The creek ran through a stretch of treacherous, swampy ground, with cypress trees stretching up from water and mud. The creek itself deepened as it narrowed, though--a plumb line that some curious soul dropped into the water off the bridge said it was fifteen feet deep at that point--and the bridge was the only feasible place for an army of any size to cross.

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 112, "Oathbreaker". Copyright © 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

[M]ost of the Highlanders had crowded down to the banks of the creek -- some were in the water, clinging to the bridge supports, inching across. More were on the timbers, slipping, using their swords like McLeod to keep their balance.

“Fire!” and he fired, powder smoke blending with the fog. The cannon had the range, they spoke one-two, and he felt the blast push against him, felt as though the shot had torn through him. Most of those on the bridge were in the water now, more threw themselves flat upon the timbers, trying to wriggle their way across, only to be picked off by the muskets, every man firing at will from the redoubt.

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 113, "The Ghosts of Culloden". Copyright © 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

“Jenny,” I called, “how long does it take to make candles, counting everything?”

She laid the small shirt she was stitching in her lap, considering.

“Half a day to gather the combs, two to drain the honey--one if it’s hot--one day to purify the wax, unless there’s a lot or it’s verra dirty--then two. Half a day to make the wicks, one or two to make the molds, half a day to melt the wax, pour the molds and hang them to dry. Say a week altogether.”

(From OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 30, "Conversations by the Hearth". Copyright © 1991 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

       

Featuring an exclusive collection of 26 hand-selected pieces from Seasons 1–4 assembled for the museum exhibition, travel back in time to unravel the show’s origins through the acclaimed costume designs of Terry Dresbach.

       

"Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone.
I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One.
I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be Done."

(From OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 14, "A Marriage Takes Place". Copyright © 1991 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

“I will find you,” he whispered in my ear. “I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you—then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest.”

His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me.

“Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.”

(From DRAGONFLY IN AMBER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 46, "Timor Mortis Conturbat Me". Copyright © 1992 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

"To have ye with me again--to talk wi’ you--to know I can say anything, not guard my words or hide my thoughts--God, Sassenach,” he said, “the Lord knows I am lust-crazed as a lad, and I canna keep my hands from you--or anything else--” he added, wryly, “but I would count that all well lost, had I no more than the pleasure of havin’ ye by me, and to tell ye all my heart."

(From VOYAGER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 27, "Up in Flames". Copyright © 1994 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

“So long as my body lives, and yours--we are one flesh,” he whispered. His fingers touched me, hair and chin and neck and breast, and I breathed his breath and felt him solid under my hand. Then I lay with my head on his shoulder, the strength of him supporting me, the words deep and soft in his chest.

"And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours. Claire--I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you."

(From DRUMS OF AUTUMN by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 16, "The First Law of Thermodynamics". Copyright © 1997 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

“When the day shall come, that we do part,” he said softly, and turned to look at me, “if my last words are not ‘I love you’--ye’ll ken it was because I didna have time.”

(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 111, "And Yet Go Out to Meet It". Copyright © 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

“I love you,” [Bree] murmured against his mouth, and he seized her lip between his teeth, too moved to speak the words in reply just yet.

There had been words between them then, as there had been words tonight. The words were the same, and he had meant them the first time no less than he did now. Yet it was different.

The first time he had spoken them to her alone, and while he had done so in the sight of God, God had been discreet, hovering well in the background, face turned away from their nakedness.

Tonight he said them in the blaze of firelight, before the face of God and the world, her people and his. His heart had been hers, and whatever else he had--but now there was no question of him and her, his and hers. The vows were given, his ring put on her finger, the bond both made and witnessed. They were one body.

(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 16, "On the Night That Our Wedding Is On Us". Copyright © 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

“Claire,” he said, quite gently, “it was you. It’s always been you, and it always will be.”

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 31, "And So To Bed". Copyright © 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

“Thee is a wolf, too, and I know it. But thee is my wolf, and best thee know that.”

He’d started to burn when she spoke, an ignition swift and fierce as the lighting of one of his cousin’s matches. He put out his hand, palm forward, to her, still cautious lest she, too, burst into flame.

“What I said to ye, before ... that I kent ye loved me--”

She stepped forward and pressed her palm to his, her small, cool fingers linking tight.

“What I say to thee now is that I do love thee. And if thee hunts at night, thee will come home.”

Under the sycamore, the dog yawned and laid his muzzle on his paws.

