Nan Shepherd

Anna Shepherd, better known as Nan, excelled as an author, poet, teacher and mountaineer. Today she is celebrated as one of Scotland’s foremost modernist writers who masterfully explored the landscape of her native Aberdeenshire through poetry, prose and non-fiction.

Nan’s first novel The Quarry Wood was published in 1928, with The Weatherhouse and A Pass in the Grampians following soon after. The three works are set in North-East Scotland against a backdrop of the harsh landscape. They explore the tension between tradition and modernity. Nan’s writing is a compassionate and humorous portrayal of the remote country communities that she knew and loved. During the 1940s she wrote her non-fiction work The Living Mountain. Not published until 1977 it was described as “the finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain”, and explores her deep understanding and passion for the Cairngorm mountains.