Portrait of the Border Country

London England: Robert Hale, 1978. Hardback. Slight foxing to edge. Price clipped to D/J. This book is partisan, biassed, dogmatic, opinionated - but then, so is the Borderland. It is one man's picture of the most essentially controversial area of these islands - and he takes sides. Any portrait of the Borders which sought to stay calm, sober, reasonable impartial, would be a travesty; for the very nature of the Border has been to take sides, since sides were. If a border means anything, that is implied. So Nigel Tranter has his excuse. He has endeavoured, nevertheless, to do a kind of justice to the oppisition, He heartily respects the other side of the Border, and recognises virtures, beauties, joys there also, when he assiduously searches - however squandered and neglected these might be. He conceives that if the Borderline was drawn, say, another 40 miltes to the south, all would be well, the Northumbrians and Cumbrians and their counties would be quite excellent. As it is, the excellence is hard to deny, on both sides of the line. Illustrated. 208 pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions etc.). Reprint. Cloth. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Harback.