“And sleep at thy feet,” Ian whispered, and gathered her in with his one good arm, both of them blazing bright as day.

(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 103, "The Hour of the Wolf". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

“I have loved ye since I saw you, Sassenach,” he said very quietly, holding my eyes with his own, bloodshot and lined with tiredness but very blue. “I will love ye forever. It doesna matter if ye sleep with the whole English army--well, no,” he corrected himself, “it would matter, but it wouldna stop me loving you.”

(From WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 24, "Welcome Coolness in the Heat, Comfort in the Midst of Woe". Copyright © 2014 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

"Dinna be afraid, Sassenach," he said at last. "There's still the two of us."

(From GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 65, "Green Grow the Rushes, O!". Copyright © 2021 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

My breath had misted the glass. I traced a small heart in the cloudiness, as I had used to do for Brianna on cold mornings. Then, I would put her initials inside the heart--B.E.R., for Brianna Ellen Randall. Would she still call herself Randall? I wondered, or Fraser, now? I hesitated, then drew two letters inside the outline of the heart--a “J” and a “C.”

(From VOYAGER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 40, "I Shall Go Down to the Sea". Copyright © 1994 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

       

“I have heard of melting with passion,” I said, gasping slightly, “but this is ridiculous.”

He lifted his head from my breast with a faint sticky sound as his cheek came away. He laughed and slid slowly sideways.

“God, it’s hot!” he said. He pushed back the sweat-soaked hair from his forehead and blew out his breath, chest still heaving from exertion. “How do folk do that when it’s like this?”

“The same way we just did,” I pointed out. I was breathing heavily myself.

“They can’t,” he said with certainty. “Not all the time; they’d die.”

“Well, maybe they do it slower,” I said. “Or underwater. Or wait until the autumn.”

“Autumn?” he said. “Perhaps I dinna want to live in the south, after all. Is it hot in Boston?”

“It is at this time of year,” I assured him. “And beastly cold in the winter. I’m sure you’ll get used to the heat. And the bugs.”

He brushed a questing mosquito off his shoulder and glanced from me to the nearby creek.

"Maybe so," he said, "and maybe no, but for now..." He wrapped his arms firmly around me, and rolled. With the ponderous grace of a rolling log, we fell off the edge of the rocky shelf, and into the water.

(From DRUMS OF AUTUMN by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 2, "In Which We Meet a Ghost". Copyright © 1997 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

It was still sleeting, and tiny particles of frozen rain rattled against the windows and hissed into the fire when the night wind turned to drive them down the flue. The wind was high, and it moaned and grumbled among the chimneys, making the bedroom seem all the cozier by contrast. The bed itself was an oasis of warmth and comfort, equipped with goose-down quilts, huge fluffy pillows, and Jamie, faithfully putting out British Thermal Units like an electric storage heater.

(From DRAGONFLY IN AMBER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 11, "Useful Occupations". Copyright © 1992 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

The Major was watching Flora MacDonald now with a proprietary eye, noting with approval the way in which people clustered round her.

“She has most graciously agreed to speak today,” he told me, rocking back a little on his bootheels. “Where would be the best place, do you think, mum? From the terrace, as being the point of highest elevation? Or perhaps near the statue on the lawn, as being more central and allowing the crowd to surround her, thus increasing the chance of everyone hearing her remarks?”

“I think she’ll have a sunstroke, if you put her out on the lawn in this weather,” I said, tilting my own broad-brimmed straw hat to shade my nose. It was easily in the nineties, in terms both of temperature and humidity, and my thin petticoats clung soddenly to my lower limbs.

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 54, "Flora MacDonald's Barbecue". Copyright © 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

William was still alive; his face twitched under the feet of a half-dozen black flies feeding on his drying blood. Ian put a hand under his jaw, the way Auntie Claire did, but, with no idea how to find a pulse or what a good one should feel like, took it away again. William was lying in the shadow of a big sycamore, but his skin was still warm--it couldn’t help but be, Ian thought, even if he was dead, on a day like this.

He’d risen to his feet, thinking rapidly. He’d need to get the bugger onto the horse, but maybe best undress him? Take off the telltale coat, at least? But what if he were to take him back toward the British lines, find someone there to take charge of him, get him to a surgeon? That was closer.

Still need to take the coat off, or the man might die of the heat before he got anywhere. So resolved, he knelt again, and thus saved his own life. The tomahawk chunked into the sycamore’s trunk just where his head had been a moment before.

