This collected editon of Sorley MacLean brings together published poetry from MacLean's own edited volumes of poetry, poetry previously published in various magazines, literary journals and anthologies, and poetry which has never been published before. The poems are given in their original Gaelic with English translations.

The volume opens with a biographical summary of Maclean's childhood on Raasay, his life at university and war experiences, and examines MacLean's effect on Gaelic and Scottish literature, and his literary, political and philosophical influences, which included Gaelic traditional song, Romanticism and Modernism, as well as Communism and Fascism.

Sorley MacLean was born on the island of Raasay in 1911. He was brought up within a family and community immersed in Gaelic language and culture, particularly song. He studied English at Edinburgh University from 1929, taking a first-class honours degree.

Christopher Whyte is a poet, novelist, translator and critic. Born in Glasgow in 1952 he lived in Italy between graduating from Cambridge in 1973 and returning home to Scotland in 1985. He was Reader in the Department of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University from 1990 until 2005. He lives in Budapest where he is a full-time writer. Emma Dymock works in the Department of Celtic and Scottish Studies Department at the University of Edinburgh.