In 2004, Berthold Schoene noted the ‘scholarly neglect and even impending erasure’ that threatened George Mackay Brown's critical reception. It is remarkable that just over a decade later, Brown has come to be regarded as one of the great Scottish writers of the modern era. As already noted, Brown's place in the canon has been firmly established by a number of recent biographical studies, many of which deal with his personal relationships, struggles with alcohol and depression, and influence on other religious people, and so this book will not linger on these subjects in a detailed way. But a number of Brown's writings which display little-known aspects of his faith and its connection to his literary craft remain to be explored. In Brown's letters this connection can be seen best; in these, his maturation from critical young man to a mature and contemplative writer is revealed. The seapinks and stars that are scattered across Orkney's fields and skies are noted as signs of divine presence by Brown, while the hypocrisy and injustice he sees in human nature is, for him, evidence of the Fall. Brown's autobiography is another literary medium entirely, that constitutes defence, construction and literary mode suited to religious expression. After imbibing influence from figures as diverse as Newman, Francis Thompson and Lytton Strachey, the idea of fiction and poetry as ‘a sacramental, a vehicle of grace for those disposed to receive it’, results in Brown's own fresh interpretations of the faith, so that he too becomes a creator-figure, giving glory to God through his imaginatively created universe, and contributing to the process of evangelisation.

This chapter will concentrate on three major biographical strands in order to obtain a clearer idea of Brown's literary Catholicism. It will focus particularly on his correspondence, left in archives and privately owned by his biographer. It will also discuss his autobiography, which we might call the ‘authorised version’ of his religious life, and it will look more broadly at spiritual autobiography written by Brown's contemporaries, to see how his own conversion narratives interact with theirs.

Childhood, Conversion and Lifelong Faith

In his study of Edwin Muir, George Marshall writes that despite Muir's mother's ‘deep respect for religion’, and his father's ‘spontaneous piety’, ‘[t]he family appear to have kept themselves slightly aloof from full commitment to church membership’.