(From WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 78, "In The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time". Copyright © 2014 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

“I brought ye a present, Sassenach,” Jamie said, grinning and wiping sweat from his jaw.

“A … present,” I said faintly, looking at the enormous heap of … what?… he had dropped on the ground at my feet. Then the smell reached me.

“A buffalo robe!” I exclaimed. “Oh, Jamie! A real buffalo robe?”

Not much doubt of that. It was not--thank God--a fresh one, but the scent of its original owner was still perceptible, even in the cold. I fell to my knees, running my hands over it. It was well-cured, flexible, and relatively clean, the wool of it rough under my hands but free of mud, burrs, clumps of dung, and the other impedimenta that normally attended live buffalo. It was enormous. And warm. Wonderfully warm.

I sank my freezing hands into the depths of it, which still held Jamie’s body heat.

[....]

“This is marvelous, Jamie! It’s huge!” It was. A good eight feet long, and wide enough that two people could lie cradled in its warmth--provided they didn’t mind sleeping close. The thought of crawling into that enveloping shelter, warm and cozy, after so many nights shivering under threadbare blankets...

Jamie appeared to have been thinking along similar lines.

“Big enough for the two of us,” he said, and touched my breast, very delicately.

(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 68, "Despoiler". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

It was a hot day outside, and the thick velvet drapes at the windows were drawn to keep as much heat out as possible. They kept out all daylight as well, and the parlor into which they were shown was so dark that the single lamp on a table near the window glowed like a pearl inside an oyster.

Roger thought it was rather like being inside an oyster himself: surrounded by a slick, oppressive moistness, the constant touch of mucus on the skin. Granted, the room in which they had been shut was not as searing as the glaring cobblestones outside, but it wasn’t a hell of a lot cooler, either.

“Like being poached, instead of fried,” he whispered to Fergus, mopping his face with the lace-trimmed handkerchief he’d forgotten to exchange for a workman’s bandanna.

(From GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 74, "The Face of Evil". Copyright © 2021 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

The house loomed before us, its quiet bulk somehow welcoming, in spite of the darkened windows. Snow was swirling across the porch in little eddies, piling in drifts on the sills.

"I suppose it would be harder for a fire to start if it's snowing--wouldn't you think?"

Jamie bent to unlock the front door.

"I dinna much mind if the place bursts into flame by spontaneous combustion, Sassenach, provided I have my supper first."

"A cold supper, were you thinking?" I asked dubiously.

"I was not," he said firmly. "I mean to light a roaring fire in the kitchen hearth, fry up a dozen eggs in butter, and eat them all, then lay ye down on the hearth rug and roger ye 'til you--is that all right?" he inquired, noticing my look.

"'Til I what?" I asked, fascinated by his description of the evening's program.

"'Til ye burst into flame and take me with ye, I suppose," he said, and stooping, swooped me up into his arms and carried me across the darkened threshold.

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 111, "January Twenty-First". Copyright© 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

       

This special edition of Outlander features a gorgeous new cover, Fraser tartan stenciled edges, designed endpapers, and a new letter of introduction from Diana Gabaldon!

       

“It was not Monsieur Arouet, but a colleague of his--a lady novelist--who remarked to me once that writing novels was a cannibal’s art, in which one often mixed small portions of one’s friends and one’s enemies together, seasoned them with imagination, and allowed the whole to stew together into a savory concoction.”

(From VOYAGER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 10, "The White Witch's Curse". Copyright © 1994 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

“Do you think that the size of the book is justified by the complexity of the story?” Grey asked, leaning forward to light a cheroot from the candle on the sideboard. “It must after all be a great expense to the publisher, as well as requiring a substantial effort from the reader, a book of that length.”

[....]

“What is it--twelve hundred pages? Aye, I think so. After all, it is difficult to sum up the complications of a life in a short space with any hope of constructing an accurate account.”

“True. I have heard the point made, though, that the novelist’s skill lies in the artful selection of detail. Do you not suppose that a volume of such length may indicate a lack of discipline in such selection, and hence a lack of skill?”

Fraser considered, sipping the ruby liquid slowly.

“I have seen books where that is the case, to be sure,” he said. “An author seeks by sheer inundation of detail to overwhelm the reader into belief. In this case, however, I think it isna so. Each character is most carefully considered, and all the incidents chosen seem necessary to the story. No, I think it is true that some stories simply require a greater space in which to be told.”

