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Research dossier · People & Ideas

Iain Banks

Scottish writer (1954–2013)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 28, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Iain Menzies Banks was a Scottish author, writing mainstream fiction as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks. His books have been adapted for theatre, radio, and television. In 2008, The Times named Banks in their list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Iain Banks” is scottish writer (1954–2013). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Iain, Banks and Scottish, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2008, 1945—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Iain, Banks and Scottish is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “scottish writer (1954–2013)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The first chronological checks are 2008 and 1945.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Iain Banks”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Iain Banks primary sources, Iain Banks archive and Iain research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Iain Banks”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Iain Banks” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.