The Other Landscape
First Edition:
The Other Landscape | by | NEIL M. GUNN | [space] | FABER AND FABER | 24 Russell Square | London
Collation:
[A] (8), B - I (8), No J, K - U (8), 160 leaves.
pp. [1] - [2] blank; p. [3] THE OTHER LANDSCAPE; p. [4] By the same author; p. [5] Title page; p. [6] [ital] Publisher's and Printer's notices: First published in MCMLIV; pp. 7 - 318 Text; pp. [319] - [320] blank.
5" x 7 1/2". Bound in green cloth, spine stamped in blue:
[two horizontal upward facing parentheses] | THE | OTHER | LAND- | SCAPE | [ two horizontal downward facing parentheses] | NEIL | M. | GUNN | [space] | FABER
Other Editions:
Richard Drew | Glasgow | 1988 (With a foreword by Dairmid Gunn)
House of Lochar | Colonsay | 1998
Whittles | Dunbeath | 2024
Notes:
The fictional manuscript "Cliffs" by Douglas Menzies, one of the protagonists of this novel, quotes from "Tragedy into Dream", an early story by Gunn from 1931.
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) states that the character of the Major in this novel was based on a person met during the period 1911 - 1921.
In the novel Douglas Menzies scales a sea cliff in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the shepherd in "The Key of the Chest".
The narrator of the book has been commissioned to ascertain the facts behind a manuscript of a story called "Cliffs", submitted to a publisher friend. He visits the author, a virtual recluse since the death of his wife, and strikes up a friendship. The author has become obsessed with "The Other Landscape", or supernatural landscape behind the visible one. A highly complex novel which, nevertheless, contains passages of great humour.