(From VOYAGER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 11, "The Torremolinos Gambit". Copyright © 1994 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

Hal had not been joking about allowing him no time to sleep.

[....]

Grey’s days were a blur of activity, rushing from Whitehall offices to shipping offices, holding daily councils of war with the other officers, receiving and reviewing daily reports from the captains, writing daily summary reports for the colonels, reading orders, writing orders, hastily donning dress uniform and dashing out to leap on a horse in time to take his place at the head of a column to march through the London streets in a guildhall procession to the cheers of a crowd, then throwing the reins to a groom and brushing the horsehair from his uniform in a carriage on his way to a ball at Richard Joffrey’s house, where he must dance with the ladies and confer in corners with the gentlemen, the ministers who ran the machine of war, and the merchants who greased its gears.

The one redeeming aspect of such affairs was that food was served, often his only opportunity to eat since breakfast.

(From LORD JOHN AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BLADE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 16, "In Which an Engagement is Broken". Copyright © 2007 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

I took a sheet of paper, pristine and creamy, placed it just so, and dipped my quill, excitement thrumming in my fingers.

I closed my eyes in reflex, then opened them again. Where ought I to begin?

Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop. The line from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland drifted through my mind, and I smiled. Good advice, I supposed--but only if you happened to know where the beginning was, and I didn’t quite.

I twiddled the quill a bit, thinking.

Perhaps I should have an outline? That seemed sensible--and a little less daunting than starting straight in to write. I lowered the quill and held it poised above the paper for a moment, then picked it up again. An outline would have a beginning, too, wouldn’t it?

(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 74, "Twenty-Twenty". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

He listened carefully; the night nursery was one more floor up, but he heard no outcries, no movement in the peaceful dark. Nor was there any noise from the floor below. Evidently, the whole household was now wrapped in slumber--save him.

He rather liked the feeling of solitude, like this, he alone wakeful, lord of the sleeping world.

(From THE SCOTTISH PRISONER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 13, "By Darkness Met". Copyright © 2011 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

“It’s okay,” [Roger] said, turning to kiss her cheek. “It’s your mum, and she’s in an especially parenthetical mood. She doesn’t normally do that unless she’s feeling happy.”

(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 34, "Psalms, 30". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

It was an odd process, letting go of something that had lived in her for months, gradually pulling free of the growing tentacles that had gripped her brain, her heart, her fingers.

(From GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 119, "Encaustic". Copyright © 2021 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

Roger was sitting under a tree on the creek bank, theoretically writing a sermon about the nature of the Holy Trinity but in actuality hypnotized by the clear brown water gurgling past, letting random quotes about streams and water and eternity roll round inside his skull like rocks being dragged downstream, clacking into each other as they went.

(From GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 133, "Such an Odd Feeling". Copyright © 2021 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

I had to admire her; she was besieged on all sides by people wanting a word, but she kept her poise admirably, being kind and gracious to everyone--though this meant sitting sometimes for ten minutes, a forkful of food suspended in air as she listened to some interminable story.

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 54, "Flora MacDonald's Barbecue". Copyright © 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

"I know what will happen.”

He blinked at that, very much taken aback.

“What will happen? To whom?”

The sort of prophecy I possessed was seldom a welcome gift; in these circumstances, though, I took a rather grim pleasure in telling him.

“To you. The British army, I mean, not you personally. They’ll lose the war, in three years’ time. What price gilded peacocks then, eh?”

His face twitched, and he hid a smile.

“Indeed.”

“Yes, indeed,” I replied amiably. “Fuirich agus chi thu.”

“What?” He stared at me.

“Gaelic,” I said, with a small, deep twinge. “It means ‘Wait and see.’”

(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 98, "Mischianza". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

      

A firstfoot was to bring gifts to the house: an egg, a faggot of wood, a bit of salt--and a bit of whisky, thus insuring that the household would not lack for the necessities during the coming year.

(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 35, "Hogmanay". Copyright © 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

      

"What's the occasion? For our homecoming?"

She lifted her head from his chest and gave him what he privately classified as A Look.

"For Christmas," she said.

"What?" He groped blankly, trying to count the days, but the events of the last three weeks had completely erased his mental calendar. "When?"

"Tomorrow, idiot," she said with exaggerated patience.

