Far removed from the recognisable Scottish and rural themes of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's best known works, Persisan Dawn, Egyptian Nights, (first published in the 1930s), gives full reign to Gibbon's fascination with the fantastic and exotic following his military service in the Far East. In this collection we encounter a sorcerer on a quest for Life's lost constituent; a hunt for the last Neanderthal man; we watch a strange drama being played out in the Garden of Eden; and read how a Bishop inverted a famous text to save his own soul.