Edited and introductions by Roderick Watson. The Quarry Wood, although published well before Sunset Song, inhabits a similar world; the progress of its heroine could almost be the alternative story of a Chris Guthrie who did go to university. Compassionate and humorous, the grace and style of Shepherd's prose is heightened by a superb ear for the vigorous language of the north-east. The Weatherhouse, Shepherd's masterpiece, is an even more substantial...

…for Witch Wood specially I am always grateful; all that devilment sprouting up out of a beginning like Galt's Annals of the Parish. That's the way to do it. - C. S. Lewis Published in 1927, Scottish writer John Buchan's Witch Wood is set in a rural parish located in the Scottish Borders during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The story centers around newly-ordained minister David Sempill's arrival in Woodilee in the wake of the Church of Scotland's...