About the Book
Discover one of the masterpieces of Scottish fiction.
In The Green Isle of the Great Deep, Neil Gunn continues the adventures of the two protagonists from his 1942 novel Young Art and Old Hector.
The unlikely friends, representing the extremes of age and youth, are out on an undercover poaching trip when they become swept up in the currents of a salmon pool. When they awaken they have been transported from the Highlands of our world to an alternative Highland universe: a beautiful, fertile land called the Green Isle. Despite the abundance of the land, and the trees dripping with fruit, the population are subdued and miserable, ruled over by a strict upper class and forbidden to touch the fruit. Young Art, however, is not so easily controlled and his actions begin a chain of events which will change the Green Isle forever.
Gunn draws many parallels in this tale, from the biblical references to Eden and the Tree of Knowledge, to contemporary commentary on the Nazi situation in 1940s Europe. Told fully in Highland dialect, The Green Isle of the Great Deep is a both a wonderful Scottish parable and a warning of the dangers of power and its abuse.
The Author
Neil Gunn
Neil Gunn was born in Dunbeath, Caithness in 1891, the seventh of nine children. He published short stories throughout the 1920s and his first novel The Grey Coast in 1926. He wrote several other novels, including Butcher's Broom (1934), The Silver Darlings (1941) and his autobiography, The Atom of Delight, in 1956. He worked for the Civil Service as a Customs and Excise officer before becoming a full-time writer in 1937. He died in 1973.
You may also like…
-
Paperback | Pub: 27 Jun 2019£8.99
First published in 1973 by the Hogarth Press, Magnus is George Mackay Brown’s tour de force – his most poetic and innovative book. He links the twelfth-century story of the saintly Earl Magnus of Orkney’s brutal murder at the hands of his...
-
Hardback | Pub: 04 Sep 2025£12.99
One of the BBC Arts 100 Most Inspiring Novels Edinburgh, 1930, and the world is on the brink of change. Leading the charge is the glamorous, free-spirited Miss Jean Brodie, schoolteacher at the Marcia Blaine Academy, whose guiding principle is...
-
Paperback | Pub: 07 May 2026£9.99‘Oh, she hated and loved in a breath!’ Faced with the choice between her harsh farming life and the seductive world of books and learning, the spirited Chris Guthrie decides to remain in rural Scotland. But as the devastation of the...