(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 33, "Home for Christmas". Copyright © 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

"What if I tell you a story, instead?"

Highlanders loved stories, and Jamie was no exception.

"Oh, aye," he said, sounding much happier. "What sort of story is it?"

"A Christmas story," I said, settling myself along the curve of his body. "About a miser named Ebenezer Scrooge."

"An Englishman, I daresay?"

"Yes," I said. "Be quiet and listen."

I could see my own breath as I talked, white in the dim, cold air. The snow was falling heavily outside our shelter; when I paused in the story, I could hear the whisper of flakes against the hemlock branches, and the far-off whine of wind in the trees.

(From DRUMS OF AUTUMN by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 21, "Night on a Snowy Mountain". Copyright © 1997 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

“Aye, well, it is Christmas Eve,” she said, answering his unasked question. “Any man wi’ a home to go to’s in it.” She yawned, pulled off her nightcap, and fluffed her fingers through the wild mass of curly dark hair.

“Yet you seem to have some custom,” he observed. Distant singing came from two floors below, and the parlor had seemed well populated when he passed.

“Och, aye. The desperate ones. I leave them to Maybelle to deal with; dinna like to see them, poor creatures. Pitiful. They dinna really want a woman, the ones who come on Christmas Eve--only a fire to sit by, and folk to sit with.”

(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 24, "Joyeux Noel". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

Catholic as many of them were--and nominally Christian as they all were--Highland Scots regarded Christmas primarily as a religious observance, rather than a major festive occasion. Lacking priest or minister, the day was spent much like a Sunday, though with a particularly lavish meal to mark the occasion, and the exchange of small gifts.

(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 34, "Charms". Copyright © 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

They’d brought down the Yule log to the house that afternoon, all the household taking part, the women bundled to the eyebrows, the men ruddy, flushed with the labor, staggering, singing, dragging the monstrous log with ropes, its rough skin packed with snow, a great furrow left where it passed, the snow plowed high on either side.

(From THE SCOTTISH PRISONER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 43, "Succession". Copyright © 2011 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

With a certain amount of forethought, Mrs. Bug, Brianna, Marsali, Lizzie, and I had made up an enormous quantity of molasses toffee, which we had distributed as a Christmas treat to all the children within earshot. Whatever it might do to their teeth, it had the beneficial effect of gluing their mouths shut for long periods, and in consequence, the adults had enjoyed a peaceful Christmas.

(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 34, "Charms". Copyright © 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

"Well, that is odd,” Rachel said, turning to look first at her brother, and then at the small clock that graced their rooms. “Who goes a-visiting at nine o’clock on Christmas night? It cannot be a Friend, surely?” For Friends did not keep Christmas and would find the feast no bar to travel, but the Hunters had no connections--not yet--with the Friends of any Philadelphia meeting.

A thump of footsteps on the staircase prevented Denzell’s reply, and an instant later the door of the room burst open. The fur-clad woman stood on the threshold, white as her furs.

“Denny?” she said in a strangled voice.

(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 86, "Valley Forge". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

[Jamie] let go of me to fumble in his sporran and came up with a tiny round brown thing, which he held out to me. “A nutmeg.”

“Oh! I haven’t smelled nutmeg in years!” I took it from him, cold-fingered and careful lest I drop it. I held it under my nose and breathed in. My eyes were closed but I could clearly see Christmas cookies and taste the thick sweetness of eggnog. “How much was it?”

“Ye dinna want to know,” he assured me, grinning. “Worth it, though, for the look on your face, Sassenach.”

“Bring me some rum tonight, and I’ll put the same look on yours,” I said, laughing.

(From GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 65, "Green Grow the Rushes, O!". Copyright © 2021 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

She'd wanted to go to the Christmas Eve services. After that...

After that, he would ask her, make it formal. She would say yes, he knew. And then...

Why, then, they would come home, to a house dark and private. With themselves alone, on a night of sacrament and secret, with love newly come into the world. And he would lift her in his arms and carry her upstairs, on a night when virginity's sacrifice was no loss of purity, but rather the birth of everlasting joy.

(From DRUMS OF AUTUMN by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 17, "Home for the Holidays". Copyright © 1997 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

Making a proper Christmas for Brianna every year had been wonderful; I’d felt as though the festivity was for me, as well--the joy of doing things I’d read or heard about, but never done or seen. Frank, the only one of us who had truly experienced the traditional British Christmas, was the authority on menus, gift wrapping, carol singing, and other arcane lore. From the decorating of the tree until it came down after New Year’s, the house was full of excited secrets, with an underlying sense of peace.

