[Gutenberg 1310] • The Annals of the Parish / Or, the Chronicle of Dalmailing During the Ministry of the Rev. Micah Balwhidder

Set in rural Scotland of two hundred years ago, *Annals of the Parish* is a quiet gem of a novel. The narrator, the Reverend Micah Balwidder, chronicles the everyday events, big and small, funny and tragic, of the parish of Dalmailing. Reverend Balwidder is a simple man of very human strengths and weaknesses. He is a schemer yet naive, love's champion who denies his own life-long love, an opponent of war who joins the ranks when Scotland is threatened, and a prim and proper minister who cannot help but laugh over the affair of the bonnet. These qualities have made Balwidder one of the greatest characters in Scottish literature.

*Annals of the Parish* is one of the first works of fiction to address the impact of industrialization and urbanization on society. Galt's concerns are still with us today, as our rural communities continue to be swallowed up by urbanization.