The novel that fell into Angus Wolfe Murray’s hands in the late 1970s was unpromising, to say the least. Called simply Lanark, it was a first novel by a little known writer, Alasdair Gray. It was very long: four books arranged in the order Three, One, Two, Four, with a prologue before Book One, and an epilogue four chapters before the end. The author said he wanted the book “to be read in one order, but eventually thought of in another”.
Not surprisingly, it had not found favour with London publishers. Wolfe Murray was about to leave Canongate, the small Scottish publisher founded by himself and his wife, Stephanie, but he urged her to take the book on and Lanark came out in 1981.