The wallace nigel tranter
![the wallace nigel tranter the wallace nigel tranter](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81f49U8KukL._AC_UL160_SR160,160_.jpg)
But his method was more than the mere continuation of an early habit. Tranter once told me that he began the habit of writing on the hoof when he was serving in the army during the second world war and privacy was almost impossible. For those who knew him, and he cast his net widely, it is difficult to believe that this hardy battler should have succumbed to the current flu epidemic.
![the wallace nigel tranter the wallace nigel tranter](https://kbimages1-a.akamaihd.net/066622ee-2e4f-480f-a49a-0f652898d6f1/180/1000/False/the-unicorn-rampant-1.jpg)
![the wallace nigel tranter the wallace nigel tranter](https://kbimages1-a.akamaihd.net/78902caf-9e25-434b-94c6-4c9c1a314189/353/569/90/False/the-islesman-1.jpg)
His last novel, Envoy Extraordinary, was published just two months ago and there were others on the stocks. He was carrying out the same routine into his 90th year, defying both the uncertain Scottish climate and the vagaries of literary fashion. Then, with few corrections, the work would be typed up on a venerable Imperial typewriter to form part of his rich harvest of popular novels. In stout boots, flat cap and sensible tweeds, he looked just like any other bird-watcher but for one oddity: in his hands he carried small sheets of paper, protected by a polythene bag in inclement weather.īy the time he returned home some 12 miles later, he would have completed another 1,000 words of his next book. As he stalked out along the shoreline he was an unmistakable figure. Each morning he would leave his house in East Lothian and begin a long walk over the nature reserve at nearby Aberlady Bay. For a bestselling author who wrote more than 120 books, many of them lengthy historical novels, Nigel Tranter, who has died aged 90, employed an unusual means of literary creation.