Tour Scotland Photograph Lewis Grassic Gibbon Gravestone Arbuthnott

Tour Scotland photograph of the Lewis Grassic Gibbon Gravestone, Arbuthnott, Scotland. Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell, born 13th February 1901, died 7th February 1935. Born and raised in Arbuthnott, Aberdeenshire, Mitchell started working as a journalist for the Aberdeen Journal and the Scottish Farmer at age 16. In 1919 he joined the Royal Army Service Corps and served in Iran, India and Egypt before enlisting in the Royal Air Force in 1920. In the RAF he worked as a clerk and spent some time in the Middle East. He married Rebecca Middleton in 1925, with whom he settled in Welwyn Garden City. He began writing full-time in 1929. Mitchell wrote numerous books and shorter works under both his real name and nom de plume before his early death in 1935 of peritonitis brought on by a perforated ulcer.

Mitchell attracted attention from his earliest attempts at fiction, notably from H.G. Wells, but it was his trilogy entitled A Scots Quair, and in particular its first book Sunset Song, with which he made his mark. A Scots Quair with its combination of realist narrative and lyrical use of dialect is considered to be among the defining works of 20th century Scottish Renaissance.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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