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1st Edition, 8vo (18cm), 190pp, [2] ads, 16pp (illustrated book catalogue for young people), frontispiece illustration and chapter vignettes, publishers cloth with gilt titles to spine and front board, along with an images of a dapper school-boy cricketer (one asks why?). Sunday school prize inscription to front endpaper, dated 1916. Excellent condition. Binding sound. Very little wear. Slight browning to endpapers. Very clean throughout. A few smudges only. A curious historical novel, set in the fictional district of 'Stratharran', and modelled on the Scottish crofters' campaigns of the early 1880s. The author's pseudonym ties the book firmly to Caithness: 'Bower' and 'Watten' being villages in that county. John King Grant (1832-1907) was born in Mortlach, Banff and - as a career journalist - held various editorial posts including at the 'John O'Groat Journal' the 'Birmingham Daily Post' and 'The Northern Ensign'. He held the latter post until the year of his death and he is buried in Wick. The jolly, off-the-peg, cover Illustration chosen by the publisher's binders could not be further removed from the struggles of the Caithness Highland agricultural community, upon which the novel is based. (see Mowat, John: A Bibliography of Caithness, Wick, 1909 p. 65). Seller Inventory # 1492
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