The contributors to this volume on Scottish prose fiction in the first half of our century provide an analysis of typically Scottish features in Scottish literature and evaluate the new approach taken by many authors after the Kailyard literature. The volume shows literature in its socio-cultural context and is considered to be the logical sequel to the book on nineteenth-century literature (Drescher/Schwend, 1985). The authors whose works are dealt with comprise the internationally-known figures and also less well-known writers. Among others there are Buchan, Gibbon, Gunn, MacDiarmid, Mitchison, Edwin and Willa Muir, and Nan Shepherd. The Scottish literature of the period shows a surprising diversity and inventiveness, but it never loses its links with Scottish national identity.