Alexander Scott was born and brought up in Aberdeen. He taught at Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities, working to establish the Department of Scottish Literature at the latter, and was equally committed to the development of the study of Scottish literature in schools. He edited several anthologies of poetry, and wrote critical works of poets ( notably Still Life, the biography of William Soutar). He wrote in both English and in a powerful literary Scots enriched by some of the vocabulary of his native Aberdeenshire. His Collected Poems was published in 1994.