Everything about Martin Martin totally explained
Martin Martin (
Scottish Gaelic:
Màrtainn MacGilleMhàrtainn, ?-1719) was a
Scottish writer best known for his work
A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland (
1703). This book is particularly noted for its information on the
St Kilda archipelago. Martin's description of St Kilda, which he visited in 1697, had also been published some years earlier as
A Late Voyage to St. Kilda (1698).
A native of Bealach, near
Duntulm,
Skye, his work has some authenticity thanks to the fact that he was raised in
Gaeldom.
Dr Johnson, however, believed him to be credulous, and indeed, some of his descriptions of
second sight and other superstitions appear to be this way.
He appears to have come from the Highland
middle class, the
tacksmen, who were factors on
lairds' estates. His brother may have been tacksman at
Flodigarry on Skye.
Martin graduated
MA from the
University of Edinburgh in
1681. Nothing seems to be known of him in his later years, except that he entered
Leiden University in
1710, and there graduated as
MD, afterwards residing in
London until his death, unmarried, in
1719.
Both Johnson and
Boswell read his book and took a copy of it along with them on their famous tour in
1773. Johnson felt Martin had failed to record the more interesting aspects of life at the time, and suggested that this was because Martin was unaware of just how different the social structure of the
Western Isles was in comparison to the modern world.
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