Subject
Skye, Island of (Scotland) -- Description and travel Books
Best books
Alexander Smith
A summer in Skye, Volume 1 (of 2)
"A summer in Skye, Volume 1 (of 2)" by Alexander Smith is a travelogue and reflective essay collection written in the mid-19th century. It traces a summer journey from Edinburgh through the Highlands and western lochs to the Isle of Skye, blending vivid nature writing with history, art, and social observation. Readers can expect lyrical landscapes, portraits of towns and people, and opinionated meditations on Scottish identity and culture. The beginning of the book sets the narrator in heat-stricken Edinburgh, longing for escape and praising the restorative idleness of the Highlands while advocating light, simple travel. He sketches an expansive portrait of the city—its literature and critics, Scott’s outsized legacy, show-stopping beauty by day and night, the grandeur and squalor of the Old Town, intellectual pretensions (with barbed shots at Jeffrey), and the seasonal rhythms of art exhibitions and the General Assembly’s pageantry. The tone is essayistic and digressive, moving from civic pride and social satire to the spiritual spell of the past that saturates Edinburgh’s streets. The journey then unfolds: Stirling’s views and the Wallace Monument spark reflections on nationality; Doune and its castle; Callander, the Pass of Leny, Loch Achray, and the Trosachs to Loch Katrine; on to Inversneyd and Loch Lomond, the “Cobbler,” and the steep solitude of Glencroe; St Catherine’s and a humorous coachman; Inverary and Duniquoich; Loch Awe, Kilchurn Castle, and Ben Cruachan; and the bustle and rain of Oban. A swift run up the Caledonian route brings Fort William (with a visit to the famed distiller “Long John”), Loch Ness, and Inverness, capped by a sunset reverie on Culloden Moor. Finally, arrangements are made to reach Skye, and the section closes with a miserable pre-dawn coach ride to Dingwall.
Alexander Smith
A summer in Skye, Volume 2 (of 2)
"A summer in Skye, Volume 2 (of 2)" by Alexander Smith is a travelogue written in the mid-19th century. It traces a reflective journey across the Isle of Skye, blending lyrical landscape description with portraits of island life, customs, and class relations among lairds, tacksmen, cotters, and fishermen. The narrator dwells on place, memory, and change, moving between scenic wonder and social observation. The opening of this volume immerses the reader in Skye’s antiquated atmosphere, then sketches the paternal, clanlike household of Mr M’Ian—a tacksman who keeps rent-free cotters, dispenses porch‑door justice, and binds the community through old obligations—before contrasting him with “the Landlord,” a wealthy, India-hardened reformer who manages tenants directly, runs a “penal” crofting scheme on reclaimed “black land,” and oversees a plain but purposeful school. A storm and flood frame the narrator’s departure, leading to a vivid, stage-by-stage journey—Isle Oronsay, Broadford, Sconser, Sligachan, Portree, Skeabost’s island graveyard—with a robust defense of the smoky Highland hut against urban misery. At the Landlord’s, we see affectionate chaos of pets, Gaelic deputations, village visits, levées at turf walls, and the schoolroom’s earnest geography and sums, all revealing a strict yet benevolent social experiment. The section closes with a drive toward Dunvegan via Orbost: legends at the Fairy Bridge, clan feuds (Trompon and Eigg), the sight of Macleod’s Tables and Maidens, an incongruously modern house set in a haunting coastal landscape, and ruins that echo the clan’s dwindling grandeur.
Recently surfaced classics