Of Me and Others. Alasdair Gray

1983 Modest Proposal for Bypassing a Predicament

       1984 1982 JANINE: Epilogue

       1985 Of Alasdair Taylor, Painter

       1985 Of R. D. Laing

       1986 Of Scottie Wilson

       1986 Five Glasgow Artists Show: Catalogue Essay

       1986 Of John Glashan – A Letter

       1988 Of Ian Hamilton Finlay – A Letter

       1989 A Radio Talk on Allegory for Scottish Schools

       1990 Of Elspeth King – A Friend Unfairly Treated

       1990 MCGROTTY AND LUDMILLA: Epilogue

       1990 Preface to J. Withers’ Glasgow Archipelago

       1990 SOMETHING LEATHER: Epilogue

       1990 Of Pierre Lavalle – Catalogue Introduction

       1991 Of Andrew Sykes – Short Story Postscript

       1991 THE FALL OF KELVIN WALKER: Introduction

       1992 POOR THINGS: Acknowledgements, Prologue

       1993 Of Anthony Burgess – Obituary

       1994 Of Jack Vettriano

       1995 LEAN TALES: Postscript

       1996 Of Bill MacLellan – Obituary

       1997 WORKING LEGS: How This Play Got Written

       1999 Preface to Books of Jonah, Micah & Nahum

       2000 THE BOOK OF PREFACES: Postscript

       2000 16 OCCASIONAL VERSES: Endnotes

       2003 FIFTEENTH FEBRUARY

       2004 Of Susan Boyd – Obituary

       2004 THE DECLARATION OF CALTON HILL

       2004 Introduction to The Knuckle End

       2005 Of Philip Hobsbaum – Obituary

       2006 SELF PORTRAITURE

       2006 New Kelvingrove

       2007 LONDON WON’T LET US

       2008 Of Archie Hind – Dear Green Place Epilogue

       2008 FLECK: Postscript

       2009 OLD MEN IN LOVE: Epilogue by S. Workman

       2009 An Upper Clyde Falls Mural

       2012 Hillhead Subway Station Mural

       2013 Of John Connolly – Obituary

       2013 Of Will Self

       2013 Of Bill Hamilton

       2018 HELL: Dante’s Trilogy Part 1: Foreword

       POSTSCRIPT

      Foreword

      MY LAST BOOK WAS CALLED A Life in Pictures. This one might have been called A Life in Prose. It contains reminiscences and essays written between 1952 and 2014 about my own works and those of-friends. Marginal and footnotes give dates of writing or publication. The earliest piece is a speculative essay, apart from which the rest describe what I think facts, though readers will dismiss some as opinions. Three, though mainly factual, diverge into fiction for reasons the notes also explain. My life as a professional author connects most of them. I have improved a few sentences so that my younger self sometimes seems to write better than he did, but no other changes suggest I was wiser in those days than I am now.

      I thought this book would turn out to be a ragbag of interesting scraps. I now think it has the unity of a struggle for a confident culture, a struggle shared with a few who became good friends and thousands I have never met. Every nation has periods of lesser and greater assurance. When I was twenty-one the Scotland I knew was confident in the many goods it made and exported, but many educated people had very little confidence in Scottish visual and literary art, not because we lacked them, but because our education had stopped us seeing them. I believed all good books by Scots must be published in London and would fail if not praised by English book reviewers; also that artists wishing to live by their art had better follow the example of Labour politicians and go to London. This explains the querulous tone of many early essays. I felt my nation was treated as a province, even by many who lived here. I wanted that to stop.

      Being twelve years old when the 2nd World War ended, I belonged to the first generation to benefit by the welfare state in both healthcare and education. Unlike post-Thatcher children we had grants to attend art schools and universities without getting