This full-length introductory study, first published in 1983, compares and contrasts these two writers. After setting Gunn and Gibbon in the context of the Scottish Renaissance - arguably, says Douglas Gifford, one of the richest periods of all Scottish Literature - it goes on to give an overview of each writer's work as a whole. This leads to detailed examination of their two most widely known works, Gunn's 'The Silver Darlings' and Gibbon's 'A Scots Quair'. The author shows how these two outstanding examples of the novelists' art, while providing plentiful examples of the qualities and similarities, yet epitomise their essential differences - Gunn's positive hope and Gibbon's negative despair.