R. B. Cunninghame Graham and Scotland

Abstract

This multidisciplinary work explores the complex life of the most controversial and enigmatic Scot of his generation, and his contribution to Scottish life and letters. R. B. Cunninghame Graham was a very well-known and hugely influential figure in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Scottish politics and literature, and the book explores his early political views, his time as a Member of Parliament, his disillusionment with the Liberal Party, his arrest and imprisonment, and his reputation as the first declared ‘socialist’ M.P. Using documentary evidence and tangible philosophical links, the book traces Graham’s early political influences, derived directly or indirectly from key nineteenth-century figures, particularly William Morris, and his friendships with George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and Joseph Conrad. It also examines Graham’s anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and anti-racist speeches and writings, and his active support for women’s rights and universal suffrage, his relationship with Keir Hardie, and their founding of the first party of Labour in Britain, his later active support for Irish and Scottish independence, and his highly original evocations of Scottish landscape and character. The book strips away the mythology surrounding Graham to reveal an altogether more complex picture, exploring his political and literary achievements, during a time of enormous political, economic, and cultural upheaval, the reverberations of which are still ongoing.