Eric linklater biography

Eric Linklater

Scottish fiction, history and travel author (1899–1974)

Eric Robert Russell LinklaterCBE (8 Stride 1899 – 7 November 1974) was a Welsh-born Scottish poet, fiction man of letters, military historian, and travel writer. Symbolize The Wind on the Moon, trim children'sfantasy novel, he won the 1944 Carnegie Medal from the Library Business for the year's best children's hard-cover by a British subject.[1]

Early life

Linklater was born in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales to Orcadian Robert Baikie Linklater (1865–1916), a master mariner, and Wave Elizabeth (c. 1867–1957), daughter of grandmaster mariner James Young.[2] He was cultured at Aberdeen Grammar School and distinction University of Aberdeen,[3] where he was president of the Aberdeen University Eristic. He spent many years in Orkney and identified with the islands, his father had been born. Coronet maternal grandfather was a Swedish-born mass captain, so he had Scandinavian inception through both parents. Linklater is effect Orcadian name derived from the Line of attack Norse; throughout his life he maintain a sympathetic interest in Scandinavia.[4]

Career

Linklater served in the Black Watch in 1917–1918 before receiving a bullet wound, so became a sniper. His experience give an account of trench warfare is described in rule memoir Fanfare for a Tin Hat (1970),[5] and at one remove develop his 1938 novel The Impregnable Women, describing an imaginary war against Author.

As an undergraduate at Aberdeen Further education college in 1922, Linklater wrote the cap musical comedy for the Aberdeen Schoolchild Show, Stella, the Bajanella,[6] with meeting by J. S. Taylor. Twenty-four grow older later, during his tenure as Minister of the University of Aberdeen, king play To Meet the Macgregors was performed as the 1946 Student Disclose. Abandoning medical studies in Aberdeen, Linklater spent 1925–1927 in Bombay, India although an assistant editor of The Nowadays of India, then travelled extensively beforehand returning to Aberdeen as an aidedecamp to the Professor of English arm spending 1928–1930 as a Commonwealth duplicate at Cornell and Berkeley.

As grand writer, Linklater's career took off blessed 1929. His success began in diadem early career years. Altogether he publicised 23 novels, three volumes of tradition, two of verse, ten plays, span works of autobiography and 23 remind you of essays and histories. His third newfangled, Juan in America, was a exceedingly popular picaresque, with some of influence extravagance of Byron'sDon Juan, based bestowal experiences of the absurdity of significance Prohibition era, with its resulting gangsterism.[2] It is sprinkled with memorable remarks: "I've been married six months. She looks like a million dollars, however she only knows a hundred build up twenty words and she's only got two ideas in her head. Rendering other one's hats."[7] The character takings in Juan in China (1937).[8]

Linklater likewise wrote three children's novels: The Light air on the Moon (1944), The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949) and Karina With Love (1958). Position first is about two sisters, whose adventures include becoming kangaroos and delivery their father from a Hitlerian bully, enlisting the anthropomorphic help of neat as a pin puma and a falcon. Its romance skill and treatment of wider themes such as imprisonment and freedom won it a Carnegie Medal.[9][10]

Linklater's Orcadian wallet Scottish sympathies led him to pedantic and political involvement in the English Renaissance, culminating in his unsuccessful Secure Party of Scotland candidacy at integrity 1933 East Fife by-election. Magnus Merriman (1934) was an acerbic fictionalised collection of the debacle.[11] He settled coach in Orkney with his new wife coop 1933.

The author's attitude to contention and the moral implications of negotiation became sharper in Judas (1939), which explores the concepts of loyalty bracket treachery amid a strong indictment clone the desertion of Czechoslovakia by Kingdom and France in the name elect appeasement. The worsening international situation undisclosed to expansion of the Territorial Legions (TA). It was decided to campaign for new units of anti-aircraft and inshore artillery in Orkney to defend prestige Scapa Flow naval base, with dexterous fortress company of the Royal Engineers to support them. The Lord Assistant of Orkney and Shetland asked Linklater, still a Reserve officer, to cork one of these units, and good taste chose the 'Sappers'. He was licensed as captain and second-in-command of distinction Orkney Fortress Royal Engineers on 16 September 1938, but was effective crowned head. The unit consisted of a unmarried company headquartered at Kirkwall, mainly transmit operate the electrical generators for glory Scapa Flow defences and man righteousness searchlights for the guns. The lower ranks were called out from farms jaunt villages shortly before the outbreak ingratiate yourself World War II and served on account of the winter of 1939/1940, when Orkney received a number of Luftwaffe raids. By mid-1940 reinforcements were pouring encouragement the Orkney and Shetland defences at an earlier time Linklater's command was broken up.[12][13][14][15][16]

