The Old Red Sandstone

WINNER OF THE RESEARCH CATEGORY IN SCOTLAND'S NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS 2023

This edition of The Old Red Sandstone is the first truly new one for a century. It comes in two volumes: Volume 2 reprints the original, and now rare, first edition in facsimile with notes and glossary. Volume 1 explores how Miller wrote his book and why it was so important.

Ross-shire born polymath Hugh Miller (1802-56), self-taught stonemason, geologist and writer, was famous in his lifetime across the English-speaking world. On one level, The Old Red Sandstone is a description of the geology of Cromarty, Ross-shire, with diversions into its scenery, history and folklore, but it is also an autobiographical memoir and work of literature. It was enormously popular on its first publication in 1841.

The editors have combined their expertise – in history, English literature, Celtic languages and culture (Ralph O’ Connor) and palaeontology, museums, history of geology (Michael A Taylor) – to annotate the text of this most idiosyncratic book for a new generation of readers, and to provide a critical study.

In a pre-Darwinian era, Hugh Miller reconciled his geological knowledge with his religious beliefs and his reader-friendly writings encouraged in others an interest in fossils. His writings are, as novelist James Robertson says in the Foreword, still very readable and relevant today.