17 Facts About Nan Shepherd

Anna "Nan" Shepherd was a Scottish modernist writer and poet, who authored the memoir, The Living Mountain, based on experiences of hill walking in the Cairngorms.

Nan Shepherd wrote poetry and three novels set in small fictional communities in Northern Scotland.

For most of her working life, Shepherd was a lecturer in English at the Aberdeen College of Education.

Nan Shepherd was born on 11 February 1893 at Westerton Cottage, Cults, near Aberdeen, the second child of Jane Smith and John Nan Shepherd.

Nan Shepherd's father was a civil engineer and her paternal grandparents were farmers, her maternal grandfather was a tailor in Aberdeen and her uncle was local architect William Kelly.

Nan Shepherd then lived there for most of her life.

Nan Shepherd attended Cults primary school and Aberdeen High School for Girls, after which she studied at the University of Aberdeen, graduating with an MA in 1915.

Nan Shepherd retired from teaching in 1956, and in her retirement edited the Aberdeen University Review until 1963.

Nan Shepherd remained unmarried, due in part to the massive death toll of the First World War, which had an important demographic impact on her generation.

On 27 February 1981, Nan Shepherd died at Woodend Hospital, Aberdeen.

Nan Shepherd was a major contributor to early Scottish Modernist literature.

Nan Shepherd's fiction brings out the sharp conflict between the demands of tradition and the pull of modernity, particularly in women's lives.

Nan Shepherd is commemorated in Makars' Court outside the Writers' Museum, in Edinburgh's Lawnmarket.

The best-known image of Nan Shepherd is a portrait photograph as a young woman wearing a headband and a brooch on her forehead.

Nan Shepherd had decided to have her portrait taken at a local photography studio.

The play explores the 30-years-delay in the publication of Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain.

The Nan Shepherd Prize has been awarded every two years since 2019.