Douglas Gifford holds the Chair of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University and is the author of numerous books and critical studies of Walter Scott, Neil Gunn, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, James Hogg and modern Scottish fiction. He is also senior editor of Scottish Literature at Edinburgh University Press, and co-convener of the Saltire Society Book Awards Committee. Gifford is an Honorary Librarian of Sir Walter Scott's library at Abbotsford and leader of the Abbotsford Project, a research initiative investigating and annotating the contents of Scott's library. He is also a member of the Scottish Arts Council's Creative Arts Committee.