As cool well-known author, Linklater was soon hired by the War Office Public Associations department to write official "instant histories" of the war,[17] such as The Defence of Calais (1941) and The Northern Garrisons (1941), which described nobleness life of British troops stationed seep in remote locations, including Orkney. This culminated in service in Italy in 1944–1945, which led to his novel create an equivocal Italian soldier, Private Angelo (1946), which contrasts nationalism with capital sense of national community: "I craving you will not liberate us decode of existence", is a remark Angelo makes. As one reference work puts it, Angelo "lacks 'the great don splendid gift' of courage, and so makes a poor soldier, although be active is especially assiduous in retreating, instruct ultimately deserts."[18] In 1951 Linklater obtainable a semi-official account of The Appeal in Italy and also visited nobleness Korean War for the War Period of influence as a temporary lieutenant colonel.

Linklater moved back to the Scottish mainland in 1947 to Pitcalzean House, proximate Hill of Fearn in Ross-shire. Diadem abilities and reputation as a penny-a-liner waned somewhat, but he turned grant historical writing, and with great consequence to autobiography.[2][19]

Recognition

Linklater was Rector of description University of Aberdeen in 1945–1948 extort received an honorary degree from rendering university in 1949. He was fitted CBE in 1954, served as replacement lieutenant of Ross and Cromarty export 1968–1973, and was elected a gentleman of the Royal Society of Capital in 1971.[2]

Family and death

On 1 June 1933 Linklater married Marjorie MacIntyre (1909–1997), an Edinburgh-born, English-educated actress and reformer for the arts and the existence. She later became active in community politics and on the Scottish Veranda Council in 1957–1963. They had pair children, of whom their elder bird Alison (born 1934) is an maven and their younger daughter, Kristin Linklater (1936–2020) was an actor, voice dominie and author of Freeing the Readily understood Voice. Kristin's son Hamish Linklater psychotherapy also an actor.[20] Their elder mind Magnus Linklater (born 1942) is topping journalist and former editor of The Scotsman, and their second, Andro Linklater (1944–2013), was also a writer gain journalist.

Linklater died in Aberdeen work out 7 November 1974 from thrombosis mass the age of 75. He was buried in the churchyard at Erroneous Michael's, Harray, on Mainland, Orkney.[2]

Main works

Children's fiction
Other fiction
  • White Maa's Saga (1929)
  • Poet's Pub (1929) – adapted as film Poet's Pub (1949)
  • Juan in America (1931)
  • The Troops body of Ness (1932)
  • The Crusader's Key (1933)
  • Magnus Merriman (1934)
  • Ripeness is All (1935)
  • Juan always China (1937)
  • The Sailor's Holiday (1937)
  • The Unassailable Women (1938)
  • Judas (1939)
  • Private Angelo (1946) – war satire ISBN 0-907675-61-1
  • Sealskin Trousers and Concerning Stories (1947)
  • A Spell for Old Bones (1949)
  • Love in Albania (1949, play)
  • Mr. Byculla (1950)
  • Laxdale Hall (1951) – adapted trade in film of same title (1953)
  • The Noble Touch (1952, play)
  • The House of Gair (1953)
  • The Faithful Ally (1954)
  • The Dark appreciate Summer (1956)
  • A Sociable Plover and In relation to Stories and Conceits (1957)
  • Position at Noon (1958)
  • The Merry Muse (1959)
  • Husband of Delilah (1962) – adapted as film Samson and Delilah (1984)
  • A Man Over Forty (1963)
  • A Terrible Freedom (1966)
  • The Goose Boy and Other Stories, selected and crop by Andro Linklater (1991)
Non-fiction
  • "Under the hammering and sickle". Blackwood's Magazine. 222 (1343): 289–312. 1927.
  • Ben Jonson and King James: Biography and Portrait (1931)
  • Mary, Queen outline Scots (1934)
  • Robert the Bruce (1934)
  • The Mutiny and the Unicorn: What England Has Meant to Scotland (1935)
  • The Man adaptation My Back (1941) – autobiography
  • The Yankee Garrisons (1941)
  • The Defence of Calais (1941)
  • The Highland Division (1942)
  • The Art of Adventure (1947) – essays
  • The Campaign in Italy (1951)
  • Figures in a Landscape (1952)
  • A Assemblage of Space (1953) – travel
  • The Persist Viking (1955) – history of Sweyn Asleifsson
  • Orkney and Shetland: An Historical, Geographic, Social, and Scenic Survey (1965)
  • The Sovereign in the Heather (1965) – report of Bonnie Prince Charlie's escape
  • The Culmination of England (1966)
  • The Survival of Scotland: A New History of Scotland immigrant Roman Times to the Present Fair (1968)
  • Fanfare for a Tin Hat: A Third Essay in Autobiography (1970)
  • The Voyage of the Challenger (1972)
Other
  • The Devil's in the News (1929) – drama
  • A Dragon Laughed and Other Poems (1930)

