Reilly 308.

William Soutar was a Scottish poet, born 1898. He served in the navy in World War I, and afterwards studied at the University of Edinburgh, where he encountered the work of Hugh McDiarmid. This led to a radical alteration in his work, and he became a leading poet of the Scottish Literary Renaissance. In 1924, he was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis. From 1930 he was bedridden. He died of tuberculosis in 1943. His journal, Diary of a Dying Man, was published posthumously.

William Soutar was one of the greatest Scots poets of his generation. Tragically he was confined to bed with a crippling illness for the last thirteen years, Soutar kept a day-by-day record of his experiences and observations-personal, literary, and philosophical. Each page is written with striking bravery and determination, providing a striking bravery into the life of this good-humoured man, dedicated to his art. This is a book written in the face of death but inspired by an unsentimental love of life.