Alexander Smith was a Scottish poet who lived from 1830 to 1867. His early poetry was well received, but his later work less so, and he became regarded as a leading member of what was disdainfully called "The Spasmodic School" of Poetry. As a result he largely turned to prose, producing two novels; a book of essays on assorted subjects, Dreamthorp: Essays written in the Country, published in 1863; and his most successful and enduring book, A Summer in Skye published in 1865. The book recounts Smith's travels during the Summer of 1864, much of which he spent on the Isle of Skye. The edition whose text is reproduced here was published in 1912, and comes with an Introduction written by W. Forbes Gray.
A Summer in Skye is an odd mixture, combining superbly written descriptions of the areas across which Smith travelled en route to and while on Skye; remarkable insights into many of the people he encountered on his journey; and a wonderful account of the journey from Portree back to Glasgow in the steamship Clansman in Chapter 15. And, almost as a bonus, the extended description of Edinburgh in the opening Chapter is at least as good as anything anyone else has written about the city, including Robert Louis Stevenson in Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes. On the other hand, there is a lot of unnecessary distraction and padding here, too. Chapter 8 is largely a vehicle for the poetry the author wrote on Skye; Chapter 6 is largely a collection of historical background notes, some relevant to Skye and some definitely not, and which are interesting but far from essential; and Chapter 12 is a detailed account of a mass brawl between farmers and steel-workers in an Ulster town that Smith had witnessed some years previously, and which adds very little to this story.
Despite these doubts about particular parts of the book, A Summer in Skye is a wonderful evocation of a time now lost forever. Alexander Smith fell ill in 1865, the year this book was published, and died in 1867, at the age of 37. This gives a certain poignancy to the book, as with hindsight we know it describes what was to be his last visit, certainly in good health, to areas of Scotland he knew well, and loved deeply.
Like other eBooks whose texts are reproduced on Undiscovered Scotland, A Summer in Skye by Alexander Smith is long out of copyright. What sets the Undiscovered Scotland version apart is the cross linking between the text of the book and features elsewhere on the site, allowing the reader to explore beyond the text itself, finding out more about the places and people mentioned. Alexander Smith, in common with many writers in the 1800s, had a liking for long paragraphs. In order to make his text more accessible to a modern readership, especially on-screen, many of his longer paragraphs have been subdivided here.
To Next Chapter |