Please note: A centenary edition of Ring of Bright Water is also available.
Fifty years ago Gavin Maxwell went to live in an abandoned house on a shingle beach on the west coast of Scotland. With its small bay and islands, magical waterfall and encircling stream of vivid water, his remote home was a haven for wildlife. He named it Camusfearna and settled there with the otters Mij, Edal and Teko.
Ring of Bright Water, the story of Gavin Maxwell's first ten years with the otters in this idyllic setting, touched the hearts of readers the world over, brilliantly evoking life with these playful animals in this natural paradise. Two further volumes followed – The Rocks Remain and Raven Seek Thy Brother – bringing the story full circle and telling of the difficult last years and final abandonment of the settlement.
Here, Gavin Maxwell's poignant and often comic memoir of his life with the otters has been collected into one volume so that at last it can be read as a single unbroken narrative.
Gavin Maxwell was born in 1914. In 1945 he bought the small Hebridean island of Soay and tried to establish a shark fisher. This resulted in his first book Harpoon at a Venture. His other books include Ring of Bright Water which sold more than a million copies in English, The Rocks Remain, The House of Elrig and Raven Seek Thy Brother. Gavin Maxwell died in 1969.
"Gavin Maxwell's trilogy is essential reading"
– Sunday Herald