Maxwell's Ghost

MAXWELL’S GHOST An Epilogue to Gavin Maxwell’s Camusfearna by Richard Frere
 
ISBN: 9781912476848
Published: 01 Aug 2019
Format: Paperback
Extent: 256
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
 
ABOUT THE BOOK
First published by Gollancz, then by Balnain, Maxwell's Ghost is a classic account of the life and achievements of Gavin Maxwell, whose work and beliefs have attained an almost mythical status.
 
Maxwell's Ghost caused a stir when it was published in 1976 because it dealt candidly with its subject's homosexual friendships. This aspect of the man had not been common knowledge even among Maxwell's close friends, and certainly had not been touched upon in the 1969 film of Ring of Bright Water which Frere always called 'notably inane' or in Maxwell's memoir from the previous year, Raven Seek Thy Brother. Frere denied sensationalizing in his book. He said that Maxwell had asked him on his death-bed to write it, and 'demanded that I write a true and impartial account'.
 
Maxwell's Ghost is a searing portrayal of Gavin Maxwell through the destruction of Camusfearna to his final acceptance of the inevitability of his death.
 
THE AUTHOR
Richard Frere was born at Roydon Hall, Norfolk, in 1922. When Frere was a child, his father moved to Scotland and after private tutoring he went to Inverness Academy. He instinctively took to the Highlands, and over the course of his life he published a number of works on the area as well as on a variety of other subjects, however, he would probably have remained unknown to the wider world had it not been for his association with Gavin Maxwell and the publication of Maxwell's Ghost in 1976. He died in 1999.