Highland Pack
First Edition:
HIGHLAND PACK | by | NEIL GUNN | [ital] With drawings by | KEITH HENDERSON | [space] | [illustration] | FABER AND FABER LIMITED | 24 Russell Square | London
Collation:
[A] (8), B - I (8), No J, K - Q (8), R (1), R* (9), 138 leaves.
pp. [1] - [2] blank; p. [3] [ital] Highland Pack; p. [4] By the same author; p. [5] Title page; p. [6] [ital] Publisher's and Printer's notices: first published in MCMXLIX; p. [7] For | THE GARDENER; p.[8] blank; pp. 9 - 11 Foreword; p. [12] blank; p. 13 Acknowledgements; p. [14] blank; pp. 15 - 16 Contents; pp. 17 - 274 Text; pp. [275] - [276] blank.
5 3/8" x 8 1/8". Bound in red cloth, spine stamped in gold: [three horizontal lines] | HIGH- | LAND | PACK | [three horizontal lines] | NEIL | M. | GUNN | [space] | FABER
Contents:
This book is mainly a collection of nature stories which first appeared in The Scots Magazine, written under the pseudonym of Dane McNeil, under the general headings of "Memories of the Months" and "A Countryman's Year". Chapter seven was based on "The Mole Catcher", an article in: The Glasgow Herald | Glasgow | 10th. May 1941 | p. 3. Chapter thirty five was based on "In the Wilds of Sutherland", an article in: S.M.T. Magazine | Edinburgh | July 1940 | pp. 22 - 27.
Chapter forty seven was based on "The Factor's Tale", an article in: The Glasgow Herald | Glasgow | 9th. March 1940 | p. 3.
Chapters forty eight to fifty three were based on a series entitled "Islands and Seas" in: Chambers's Journal | Edinburgh |
I From Stornoway to Bernera | February 1940 | pp. 103 - 107.
II Farewell to Bernera | March 1940 | pp. 204 - 207.
III To the Flannan Isles | April 1940 | pp. 285 - 288.
IV The Light that Failed | May 1940 | pp. 348 - 351.
Other Editions:
Richard Drew | Glasgow | 1989 (With a foreword by Dairmid Gunn)
Part of chapter thirty four, "The Gentle Rain from Heaven", comprising pp. 162 - 166 later appeared in: Reflections | Ronald Thomson | Thurso | 1978 | pp. 10 - 12.
Part of chapter thirty one, "The Rose at the Gable End ", comprising pp. 145 - 149 later appeared in: Reflections | Ronald Thomson | Thurso | 1978 | pp. 18 - 20.
An extract comprising part of pp. 56 - 57, part of chapter eleven "March and the Dead Earth" appeared as "Highland Cattle" in: Scotland: An Anthology | D.Dunn, ed. | Fontana | London | 1992 | p. 80.
An extract comprising part of pp. 33 - 35, part of chapter six "The Wild Goose" appeared under the same title in: Scotland: An Anthology | D.Dunn, ed. | Fontana | London | 1992 | pp. 84 - 86.
An extract comprising part of pp. 102 - 104, part of chapter twenty one "Contrasting Regions" appeared under the same title in: Scotland: An Anthology | D.Dunn, ed. | Fontana | London | 1992 | pp. 149 - 150.
An extract comprising part of p. 32 appeared in: Glimpses of Gunn | Ann Yule and Alan Haldane | Neil M. Gunn Memorial Trust | Dingwall | 1990 | p. 25.
Notes:
The Gardener to whom the book is dedicated is Gunn's wife.
According to Professor F.R.Hart in his "A Brief Memoir" (Neil M. Gunn: The Man and the Writer | A.Scott and D.Gifford, eds. | William Blackwood | Edinburgh | 1973) it was Malcolm MacLeod who took Gunn to Bernera. Malcolm MacLeod lived in Stornoway and had once been a crew member Gunn's Father's boat.