Follow the maps of the stories
My novels are published with maps – a valuable aid to enjoying and understanding the stories. Many readers, however, have been frustrated by the poor print quality of the maps in the books. Now you can view the maps online or download copies for yourself.
Margaret Elphinstone has published eight novels as well as short stories and poetry. Her fiction is mostly historical and is characterised by her portrayal of people on journeys to places on the edge – islands, frontiers - where cultures and ideas meet and evolve.
THE MOST RECENT NOVEL
The Gathering Night, set among the hunter-gatherers of Mesolithic Scotland, is a story of conflict, loss, love, adventure and devastating natural disaster. This pre-historical novel is set deep in our stone-age past, but resonates as a parable for our troubled planet 8000 years on. read the reviews in full about writing a prehistoric novel and read the reviews.The Gathering Night is published by Canongate Books. ISBN 9781847672889. The second edition was published in 2010.
NEWLY PUBLISHED
Margaret Elphinstone is a contributor to Unstated, a collection of essays on Scottish Independence edited by Scott Hames and published in December 2012 by Word Power Books [ISBN 9780956628398] Margaret and other contributors are appearing Glasgow's Aye Write Book Festival."...Other essays in Unstated - notably those by Denise Mina, Margaret Elphinstone, Kevin MacNeil and Christopher Whyte - resonate all the more powerfully after the vehemence of recent commentary."
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
The antiquaries and authorsIn the September 2012 Newletter of The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Margaret Elphinstone explains why historical novellists and antiquaries need each other. "The imaginative construction of the thoughts and experiences of those who lived in the past ought in no way to be a release from intellectual stringency."
EarthLines
EarthLines is a new journal from Two Ravens Press dedicated to nature, place and the environment. Edition 2 carries an assessment by Margaret Elphinstone of Frank Fraser Darling's seminal Reith Lecture, "Wilderness and Plenty".
See other recent writing
OTHER NOVELS IN PRINT
All of Margaret Elphinstone's novels are in print.Light, Voyageurs, Hy Brasil and The Sea Road are all published by Canongate Books. The Sea Road appears in '100 Best Scottish Books of All Time'produced by the List Magazine.
Gato is published by Sandstone Press for new and emergent adult readers. Margaret Elphinstone's three earliest novels, Islanders, A Sparrow's Flight and The Incomer or Clachanpluck, have all been republished by Kennedy & Boyd.