, My Uncle the Baillie (1876) deals with burgh politics in the city of Greyness (a thinly disguised Aberdeen) and shows that his interest extended to urban themes.

Reviews

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny! The dialogue's in Doric Scots, which is hard-going even for a local, but you get through if you read aloud and it's only about 20% of the text.

ae chiel wi the key wins at the door in coorse, an apens’t, an in they gaed, jist like the jaws o the sea, cairryin minaisters like as muckle wrack alang wi em. I tint sicht o Gushets in a minit, an hed muckle adee to haud o my fit ava. An fan I'm jist at the door cheek, fa sud be dirdit into the neuk fair afore me but Geordie Wobster

[Surreysmum · Rating 3 out of 5]

[These notes were made in 1987:]. Subtitle: in the parish of Pyketillim, with Glimpses of the Parish Politics about A.D. 1843. According to that bottomless source of Scottish literary trivia, my father, this William Alexander was something of a local notable, and certainly if his book was illustrated and went through seven editions, it must have had some popularity. Other books by Alexander are to be found in the DA section of the library, but this, being a work of fiction, sits in PR. Its most striking feature is the extensive use of phonetic representation of the Aberdeenshire dialect (which is in the mouths of all the characters). There is a less-than-adequate glossary at the back, and even with my Scots background, I was sometimes unable to puzzle out an idiomatic phrase here and there. On the whole, however, I was able to plough along at a fairly steady rate. (The narrative voice, by the way, is also noticeably Scots, but not so locally idiomatic, and not phonetically spelled out, thank goodness). Of story, there is little or none. Alexander is concerned (1) to draw a "gallery" of characters of all classes and trades in a small Aberdeenshire town and (2) to illustrate at the grass-roots level the founding of the Free Kirk of Scotland in the 1840s. His "gallery" is very successful, with the bossy wife, the gossipy henwife, the sturdy yeoman farmer, the negligent clergyman, the henpecked husband, the amorous farmhand, the successful shopkeeper, etc. all very nicely and vividly delineated. Johnny Gibb becomes perhaps just a tad too virtuous by the end, but not to the point where his character seems unreal. As to the church politics, I must admit that the endless discussions of non-intrusionism and the like made heavy going at times. But when they were holding weddings, or drinking sea-water for their health, I like these folk very much. Incidentally, the illustrations by George Reid are splendid - a stock of plain folk I recognized at once - broad-faced and a wee bit dour.

[Graeme · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Alexander's Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk is a masterly satire of parish life and the politics of land ownership in Aberdeenshire at the time of the Disruption.

Alexander employs an orthography for spoken Scots which strives for acoustic accuracy and in the formidable Mrs. Birse creates a memorable comic character.