Nan Shepherd

11 February 1893 - 27 February 1981

NS , a Scotswoman, published between 1928 and 1934 three novels and a volume of poems. A volume of nature-writing or memoir about her relationship with the Cairngorm mountains proved unacceptable during the 1940s, and although it appeared as The Living Mountain in 1977, Shepherd never published another book, but confined herself to literary articles in the Aberdeen University Review. Her novels, which render everyday experience in remote, rural locations with modernist intensity and particularity of detail, received critical acclaim on first appearance but were then forgotten until the publishing house of Canongate initiated a revival in 1987.

Milestones

11 February 1893

NS was born at Westerton Cottage in East Peterculter, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. She was the younger of two children. Her brother, Frank, died in South Africa soon after the First World War.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

After August 1977

NS succeeded in publishing her book The Living Mountain: a Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland, which she had written, submitted, and had rejected in the 1940s.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

27 February 1981

NS died in Aberdeen, at Woodend Hospital.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Birth and Family

11 February 1893

NS was born at Westerton Cottage in East Peterculter, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. She was the younger of two children. Her brother, Frank, died in South Africa soon after the First World War.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.