Fred Urquhart or Frederick Burrows Urquhart (12 July 1912 – 2 December 1995) was a Scottish short story writer, novelist, editor and reviewer.[1] He is considered Scotland's leading short story writer of the 20th-century.[2][3] Writing in the Manchester Evening News in November 1944, George Orwell praised Urquhart's "remarkable gift for constructing neat stories with convincing dialogue."[4]

Early life

Urquhart was born in Edinburgh.[2] His father was chauffeur to wealthy Scottish families, including the Marquess of Breadalbane at Taymouth Castle.[5] He spent much of his childhood in Fife, Perthshire and Wigtownshire.[1] He attended village schools, followed by Stranraer High School and Broughton Secondary School.[5][2]

On leaving school at the age of fifteen, he worked in a bookshop from 1927 to 1934.[3][2] Because he was a pacifist and conscientious objector, during World War II, he worked on the land at Laurencekirk in the Mearns and later at Woburn Abbey.[3][5][1] On visits to London, where he later lived, he met George Orwell and the Scottish painters Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde.[3]

Career

Writer

In 1936, Urquhart published his first short story, followed by his first novel Time Will Knit in 1938.[2][5] He went on to publish four novels and more eight volumes of short stories.[2][3] The novel Jezebel's Dust (1951) is considered one of his best works.[1] Many of his stories were read on the radio.[3] Palace of Green Days was a Book at Bedtime in 1985.[6][3]

Many of his stories revolved around rural life, set in the fictional town of Auchencairn in the Mearns countryside south of Aberdeen.[1][2] The theme of many of these stories was a desire to escape the drudgery of every-day working-class life.[2] One of these stories, "The Ploughing Match," won the Tom–Gallon Trust Award for 1951.[2]

He also wrote many stories about violence against women and was known for the way he sensitively portrayed women.[2][1][5] Compton Mackenzie said Urquhart had a "remarkable talent for depicting women young and old."[2] "We Never Died in Winter" is considered a good example of one of his stories about working-class girls.[2]

In the 1960s, he published several volumes of short stories with historical and supernatural themes.[2] One obituarist said, "His skill was to show characters in everyday, conversational action".

Publishing

Starting in 1947, Urquhart worked as a reader for a literary agency in London until 1951.,[2] From 1951 to 1954 he read scripts for Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer.[5] From 1951 to 1974 he was a reader for Cassell and Company in London.[5][2] He was a London scout for Walt Disney Productions from 1959 to 1960.[2] From 1967 to 1971, he was a reader for J. M. Dent and Sons in London.[5][2]

He had a particular love of horses and edited illustrated anthology The Book of Horses in 1981.[1] He also edited a number of books and wrote reviews for magazines and newspapers.[3]

Awards

• Tom–Gallon Trust Award, for "The Ploughing Match," 1951[2]
• Arts Council of Great Britain grant, 1966[2]
• Arts Council of Great Britain bursary, 1978[2]
• Scottish Arts Council grant, 1975[2]
• Arts Council of Great Britain bursary, 1985[2]

Personal life

Urquhart was homosexual.[1] He moved to Ashdown Forest in East Sussex in 1958 with his companion, the dancer Peter Wyndham Allen, but when Wyndham Allen died in 1990 Urquhart moved back to Scotland.[1] He was a friend of Rhys Davies, with whom he shared a cottage in Tring in 1946,[7] and of Norah Hoult.[8]

Urquhart died in Haddington, East Lothian at the age of 83.[5]

Selected bibliography

Novels

• Time Will Knit (Duckworth, 1938)
• The Ferret was Abraham's Daughter (Methuen, 1949)
• Jezebel's Dust (Methuen,1951)
• Palace of Green Days (Quartet Books, 1979) ISBN 9780704322172

Short story collections

• I Fell for a Sailor (Duckworth, 1940)
• Selected Stories ( Maurice Fridberg, 1946)
• The Clouds are Big with Mercy (William MacLellan, 1946)
• The Last GI Bride Wore Tartan (Serif Books of Edinburgh, 1947)
• The Year of the Short Corn and Other Stories (Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1949)
• The Last Sister (Methuen, 1950)
• The Laundry Girl and the Pole (Arco, 1955)
• Dying Stallion: The Collected Stories, Vol. 1 (Rupert Hart-Davis, 1967)
• The Ploughing Match: The Collected Stories, Vol. 2 (Rupert Hart-Davis,1968)
• Proud Lady in a Cage (Paul Harris Publishing, 1980) ISBN 9780904505900
• Seven Ghosts in Search (Kimber / HarperCollins Distribution, 1983) ISBN 9780718305017
• A Diver in China Seas (Quartet Books, 1980) ISBN 9780704322554
• Full Score: Short Stories (Aberdeen University Press, 1989) ISBN 9780080377193
• A Goal for Miss Valentino (Kennedy & Boyd, 2014) ISBN 9781849211116

Writings in anthologies

• The Unlikely Ghosts (Mayflower Books, 1969) ISBN 9780583116183
• Ten Modern Scottish Stories. Robert Millar, ed. (Heinemann Educational Books, 1973) ISBN 9780435135454
• Scottish Short Stories 1974. (Harper Collins, 1974). ISBN 9780002218917
• Further Modern Scottish Stories. Robert Millar and John Thomas Low, editors. (Heinemann Educational Books, 1976) ISBN 0435135406
• Scottish Ghost Stories. Giles Gordon, ed. (Lomond Books, 1976)
• As I Remember: Ten Scottish Authors recall How Writing Began for Them. Maurice Lindsay, ed. (Robert Hale & Company, 1979) ISBN 9780709173212
• "Lillie Langtry’s Silver Cup". The Fourth Book of After Midnight Stories ( William Kimber & Co Ltd, 1988) ISBN 9780718307028
• "Introduction," Creepy Stories (Bracken Books, 1994) ISBN 9781858911366

Writings in magazines

• "Cristopher Rush: Peace Comes Dropping Slow." The Scottish Review of Books, no. 31, 1983
• "Cooee' Cried the Parrot" Cencrastus, no. 44, 1993.

Compiler or editor

• No Scottish Twilight: New Scottish Stories. (William Maclellan, 1947)
• W.S.C. A Cartoon Biography (Cassell & Company, 1955) ISBN 9780947782757
• Great True War Adventures. (Arco Publishers, 1956) ISBN 9780970822710
• Great True Escape Stories. (Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1958).
• The Cassell Miscellany 1848-1958. (Cassell, 1958).
• Freeman, William. Dictionary of Fictional Characters. Revised by Fred Urquhart. (The Writer, Inc., 1974) ISBN 9780871160850
• Modern Scottish Short Stories (Faber & Faber, 1978) ISBN 9780571119530
• The Book of Horses (1981) ISBN 9780436549359

References