Cairns Craig: key obituary facts
Is Cairns Craig dead? Yes. Cairns Craig died on July 29, 2026, at age 77.
Cause of death: Cairns Craig's cause of death has not been publicly confirmed.
What was Cairns Craig known for?
He was a Scottish literary scholar.
More about Cairns Craig
Born: 16 February 1949.
Gender: male.
Occupation: literary historian, literary critic, literary scholar, university teacher, man of letters, scholar of English.
Nationality: United Kingdom.
Employer: University of Aberdeen.
Awards: Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Fellow of the British Academy, Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Also known as: Robert Cairns Craig.
Cairns Craig, the Scottish literary scholar who specialised in Scottish and modernist literature, died on July 29, 2026, aged 77.
Born Robert Cairns Craig in Kilmarnock in 1949, he built a distinguished academic career that included posts at the University of Edinburgh and, later, the University of Aberdeen. At Aberdeen, he served from 2005 to 2023 as Glucksman Professor of Irish and Scottish Studies and director of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, before becoming professor emeritus.
Earlier, at Edinburgh, he was head of the English literature department from 1997 to 2003 and deputy director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities from 1998 to 2005. Elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2005, he published widely on writers including W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and Iain Banks.