The Selected Stories

This volume gathers together, for the first time, the remarkable short stories of Ann Scott-Moncrieff (1914-1943) - a writer whose early promise was cut short, but whose voice remains strikingly vivid and full of feeling. Praised by the poet and critic Edwin Muir for her `mind of great power and originality', Scott-Moncrieff is best known for the popular children's stories Aboard the Bulger (1935), The White Drake and Other Tales (1936), and Auntie Robbo (1941). Yet Scott-Moncrieff was also an important figure within the inter-war Scottish Literary Revival and was the author of short fiction for an adult market which was not anthologised during her lifetime. The stories collected here - many published for the first time since her death - reveal a writer of warmth, subtlety, and wry humour. Written with an ear for the richness of Scots speech and an eye for the landscapes of her native country, Scott-Moncrieff's stories are characterised by playfulness, wit, and a deft exploration of the struggles and consolations of faith within the drama of everyday life. These short stories are, by turns, wry, ironical, hilarious, tragic, and full of a deep understanding of human experience