Scotland's Pariah

Book excerpt: Scotland’s Pariah is the first book to examine the remarkable life of John Pinkerton: antiquarian, poet, forger, cartographer, historian, serial adulterer, bigamist, and religious skeptic. A pugnacious and persistent man of letters who knew and was admired by literary masters such as Edward Gibbon, Horace Walpole, and William Godwin, Pinkerton’s life was full of personal and professional misadventures. Patrick O’Flaherty’s biography presents an engrossing account of Pinkerton’s life and works from his early years in Scotland to his Parisian exile, covering his major editorial, antiquarian, and geographic works. Examining Pinkerton’s involvement in the London literary scene, his conflicted relationship with the rise of Celtic nationalism, and his response to early literary romanticism, Scotland’s Pariah is a shrewd and compassionate evaluation of an astonishing literary life.