I am really a very Glasgow-loving root-clutching person, and the mechanics of travel fill me with angst, yet I seem to be meant or doomed or prodded to go to place after place, city after city (but cities I love in any case, all cities) [...] I’ve been round the Cape of Good Hope and down the Odessa Steps. I’ve seen the Book of Kells and the Isenheim Altarpiece and Beethoven’s ear-trumpet and Khalil Gibran’s birthplace and Lenin’s tomb. [...] I have seen the Red Sea and the Black Sea – both blue. What is it all for? Can you tell me that?

from a letter to Michael Schmidt, 2 April 1972.

One of the central figures of twentieth-century Scottish literature, Edwin Morgan was a prolific letter-writer. His correspondence, like his poetry, is wide-ranging, full of generosity and enthusiasm, and above all a testament to his lifelong commitment to exploring the possibilities of poetry. This selection of his letters, spanning Morgan’s full career as a teacher and writer, enables readers to track the development of his ideas, his friendships and his creative collaborations. At the same time it provides a superbly engaging portrait of a man with a boundless interest in the fast-changing world around him.