Manuscripts of Works by Maurice Lindsay

This page lists highlights of Edinburgh University Library's collection of literary manuscripts by Maurice Lindsay.

Poetry

Four notebooks containing undated MS drafts of poems (Gen 2030/2-5)
Galley proofs for the 1946 collection The Enemies of Love (Gen 2030/24a)
MSS of the poems ‘Faint-Hert’, ‘Milk’, ‘The Philosophic Skunk’, ‘Romantics’, ‘Sightseeing, Philadelphia’, ‘Trees by a River’, and ‘Uprooted' (Gen 2030/23)
TS of 'Alba: A Seven-Pairt Fantasie, Dedicate til C. M. Grieve' (E.2000.16)

Fiction

The Maurice Lindsay Papers contain the following manuscripts, bearing witness to Lindsay's little-known work as a writer of fiction:

Broke the Fair Music, TS draft of an unpublished novel co-written with John Glaister (Gen 2030/1)
Partial MS of a further untitled novel (Gen 2030/17)
'The Orra Man', TS of unpublished short story (Gen 2030/21)
‘The Accident’, script for short story broadcast by the BBC Scottish Home Service, 18 December 1946 (Gen 2030/28)

Prose

There are notebooks containing manuscript drafts of the following publications:

Clyde Waters: Variations and Diversions on a Theme of Pleasure (1958) (Gen 2030/9)
By Yon Bonnie Banks: A Gallimaufry (1961) (Gen 2030/10-12)
The Discovery of Scotland (1964) (Gen 2030/8, Gen 2030/10)
The Eye Is Delighted: Some Romantic Travellers in Scotland (1971) (Gen 2030/6-7)
Portrait of Glasgow (1972) (Gen 2030/20)

There is also a manuscript draft and corrected typescript of the monograph Robin Philipson (1976) (Gen 2030/19).

Radio Plays/Dramatic Works

There are typescripts and other working materials for five radio plays:

Ayont the Border, or, A Burns Nicht in Elysium (Gen 2030/24f)
The Faa’s Revenge (co-written with Joyce Gordon Lindsay) (Gen 2030/24e)
Fingal and Comala (Gen 2030/13)
The Rage of Love (Gen 2030/14 and Gen 2030/16c)
Saint Magnus, Earl of Orkney (Gen 2030/24c)

Lindsay's passion for music is reflected in his libretto for Thea Musgrove's 1955 opera The Abbot of Drimock (Gen 2030/24d).

Other Radio Scripts

There are scripts for a number of programmes which Lindsay edited, produced, and/or presented for the BBC Scottish Home Service. These cover a wide range of Scottish literary and musical topics and include features on major figures in Scotland's 20th-century literary and musical renaissance including Hugh MacDiarmid and Francis George Scott. Programmes include:

Chapbook, 1947-1954 (Gen 2030/26a)
Arts Review, 1946-1953 (Gen 2030/26b)
Poetry Diary, 1947-1950 (Gen 2030/26c-e)
Scottish Life and Letters, 1949-1954 (MS 2030/27)
Music Magazine, 1946-1950 (Gen 2030/28)

At Gen 2030/28-29 there are also scripts for radio programmes for children including Children's Hour, Stories from Scottish History, and This is my Country.

Television Scripts

At Gen 2030/29 there are scripts for Border Television programmes which Lindsay produced and/or presented, including Borderline (1961-1968) and Focus (1961). The former include Lindsay's questions for interviews with Eric Linklater, Hugh MacDiarmid, and Compton Mackenzie.

Articles and Reviews

Gen 2030/24b contains a number of typescript reviews and articles on 20th-century Scottish poetry by Maurice Lindsay, along with some reviews of his own works. There are also manuscripts of articles on Francis George Scott and Scottish music at Gen 2030/16 and Gen 2030/18.

Further Details

The above are highlights of Edinburgh University Library's extensive collection of Maurice Lindsay manuscripts. For a fuller listing, see the Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue and Handlist H56.