Auld Reekie

For centuries Edinburgh, "the most beautiful city in Europe" according to John Betjeman, has inspired affection, admiration, and awe from both natives and visitors alike. This absorbing anthology has cast a net far and wide, trawling through speeches, memoirs, letters, poetry, novels, journals, lectures, and guides. Spanning 500 years of the city's history, from the Municipal Proclamation after the Battle of Floden to the novels of Ian Rankin, names as celebrated as Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson stand alongside less familiar visitors such as the Chinese writer Chiang Yee. This book will be treasured by all those who love the city of Edinburgh and the hundreds of thousands of visitors drawn every year to Auld Reekie, now in the full flood of social, political, and cultural renaissance which might tempt some to regard Athens as the "Edinburgh of the South."

"What a wonderful collection! There are historical snippets, garnered from a very wide range of sources, well-known and not-so-well known facts, statistics, and vignettes of the characters and incidents that have made the city so interesting and appealing. And these have been chosen with care, humor, and—most important of all—with love."  —Alexander McCall Smith, from the introduction

"A rich compilation of writings on the city. The compiler . . . could not have devised a finer tribute . . . a treasure of a book."   —The Scots Magazine

". . . hard put to match the style and grace and eye for the unusual of this personal selection."  —The Herald

Ralph Lownie was born in Edinburgh in 1924 and was educated there at George Watson's and Edinburgh University. He is a Writer to the Signet and a member of the Faculty of Advocates. Alexander McCall Smith is a writer of fiction, mostly widely known as the creator of the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.