The Early Life of James McBey: An Autobiography

This autobiographical account of the early years of James McBey (1883-1959) describes his life as a self-taught boy from a humble north east village. Writing with charismatic frankness and realism, McBey describes his passionate desire to be an artist from his first etchings (printed with the help of an old mangle) to the moment when he left his job to strike out for Holland to create a life of his own. McBey’s journey was not an easy one. Poverty, ignorance, his mother’s indifference, the petty routines of an Aberdeen bank, his grandmother’s suicide, all these are evoked with gravity, clarity and a lightness of touch-like the etchings themselves - which will long remain in the readees mind. This book offers a real-life portrait of the artist as a young man, and with its descriptions of everyday Scottish life at the turn of the century it also establishes James McBey as a gifted prose stylist in his own right.