The Golden Bird

Two Orkney Stories

George Mackay Brown author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Birlinn General

Published:27th Jun '19

£8.99

Available to order, but very limited on stock - if we have issues obtaining a copy, we will let you know.

The Golden Bird cover

These two long stories are set, like most of George Mackay Brown’s work, in Orkney and in a period, the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the pattern of island life, little changed since Viking times, was beginning to be threatened.

The Golden Bird tells the story of the slow decline of an island community: a scattered village dependant on the sea for its livelihood and at risk from it, a place subject to the peculiar tensions of isolation and the unsettling influence of new values.

The Life and Death of John Voe looks at the life of a typical young Orkney man: after whaling and sailing and gold-mining he comes home to devote the rest of his days to a beautiful country girl.

These stories are the creation of a very rich imagination, of a practised and skillful writer, but they also have the power and simplicity of the traditional ballad. They will delight Mackay Brown’s fans.

ISBN: 9781846975080

Dimensions: 195mm x 130mm x 20mm

Weight: 261g

272 pages

Reissue