One of the central figures of twentieth-century Scottish literature, Edwin Morgan was a prolific letter-writer. His correspondence, like his poetry, is wide-ranging, full of generosity and enthusiasm, and above all a testament to his lifelong commitment to exploring the possibilities of poetry. This selection of his letters, spanning Morgan’s full career as a teacher and writer, enables readers to track the development of his ideas, his friendships and his creative collaborations. At the same time it provides a superbly engaging portrait of a man with a boundless interest in the fast-changing world around him.

Edwin Morgan (1920-2010) was born in Glasgow. He served with the RAMC in the Middle East during World War II. He became lecturer in English at the University of Glasgow, where he had studied, and retired as titular Professor in 1980. He was Glasgow's first Poet Laureate and from 2004 until 2010 served as Scotland's first Makar, or National Poet. He was made an OBE in 1982 and received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2000. A Book of Lives (2007) won the Scottish Arts Council Sundial Book of the Year. Carcanet has published most of his work, including his Collected Poems, Collected Translations, plays such as A.D.: A Trilogy of Plays on the Life of Jesus Christ and The Play of Gilgamesh and his translations of Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac and Racine's Phaedra. The Edwin Morgan Trust and partners will be celebrating Edwin Morgan’s 100th year in 2020 – 2021.Commencing on Edwin Morgan’s birthday, April 27, 2020 and continuing until April 2021. For more information on #edwinmorgan100, of their biannual Edwin Morgan Poetry Award and Translation Exchanges please visit their website. James McGonigal was Professor of English in Education at the University of Glasgow. His Edwin Morgan biography was the Saltire Scottish Research Book of the Year. Dr John Coyle is a Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Glasgow, where he specialises in comparative literature and the twentieth-century novel. His main research interests lie in the field of modernist and postmodernist literature from an international perspective. He has published articles on F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alain-Fournier, Proust and Joyce, and has edited two introductory studies on Joyce. He is currently writing on the relations between literary modernism and advertising, and on recent American fiction.