Annals of the Five Senses (1923) was the first book to be published by
C.M.Grieve, the man who became known as Hugh MacDiarmid. It is a
collection of intense psychological studies which put us in mind of
Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. Written in the immediate aftermath
of World War I, these 'studies' are acts of intellectual survival and
promise, some based obliquely on his own life, others daringly
prophetic. Male and female viewpoints are explored 'from the inside'.
This volume also includes MacDiarmid's short fiction - a range of
stories mainly from the 1920s and 1930s, with brilliant vignettes in
vernacular Scots, short plays, a ballet scenario, and hitherto
unpublished material.
MacDiarmid's fiction reveals his unsuspected talents as a storyteller in
genres of domestic comedy, suspense and horror, from the grand guignol
and pastiche of his earliest published tales, including 'The Black
Monkey' (with debts to Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle),
to the devastating comedy of 'The Last Great Burns Discovery' and the
poignant ambiguities of family relationships in 'Andy' and 'The
Jackknife'.
RODERICK WATSON is Professor of Scottish Literature, University of
Stirling.
ALAN RIACH is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Waikato,
New Zealand, and General Editor of MacDiarmid 2000, of which this is the
eleventh volume.
