The Crest of the Broken Wave: A Novel of the Life and Loves of Robert Burns

Immortal Memory

by James Barke

NOVEL

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

James William Barke was born in Selkirkshire in 1905 to Galloway parents. He worked on the Clyde shipyards and was involved in local and nationalist politics before starting his writing career. His first novel, The World His Pillow, was published in 1933, but he is best remembered for his five-volume novelization of the life of Robert Burns, which was published in 1946 beginning with The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

The first two books in the Robert Burns quintet (Immortal Memory) were re-published in honor of the 250th anniversary of Burns' birth in 2009 by Edinburgh's Black & White Publishing. Barke also wrote The Land of the Leal (1939), a number of plays including Gregarach, and contributed to anthologies of Burns' poetry.