Author Guide · Scottish Fiction and Nature Writing
Books Written by
In the summer of 1945 Nan Shepherd, a lecturer in English at a teacher-training college in Aberdeen, finished a short book about the Cairngorm mountains. She sent it to one publisher, was turned down, and put the manuscript in a drawer for more than thirty years. When Aberdeen University Press finally printed The Living Mountain in 1977, she was in her eighties, and her three novels, praised on publication between 1928 and 1933, had been largely forgotten. Today The Living Mountain is a set text of British nature writing, and in 2016 her portrait went onto the Royal Bank of Scotland’s £5 note. This guide covers her five key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 5 key books · 1928–1977 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Nan Shepherd published five books: three novels, The Quarry Wood (1928), The Weatherhouse (1930) and A Pass in the Grampians (1933); a poetry collection, In the Cairngorms (1934); and The Living Mountain (1977), written in the 1940s. Start with The Living Mountain, then go back to the novels, which are set in the same north-east Scotland.
Where to Start with Nan Shepherd
If you want her defining book
→ The Living Mountain (1977) — twelve short chapters on the Cairngorms.
If you want her fiction
→ The Quarry Wood (1928) — her first novel, about a girl who goes to university.
If you want the novel set after the First World War
→ The Weatherhouse (1930) — a village of women and one returned soldier.
If you want her poetry
→ In the Cairngorms (1934) — her only collection, written mainly between 1930 and 1934.
5 Nan Shepherd Books, in Order
The Quarry Wood
Her first novel follows Martha Ironside, the daughter of a poor rural family in north-east Scotland, whose decision to go to university is met by her family with both hostility and pride. Much of its dialogue is in Scots. It is often compared with Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song, which appeared four years later. A line from it, “It’s a grand thing to get leave to live”, is carved on her stone in Makars’ Court in Edinburgh.
The Weatherhouse
Set in Fetter-Rothnie, a small fictional community where the women have learned to live without men after the First World War. Garry Forbes, back from the trenches with shell shock, is drawn into the household of mothers, daughters, spinsters and widows at the Weatherhouse. Its current publisher, Canongate, calls it her greatest novel.
A Pass in the Grampians
Her last novel is set on a remote hill farm in the Grampians, in Kincardineshire. Jenny Kilgour, coming of age, has to choose between the hard, careful life of her grandfather and the example of Bella Cassie, a local girl who left to become a singer and comes back to shock the community. She published no more novels after it.
In the Cairngorms
Her only poetry collection, of poems written mainly between 1930 and 1934, many of them about the Cairngorms. Galileo reissued it with a foreword by Robert Macfarlane, adding twelve poems found during research for Charlotte Peacock’s biography of Shepherd.
The Living Mountain
Written during the Second World War and finished in 1945, then left unpublished until Aberdeen University Press brought it out in 1977. Instead of a route to the summit, its twelve short chapters move through the plateau, water, frost and snow, plants, animals, sleep, the senses and, finally, “Being”. Canongate reissued it in 2008, and later editions carry an introduction by Robert Macfarlane; it has sold more than 90,000 copies and been licensed into about a dozen languages.
In What Order to Read Nan Shepherd
Her books do not continue from one another, so order is a matter of taste. Publication order shows a clear arc: three novels about women in the farming communities of north-east Scotland, written in quick succession, then a book of mountain poems, then the prose book about the Cairngorms that she held back for more than three decades.
Most readers now come to her through The Living Mountain and then turn to the novels. All three novels and The Living Mountain are also collected in one volume, Canongate’s The Grampian Quartet, edited and introduced by Roderick Watson.
A reading path
1. The Living Mountain (1977)
2. The Quarry Wood (1928)
3. The Weatherhouse (1930)
4. In the Cairngorms (1934)
5. A Pass in the Grampians (1933)
Everything Else Nan Shepherd Published
Beyond the 5 key books: 1 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Posthumous collections
1
1 book · 2018
- 2018Wild Geeseher magazine and journal articles and previously unpublished poems, edited by Charlotte Peacock
The years · 1893–2016
Quick facts about Nan Shepherd
- Known for
- Nan Shepherd is known for The Living Mountain, her study of the Cairngorms that waited more than thirty years for a publisher and is now counted among the classics of British nature writing.
