ABSTRACT
Scotland has a distinctive place in the history and development of British children's literature. Peter Pan (J.M.Barrie) and Henry Baskerville (Arthur Conan Doyle), Mr Toad (Kenneth Grahame) and Kevin and Sadie (Joan Lingard) were all created by Scottish writers. Writing and publishing for children in Scotland has been active for several hundred years, arising in the beginning out of a unique tradition with three languages (Scots, Gaelic and English) and two cultures (Highland and Lowland). Writing for children both merges with and diverges from writing for adults, and before the thirteenth century flows from a rich oral tradition of sung ballads and chivalric romance. Best known are the ‘border ballads’ which Sir Walter Scott, among others, brought together in the nineteenth century. Joseph Jacobs's collections of Celtic fairy tales (1892 and 1894) are still favourites with children.
