Martin Martin
was a native Gaelic speaker
from Skye who, in the 1690s, became convinced of the need for a first hand
account of the society, the culture and the natural history of the Western
Isles. He visited and mapped St Kilda in 1697, part of a larger project with
John Adair to map the Hebrides more fully. The most important outcome of his
travels was the publication in 1703 of his classic book: A
Description of the Western Islands of Scotland.
Martin's book stayed in print for over a century after its initial
publication, assisting later travellers like
Thomas Pennant,
James Boswell and
Samuel Johnson. The book
was revived, with a special edition being printed in 1884 as background for the
members of the Napier Commission or the Royal Commission
of Inquiry into the Condition of Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and
Islands. It has since been republished in 1934, 1970, 1999 and, to mark
the tercentenary of its original publication, in 2003.
Like other eBooks whose texts are reproduced on Undiscovered
Scotland, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland
by Martin Martin is long out of copyright. What sets the Undiscovered
Scotland version apart is the cross linking between the text of the book and
features elsewhere on the site, allowing the reader to explore beyond the text
itself, finding out more about the places and people mentioned. The
organisation of the original book has a tendency to ramble: we have taken the
liberty of adding sub-headings to try to make the content more accessible.
