No writer is more charismatic than Robert Burns and no biographer has captured his energy, brilliance and radicalism as well as Robert Crawford does in The Bard. To his international admirers Burns was a genius, a hero, a warm-hearted friend; yet to the mother of one of his lovers he was a wastrel, to a fellow poet he was 'sprung...from raking of dung', and to his political enemies a 'traitor'. Drawing on a surprising variety of untapped sources - from rediscovered poetry by Burns...

Young Eliot: From St. Louis to "The Waste Land" was hailed as "exceptional" and "assiduous" ( The New York Times). Robert Crawford's meticulous, incisive scholarship continues in Eliot After "The Waste Land", an invaluable record of the revolutionary modernist, visionary poet, and troubled man.After being kept from the public for more than fifty years, the letters between T. S. Eliot and his longtime love and muse Emily Hale were unsealed ...

"A rich exploration of Eliot's life, his grinding labors and excoriating intelligence." —Edna O'Brien, The New York Times Book ReviewThe award-winning biographer Robert Crawford presents us with the first volume of a comprehensive account of the poetic genius of T.S. Eliot. Young Eliot traces the life of the twentieth century's most important poet from his childhood in St. Louis to the publication of his revolutionary poem "The Waste Land." Crawfor...

Holding in balance the ecological and the technological, ancient and modern, Full Volume sings languages and cultures, people and habitats burgeoning on the brink of extinction. From revved-up battle-cry to nervous whisper, these lyrical poems praise intricate abundance.Assured in its rhymes and cadences, Full Volume is often attentive to poetry in other tongues, not least Gaelic. As their tones and forms shift from the spiritual to the wry, from haiku to bros...

Textual Non Sense is mischievous, minimalist, and revolutionary: a short fuse intended to spark a fundamental re-thinking of how we engage with notions of canon. Classic texts are mangled, quotes are mis-attributed, and great authors are misidentified as Robert Crawford brings literature and chaos theory together in a romance made on Tinder. William Shakespeare of the School of Literature and Bookmaking introduces a survey of writers' struggles. John Buchan provides his gu...

Edinburgh and Glasgow enjoy a famously scratchy relationship. Resembling other intercity rivalries throughout the world, from Madrid and Barcelona, to Moscow and St. Petersburg, to Beijing and Shanghai, Scotland’s sparring metropolises just happen to be much smaller and closer together—like twin stars orbiting a common axis. Yet their size belies their world-historical importance as cultural and commercial capitals of the British Empire, and the mere forty miles between their city centers ...

We all know what religion is - or do we? Confronted with religious pluralism and cultural diversity, it manifests itself in many forms. What is Religion? serves not only as an introduction to the different belief systems flourishing throughout the modern world, but asks us to consider how the very boundaries of faith might be drawn now and in the future. How might religion interact with political ends, or permeate culture, society and everyday life? Is the post-secular world in th...

Life cycle assessment enables the identification of a broad range of potential environmental impacts occurring across the entire life of a product, from its design through to its eventual disposal or reuse. The need for life cycle assessment to inform environmental design within the built environment is critical, due to the complex range of materials and processes required to construct and manage our buildings and infrastructure systems.After outlining the framework for life cycle ...

From Treasure Island to Trainspotting, Scotland's rich literary tradition has influenced writing across centuries and cultures far beyond its borders. Here, for the first time, is a single volume presenting the glories of fifteen centuries of Scottish literature.In Scotland's Books poet Robert Crawford tells the story of Scottish writing and its relationship to the country's history. Stretching from the medieval masterpiece of St Columba's Iona -...

Writings about the Scottish island from throughout history and today, from the likes of novelists, poets, playwrights, saints, queens, and more.This anthology is comprised of creative prose, nonfiction, and poetry that ranges from St. Columba to the present day, all linked by the isle of Iona. Featuring specially commissioned work by Meaghan Delahunt, Jennie Erdal, Sara Lodge, Victoria Mackenzie, Candia McWilliam, Ruth Thomas, and Alice Thompson, this wonderful coll...

After being kept from the public for more than fifty years, the letters between T. S. Eliot and his longtime love and muse Emily Hale were unsealed in 2020. Drawing on these intimate exchanges and on countless interviews and archives, the award-winning biographer Robert Crawford completes the narrative he began in Young Eliot. Eliot After "The Waste Land" tells the story of the mature Eliot during his years as a world-renowned writer and intellectual, including his comple...

To make a testament is to attempt to pass on what matters most. In his seventh full-length collection of poems Robert Crawford writes of love, loss, belief, and commitment. Whether in intimate erotic lyrics or in a sustained engagement with the politics of Scottish independence he writes with passion, wit, and assurance about struggles to pass on values and treasures. The book opens with a sequence of love poems, and closes with ‘Testament’, a startlingly fresh gathering of deftly rhymed p...