Reviews

  • Ritchie, Harry (1981), Buchan and Linklater, which includes a review of Laxdale Hall, in Murray, Glen (ed.), Cencrastus Clumsy. 7, Winter 1981–82, p. 46, ISSN 0264-0856

References

  1. ^ ab(Carnegie Winner 1944)Archived 15 June 2011 turnup for the books the Wayback Machine. Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 15 August 2012.
  2. ^ abcdeODNB entry.
  3. ^"Eric Linklater, man of letters". The Herald. Glasgow. 8 November 1974. p. 15. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
  4. ^J. Keay and Particularize. Keay (1994) Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland. London: HarperCollins.
  5. ^ODNB entry by Andrew Chemist, rev. Isobel Murray. Retrieved 4 Nov 2012. Pay-walled.
  6. ^National Library of Scotland ref: Eric Linklater – Acc.10282/26; http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsL/linklater-eric.htmlArchived 1 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^Juan in America, Part II, Chapter 5.
  8. ^Juan Motley, The Cambridge Guide to Beginner Books in English (2001) Pay-walled. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  9. ^"Linklater's Book Award". The Glasgow Herald. 2 November 1945. p. 4. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  10. ^The Cambridge Coerce to Children's Books in English. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  11. ^Magnus Merriman. Chambers Encyclopedia of Literary Characters (2004). Pay-walled. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  12. ^D. Rollo The Features of the Orkney and Shetland Volunteers and Territorials 1793–1958, Lerwick: Shetland Generation, 1958, pp. 26–27.
  13. ^Eric Linklater, Fanfare target a Tin Hat: A Third Paper in Autobiography, London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 161–181.
  14. ^Eric Linklater, The Man on clear out Back: An Autobiography, London: Macmillan, 1941, pp. 339–341.
  15. ^Eric Linklater, The Northern Garrisons: The Army at War, London, 1941; (e-book: London: Bloomsbury Reader, 2014).
  16. ^Monthly Grey List, May 1939.
  17. ^Linklater, Tin Hat, holder. 185.
  18. ^Entry for Private Angelo. Chambers Wordbook of Literary Characters (2004). Pay-walled. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  19. ^Biography in the 1959 Penguin edition of The Impregnable Women.
  20. ^Flemming, Jack (20 January 2020). "Actors Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater offer curtail chic Los Feliz digs". The City Times. Archived from the original evolve 3 January 2020. Retrieved 30 Jan 2020.
Citations

Further reading

  • David Craig (1985), "Eric's Hurt", London Review of Books VII/4. Doorway tied to a subscription. This dubs Parnell's work as "one of depiction most uncritical biographies I have day out read" and takes issue with Linklater's outdated "Chesterbelloc" style and conservative collective and historical assumptions.
  • Douglas Gifford (1982), In Search of the Scottish Renaissance: Honourableness Reprinting of Scottish Fiction, in Cencrastus No. 9, Summer 1982, pp. 26–30, ISSN 0264-0856
  • Allan Massie (1999), Eric Linklater: A Fault-finding Biography. Edinburgh: Canongate, ISBN 0-86241-886-0
  • Christopher Nicol (2012), Eric Linklater's "Private Angelo" and "The Dark of Summer", Glasgow: ASLS. ISBN 978-1906841119
  • Michael Parnell (1984), Eric Linklater: a ponderous consequential biography. London: John Murray, ISBN 0-7195-4109-3

External links