The Ghost at the Feast

The essays collected in this book explore religious beliefs in a wide range of Scottish literature, and how these beliefs have been treated in Scottish criticism. Taking up Crawford Gribben's challenge that Scottish literary criticism has long been distorted by anti-Calvinist bias, especially in treating 16th and 17th century Scottish writing, the contributors broaden the discussion to discuss religious belief, and anti-religious critical bias or misunderstanding, in writers from the 18th century to the present, and from varied Scottish religious traditions, Episcopalian and Catholic, as well as Presbyterian. The book makes available Crawford Gribben's original essay, nine essays on individual works or writers previously published in Studies in Scottish Literature, with an introduction by Patrick Scott, an afterword by Crawford Gribben, and a checklist of suggested further reading on religion in Scottish literature. Contributors include Kelsey Jackson Williams on Archibald Pitcairne, Robert Irvine on John Galt's Annals of the Parish, Joanna Malecka on Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Wickman on Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Gerard Carruthers on A. J. Cronin, Brooke McLaughlin Mitchell on Fionn Mac Colla, Richard Rankin Russell on Muriel Spark, Petra Johana Poncarová on Derick Thomson, and Alison Jack on James Robertson.