Edwin Muir (1887–1959) was well known and celebrated in his lifetime. Championed by T.S. Eliot, he had his collected and selected poems published by Faber, he was awarded the CBE, he wrote scores of reviews for highbrow journals and published many other works, including a well-received autobiography, as well as some novels. Willa Muir, née Anderson (1890–1970), although – more or less – content to play second fiddle to her poetic husband, was also a formidable and prolific writer. She produced two novels, and probably could and should have written a lot more, as well as a range of critical essays on women and on Scottish identity. Together – though it was really Willa who was the driving force – they translated a number of modernist German writers, most famously Franz Kafka, in editions that have only recently been replaced.

Lives
Edwin was born on Orkney, and had a happy early childhood, before his family was forced to move, first to a less successful farm on a neighbouring island and then to Glasgow. Taking various disagreeable clerical jobs, he was rescued when he met Willa Anderson soon after the First World War. Willa had grown up in Montrose, on the Scottish east coast, but her family were originally from the Shetlands, and the dialect of those islands was spoken at home. Like Edwin, she was conscious of being both Scots and an outsider. She had graduated with a first-class degree in Modern Languages at St. Andrews, one of the first Scottish women to have such a successful undergraduate career. She gave ...