Scottish Novels

The fifteen works below are imbued with MacDonald's love of the Scottish countryside and its people. While lists of the author’s “Scottish Novels” typically feature only twelve titles, we’ve included two novellas and one “children’s book” which are similarly set in Scotland. Ten of these works feature extensive passages of dialogue in the Scots tongue (as noted on the pages devoted to each book). Some readers enjoy wrestling with the Scots (Mark Twain and his wife read difficult passages of Sir Gibbie out loud to each other until their meaning became clear). There are two solutions for readers who find the challenge of understanding the Scots passages daunting and prefer to read without having to stop and puzzle out the meaning:

Our illustrated Scots-English editions provide MacDonald’s full original text. In addition, for all passages in the Scots tongue, the original Scots is shown with a side-by-side translation into English by Scotsman David Jack. One can choose to read only the original text, read the book entirely in English, or jump back and forth between the two (a great way to master the Scots!). As of August 2021, we’ve published Scots-English editions of five of these novels, and will be releasing at least one additional title each year. Look for The Marquis of Lossie, the sequel to Malcolm (pictured above), by Christmas 2021.
The Cullen Collection editions of the Scottish novels have been edited by MacDonald expert Michael Phillips, who has abridged most of them to make them more readable and accessible to an American audience. Phillips has done relatively more editing to the longer novels and those whose originals contain extensive dialogue in the Scottish tongue. These he has scaled down and translated, while retaining enough of the Scots language to preserve the flavor of MacDonald’s originals and the sound and feel of MacDonald’s homeland.

For those who enjoy hardcover editions featuring the complete original text, we recommend the gorgeous Sunrise editions, designed by Michael Phillips and sold by WisePath books. A second-best option are the hardcover editions from Johannesen Publishing.

A few other noteworthy editions of these works are noted on the detail pages for each book, along with links containing a wealth of information on each novel.