Preserved Edinburgh Society
 CLAN DONALD GENEALOGY

Eric LINKLATER, of Dounby

Male 1899 - 1974  (75 years)


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  • Name Eric LINKLATER 
    Suffix of Dounby 
    Born 8 Mar 1899 
    Gender Male 
    Died 7 Nov 1974 
    Person ID I3452  My Genealogy
    Last Modified 28 Nov 2021 

    Father Captain Robert LINKLATER, of Dounby,   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Family ID F2120  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Notes 
    • The Scottish novelist, Eric Linklater (1899-1974) was a prolific writer of novels, popular histories and children's stories. 1932. He was born in 1899, the son of Captain Robert Linklater, of Dounby, Orkney. According to some sources, Eric Linklater was born there in Dournby, Orkney Islands, but it was not until in his third volume of autobiography, FANFARE FOR A TIN HAT, when he corrected the birth place: it is Penarth, Wales. "I have never said that I was born in Orkney, but my close connections with the islands prompted that assumption." However, Linklater regarded the islands as his spiritual home. His father was a master mariner and the family moved back to Orkney when Linklater was very young. He attended the Intermediate School for boys and Aberdeen Grammar School. In 1916 he entered the Aberdeen University to read medicine and English.

      A young soldier during the '14 - '18 war, he was seriously wounded in France while serving with the Black Watch. He continued his studies of medicine and English at Aberdeen, receiving his M.A. in 1925. From 1925 to 1927 he worked as an assistant editor of The Times of India in Bombay. He returned to university work in Aberdeen and in the United States, but his inclination was for writing. His first novel, WHITE-MAA'S SAGA, an autobiographical story about a young Orcadian who attends medical school in 'Inverdoon', published in 1929, gained immediate appreciation, especially in his native islands. Thereafter a stream of novels, essays, and plays placed him in a foremost position among modern authors. The play THE DEVIL'S IN THE NEWS (1929) concerns a s