A Charmed Life tells the story of Liza Campbell, the last child to be born at the impressive and renowned Cawdor Castle, the same locale featured in Shakespeare's Macbeth. It was at the historical ancestral home that Liza's seemingly idyllic fairytale childhood began to resemble a nightmare.
Increasingly overwhelmed by his enormous responsibilities, Liza's father Hugh, the twenty-fifth Thane of Cawdor, tipped into madness fueled by drink, drugs, and extramarital affairs. Over the years, the castle was transformed into an arena of reckless extravagance and terrifying domestic violence, as Liza and her siblings watched their father destroy himself, his family, and their centuries-old legacy.
Painstakingly honest, thoroughly entertaining, and sharply written, Campbell's contemporary fairytale tells of growing up as a maiden in a castle where ancient curses and grisly events from centuries ago live on between its stone walls.
" A] courageous memoir . . . a page turner set among moats, drawbridges, and portcullises both real and metaphorical." --Vogue
"Superbly written." --Harper's Bazaar
"Poignant . . . lovely." --Entertainment Weekly
"Edged with relentless wit . . . A Charmed Life is a] nightmarish memoir that gives fiction a run for its money." --Kirkus Reviews
"Intriguing... a] highly readable story...extraordinary." --Tucson Citizen

When John McPhee returned to the island of his ancestors--Colonsay, twenty-five miles west of the Scottish mainland--a hundred and thirty-eight people were living there. About eighty of these, crofters and farmers, had familial histories of unbroken residence on the island for two or three hundred years; the rest, including the English laird who owned Colonsay, were incomers. Donald McNeill, the crofter of the title, was working out his existence in this last domain of the feudal system; the laird, the fourth Baron Strathcona, lived in Bath, appeared on Colonsay mainly in the summer, and accepted with nonchalance the fact that he was the least popular man on the island he owned. While comparing crofter and laird, McPhee gives readers a deep and rich portrait of the terrain, the history, the legends, and the people of this fragment of the Hebrides.

The nineteenth century was a period of profound change in Scottish history. Industrialisation, improved communications, agricultural transformation, country to town migration, upheavals in the church, increased trade, and imperialism - all these affected the pace and rhythm of everyday life across the country. At the same time increased literacy helped to generate new patterns of identity, extending beyond the local to encompass the nation, which challenged certainties of how the world was viewed. With new styles of living came new dangers to the physical and moral health of the population, and increased apprehension of crime and disorder. Industrialisation created opportunities for consumption and recreation but with tangible environmental and economic costs. Rural Scotland adjusted to changes in farming practice and the traumas of population loss and began to look to the opportunities presented by recreation and tourism. The large-scale creation and survival of documentary evidence and records make the study of everyday life during this period practicable in depth for the first time. This volume presents a vivid account that includes the experiences of all the people of Scotland. It draws on every kind of available evidence and on work in social and cultural history, sociology and anthropology.The series will be complete in four volumes. x and x are already available. x is forthcoming.

At the end of the thirteenth century, the oppressed people of Scotland rebelled against their despised English ruler, Edward Longshanks. In Freedom's Cause recounts the Scots' desperate but ultimately triumphant struggle in the face of overwhelming odds -- a hard-fought series of battles conducted under the leadership of William Wallace and Robert Bruce.
Time has burnished the feats of these great heroes to mythic proportions, but Wallace and Bruce were real people. This gripping tale of courage, loyalty, and ingenuity recounts their deeds within an accurate historical context. Readers join their company alongside a fictional protagonist, young Archie Forbes, whose estates have been wrongfully confiscated. Archie forms a group of scouts to fight alongside the legendary Scottish chieftains (who were memorably portrayed in the film Braveheart) for their country's independence.
In Freedom's Cause is one among the many historical novels for young readers by George Alfred Henty. A storyteller who specialized in blending authentic historical facts with exciting fictional characters, Henty produced more than 140 books and achieved a reputation as The Prince of Storytellers. Immensely popular and widely used in schools for many years, Henty's novels continue to fire young imaginations with their spirited tales of adventure amid exciting historical eras.

This is a one-volume history of medieval Scotland, concentrating on the period between the middle of the eleventh century and the Reformation and taking full account of recent scholarship. It is primarily a political and ecclesiastical study, analysing the development of the institutions of the Scottish state, conflict and co-operation between the crown and the nobility, relations with external powers, the history of the church in Scotland, and the formation of a distinctive Scottish identity. The Wars of Independence are examined in their historical context, and elements of identity and change are identified across the whole period. Particular emphasis is placed upon relations between core and periphery in medieval Scotland and on the difficulties experienced by the crown in imposing royal authority in the north and west.

The remarkable Mary Nisbet was the Countess of Elgin in Romantic-era Scotland and the wife of the seventh Earl of Elgin. When Mary accompanied her husband to diplomatic duty in Turkey, she changed history. She helped bring the smallpox vaccine to the Middle East, struck a seemingly impossible deal with Napoleon, and arranged the removal of famous marbles from the Parthenon. But all of her accomplishments would be overshadowed, however, by her scandalous divorce. Drawing from Mary's own letters, scholar Susan Nagel tells Mary's enthralling, inspiring, and suspenseful story in vibrant detail.