Eric Linklater

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Eric Robert Russell Linklater (March 8, 1899-November 7, 1974) was a British writer, known for more than 20 novels, as well as short stories, travel writing and autobiography, and military history.

He was born in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, but was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and Aberdeen University. He spent many years in Orkney, and identified strongly with the islands, where his father had been born. His mother was the daughter of a Swedish-born sea captain who had become a naturalized British citizen and married an Englishwoman. He thus had Scandinavian origins through both parents (the name Linklater is a local Orkney name derived from the Old Norse), and throughout life he maintained a sympathetic interest in Scandinavia.

He was initially a medical student and then went into journalism, becoming a full time writer in the 1930s.

He stood, unsuccessfully, in the East Fife by-election of 1933 as the National Party of Scotland candidate.

Eric's elder son, Magnus Linklater (born 1942) is a journalist and former editor of the The Scotsman. His second son, Andro Linklater, is also a writer and journalist. Eric Linklater's daughter is Kristin Linklater, the renowned actor, voice teacher and author of "Freeing the Natural Voice".

[edit] Locations

Hill of Fearn

[edit] Works

White Maa's Saga (1929) - novel
The Devil's in the News (1929) - play
Poet's Pub (1929) - novel
A Dragon Laughed & other poems (1930)
Juan in America (1931)
The Men of Ness (1932) - novel
Magnus Merriman (1934)
Juan in China
Ripeness is All (1935)
The Impregnable Women (1938) - novel
Judas (1939) novel
The Man on My Back (1941) autobiography
The Wind on the Moon (1944) - children's novel
Private Angelo (1946) - war satire. ISBN 0-907675-61-1
A Spell for Old Bones (1949) - historical novel
The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949) - children's novel
Laxdale Hall (1951)
Figures in a Landscape (1952)
A Year of Space (1953) travel
The Dark of Summer (1956) World War II - novel featuring espionage in the Faroe Islands
A Sociable Plover and other Stories and Conceits - (1957) stories
The Merry Muse (1959)
A Man Over Forty (1963) - novel
A Terrible Freedom (1966) - novel
The Campaign in Italy
The Highland Division
The Goose Girl and Other Stories