Shetland Publishing Company is delighted to announce the publication of Superpuffin, available from June 2006

Website: superpuffin -- http://www.superpuffin.com

Early SPC publications still available - prices in NZ$

To order please email
Ewen Mackenzie-Bowie
Shetland Publishing Company
Auckland NZ
Email: ShetlandBooks@mackenzie-bowie.com

The following early editions of Shetland Publishing Company are available in very small numbers. Although “unread”, and technically new, some show the marks of time and this is reflected in the prices.

A Shetland Country Merchant by Robert L. Johnson. SPC’s first publication, a fascinating glimpse into the “good old days” of the 19th century, a period when most Shetlanders were at the mercy of the Truck System, having to fish for the laird or a merchant appointed by him. Many opted for adventure in the colonies, and this book contains some of their letters home from the goldfields of Victoria and California. PB First Edition 1979. ISBN 0 906736 02 1. Price $9.95

Jakobsen and Shetland by Roy Grønneberg. This is the first full-length biography of the eminent Faroese scholar Jakob Jakobsen, the first person to apply scientific principles to researching the Shetland dialect. Jacobsen travelled extensively in Shetland at the end of the 19th century and his insights present not only primary findings on the development of the dialect but also a fascinating observation of life in Shetland at the turn of the century. PB First Edition 1981. ISBN 0 906736 03 X. Price $9.95

Up-Helly-Aa by James W. Irvine. Writing at the centenary of the first Up-Helly-Aa, Jimmy Irvine celebrates the most famous mid-winter Shetland festival, which culminates in the burning of a Viking ship. (Celebrated in Auckland today by members of the Shetland Society by burning a galley in a swimming pool – in mid-summer of course!) The roots in the tar barrels, the music, how to make a torch, noted characters, changing routes, footing the bill – all the traditions and developments in the events of the last Tuesday in January, over a century, brought to life by one of Shetland’s most eminent and prolific authors. HB First Edition 1982. 40 illustrations, some in colour. ISBN 0 906736 04 8. Price $19.95

The Memory Be Green by Dorothy Jamieson. “Jim had said, ‘Spend a winter in Shetland; if you still like the idea, we’ll build a house there …’” Dorothy Jamieson tells of the halcyon days before oil changed Shetland forever, when she arrived on Fetlar one November with a suitcase and two Siamese cats; days when “some of us tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.” PB First Edition 1988. ISBN 0 906736 11 0. Price $9.95

The Ranselman’s Tale by Laurna Robertson. An elegant dramatic poem about the wrecking of El Gran Grifón on Fair Isle in 1588 – the flagship of the Spanish Armada. A Ranselman is a teller of stories, whether fact or myth, and in time the distinction between the two becomes less clear. Here we have the story of how Juan Gomez de Medina and 300 sailors and soldiers landed on an island with considerably fewer inhabitants, yet did not take it by force, and indeed, on return to Spain secured the release of a Scottish ship and her crew from the attentions of the Inquisition. PB First Edition 1990. ISBN 0 906736 13 7. Price $9.95

Shetland Publishing Company announces the forthcoming appearance of Superpuffin.

Ewen Mackenzie-Bowie, Director, Shetland Publishing Company, and Nathalie, are delighted to announce the birth of their second son, Maxim Jean Paul, on 17th December 2002.

Please note that Shetland Publishing Company has a new email address:

ShetlandBooks@mackenzie-bowie.com

In 2001 Ewen and Nathalie Mackenzie-Bowie moved to New Zealand, and shortly afterwards produced Thomas Louis James, heir to the publishing empire – a modest empire, as befits a vigorous exponent of the Caledonian reductive syllogism!

Therefore, while post-free deliveries still pertain to the EU, the Company is delighted to extend free postage to New Zealand.

Told Round the Peat Fire and Shadowed Valley cost $29.95 and A Shetland Anthology $49.95.

Shetland Publishing Company is delighted to welcome all its website visitors to the 21st century!

Shetland Publishing Company was incorporated in November 1978 and since then has produced on average one book per year on Shetland and on what is of interest to Shetlanders. In this time the Company has undergone metamorphoses as great as the Anthology itself, the most recent in 1993; and it is now with enormous pleasure that the new Shetland Publishing Company presents A Shetland Anthology, the most considerable anthology of Shetland poetry yet.

The publisher is proud to inherit and further the fine name of the Company and its partners during most of its history: Sandy Cluness, Jimmy Irvine, John Graham and my father, Hamish Bowie.

Ewen Mackenzie Bowie
Director.