Tour Scotland photograph of the Lewis Grassic Gibbon gravestone at Arbuthnott, Scotland. The gravestone of the famous Scottish author Lewis Grassic Gibbon can be found tucked into a peaceful corner of this cemetery. Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell, born 13 February 1901, died 7 February 1935. Born in Auchterless, and raised in Arbuthnott in the former county of Kincardineshire, Mitchell started working as a journalist for the Aberdeen Journal in 1917 and later for the Farmers Weekly following a move to Glasgow. 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. He married Rebecca Middleton in 1925 and they 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 his 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 stream-of-consciousness, lyrical use of dialect, and social realism, is considered to be among the defining works of the 20th century Scottish Renaissance.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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