- 1893
- Born near Cults, Aberdeenshire
- 1928
- The Quarry Wood
- 1945
- Finishes the manuscript of The Living Mountain
- 2016
- On the Royal Bank of Scotland £5 note
- Born
- 11 February 1893, Westerton Cottage, near Cults, Aberdeenshire
- Died
- 27 February 1981, Woodend Hospital, Aberdeen, aged 88
- Education
- MA, University of Aberdeen, 1915
- Worked
- Lecturer in English at the Aberdeen training college for teachers, 1919–1956
- Edited
- Aberdeen University Review, until 1963
- Honours
- Honorary doctorate, University of Aberdeen (1964)
- Banknote
- Royal Bank of Scotland £5 note, 2016
The red mark is 1977: the year The Living Mountain was finally published.
How Nan Shepherd Writes: Into the Mountain, Not Up It
Her novels are set in the farming communities of north-east Scotland she lived among, and much of their dialogue is in the local Scots. Their central figures are women with limited room to move: Martha Ironside going to university against her family’s expectations, the widows and spinsters of the Weatherhouse, Jenny Kilgour choosing between her grandfather’s farm and the world outside.
The Living Mountain turns away from the summit as a goal. Its chapters are arranged by element and sense rather than by route, and she writes that “often the mountain gives itself most completely when I have no destination”. She describes the plateau through touch, smell and sleep as much as sight, and the opening sentence sets the tone: summer on the plateau “can be delectable as honey; it can also be a roaring scourge.”
She wrote little and published nothing new for decades: she spent her working life teaching, and after 1933 wrote reviews and articles rather than novels. That small body of work is now taken seriously again, through Canongate’s reissues from 1987 onwards, Robert Macfarlane’s introductions, and the Nan Shepherd Prize for nature writing, awarded every two years since 2019.
Frequently asked questions about Nan Shepherd’s books
How many books has Nan Shepherd written?
Five in her lifetime: three novels, The Quarry Wood (1928), The Weatherhouse (1930) and A Pass in the Grampians (1933); one poetry collection, In the Cairngorms (1934); and The Living Mountain (1977). Wild Geese (2018) is a later collection of her shorter writing.
What are Nan Shepherd’s books in order?
The Quarry Wood (1928), The Weatherhouse (1930), A Pass in the Grampians (1933), In the Cairngorms (1934) and The Living Mountain (1977).
Where should I start with Nan Shepherd?
With The Living Mountain: it is short, it is her best-known book, and it shows the north-east Scottish landscape her novels are set in. For her fiction, start with her first novel, The Quarry Wood.
What is Nan Shepherd’s most famous book?
The Living Mountain (1977), her book about the Cairngorms. The Guardian has called it “the finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain”.
Why was The Living Mountain not published until 1977?
Shepherd finished it in 1945 and sent it to the novelist Neil Gunn, who thought it might be hard to publish without photographs and a map. One publisher turned it down, and she kept the manuscript in a drawer for more than thirty years before Aberdeen University Press published it in 1977.
Is Nan Shepherd on a banknote?
Yes. In 2016 the Royal Bank of Scotland put her portrait on its new £5 note, with a passage from The Living Mountain. The bank said it had never before featured a woman on its main-issue notes.
Is The Quarry Wood like Sunset Song?
The two are often compared: both are about young women in rural north-east Scotland, and The Quarry Wood (1928) came out four years before Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song (1932).
Is there an audiobook of The Living Mountain?
Yes. Canongate released an audiobook read by Tilda Swinton, with an afterword by Robert Macfarlane and an essay by Jeanette Winterson, each read by its author.
Has Nan Shepherd’s life been adapted?
The play Nan Shepherd: Naked and Unashamed opened at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in 2024 and was revived in 2025. Charlotte Peacock’s Into the Mountain is the first full biography.
When did Nan Shepherd die?
On 27 February 1981, in Aberdeen, aged 88. She had lived most of her life in the same family house in Cults, on Deeside.
Footnotes
- Nan Shepherd — Wikipedia
- ‘To aim for the highest point is not the only way to climb a mountain’ — University of Aberdeen
- Nan Shepherd books — Charlotte Peacock
- Nan Shepherd — Undiscovered Scotland
- Nan Shepherd to feature on Scottish £5 note — The Bookseller, 2016
- The Living Mountain audiobook read by Tilda Swinton — Canongate
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Summer on the high plateau can be delectable as honey; it can also be a roaring scourge.”
— Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain (1977), the first line of the first chapter
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendations