Don Roberto

• Selected Writings of Cunninghame Graham edited by Cedric Watts
  Associated University Presses, 212 pp, £13.50, August 1982, ISBN 0 8386 3087 1
• The Scottish Sketches of R.B. Cunninghame Graham edited by John Walker
  Scottish Academic Press, 204 pp, £8.75, August 1982, ISBN 0 7073 0288 9

Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham is one of the puzzles in Scottish literary history. Born in London in 1852, son of a Scottish laird of distinguished ancestry, he spent a considerable part of his youth on his estates, where he developed a strong affection for the Scottish landscape and Scottish traditions. His mother was half-Spanish and he learned Spanish as a child from his Spanish grandmother. He was educated at Harrow and in Brussels. His Hispano-Scottish background led to his being equally involved with Latin America, Spain and Scotland. He embarked on ranching in Argentina at the age of 17 and although that enterprise proved unsuccessful it provided him with a fund of experiences which he later enriched by further adventures in Texas, Mexico and North Africa. His travel sketches and accounts of experiences and characters met with in these adventures constitute an important part of his literary output.