(From GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 22, "Ashes, Ashes". Copyright© 2021 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

      

I’ve been thinking about endings lately.

As we wrapped filming on Blood of My Blood and turn our attention to bringing you the final season of Outlander this March, I’ve felt the weight of what so many of you are already feeling. The grief before the goodbye. The mourning of something that hasn’t quite left us yet.

But I want to offer you something I’ve been holding onto myself.

When we give our hearts to a story--when we let fictional people become real to us, when we carry their words with us, when we find pieces of ourselves in their journeys--that doesn’t end when the credits roll for the last time. It can’t. Because what the story gave you, it gave you. Those feelings were real. The tears were real. The comfort on hard nights, the joy, the sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself--all of it, real and yours to keep.

The characters live because you carried them. The love story endures because it moved through you. I know it’s tempting to grieve forward--to sit in the shadow of the ending before it arrives. But if I could gently ask anything of you, it would be this: don’t let the anticipation of loss steal the experience. We still have a whole season to live together. And after that, we have everything that came before, waiting for us whenever we need it.

Stories don’t die. They just finish being told. And then they belong to you forever…

      

"What a thing," he said. He held it at arm's length to drain, admiring the vivid reds and blues of the bare, warty head and dangling wattle. "I don't think I've ever seen one, save roasted on a platter, with chestnut dressing and roast potatoes."

He looked from the turkey to her with great respect, and nodded at the gun.

"That's great shooting, Bree."

She felt her cheeks flush with pleasure, and restrained the urge to say, "Aw, shucks, it warn't nothin'," settling instead for a simple, "Thanks."

(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 20, "Shooting Lessons". Copyright © 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

Once the official introductions were over, Nacognaweto motioned to Berthe, who obediently brought out the large bundle she had carried, and opened it at my feet, displaying a large basket of orange and green-striped squash, a string of dried fish, a smaller basket of yams, and a huge pile of Indian corn, shucked and dried on the cob.

“My God,” I murmured. “The return of Squanto!”

Everyone gave me a blank look, and I hastened to smile and make exclamations--thoroughly heartfelt--of joy and pleasure over the gifts. It might not get us through the whole winter, but it was enough to augment our diet for a good two months.

(From DRUMS OF AUTUMN by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 20, "The White Raven". Copyright © 1997 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

"Can ye not decide where to begin, Sassenach?" He reached down and took the empty wineglass from her hand, taking advantage of the movement to come close against her back, feeling the warmth of her through his clothes.

She laughed, and swayed back against him, leaning on his arm. She smelled faintly of rice powder and warm skin, with the scent of rose hips in her hair.

"I'm not even terribly hungry. I was just counting the jellies and preserves. There are thirty-seven different ones--unless I've missed my count."

He spared a glance for the table, which did indeed hold a bewildering array of silver dishes, porcelain bowls, and wooden platters, groaning with more food than would feed a Highland village for a month.

(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 46, "Quicksilver". Copyright© 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

We blessed the hearth two days later, standing in the wall-less cabin. Myers had removed his hat, from respect, and Ian had washed his face. Rollo was present, too, as was the small white pig, who was required to attend as the personification of our "flocks," despite her objections; the pig saw no point in being removed from her meal of acorns to participate in a ritual so notably lacking in food.

(From DRUMS OF AUTUMN by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 19, "Hearth Blessing". Copyright © 1997 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

[Hamish] glared round the table to insure that everyone was in a properly reverential attitude before bowing his own head. Satisfied, he intoned,

"Some hae meat that canna eat,
And some could eat that want it.
We hae meat, and we can eat,
And so may God be thankit. Amen."

(From OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 6, "Colum's Hall". Copyright © 1991 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

People were eating at trestle tables and on the grass, on the porch and the steps, and the delectable smells of roast pork and cinnamon cake, laced with whisky fumes, perfumed the air.

My stomach rumbled suddenly, and Jamie, who had come out of the house behind me, laughed.

“Have ye no eaten anything at all yet, Sassenach?”

“Well…no. I was busy.”

“Well, now ye’re not,” he said firmly, and handed me the plate of buttered corn, fresh roast pork, and yams with chestnuts he was holding. “Sit down and eat, a nighean. Ye’re run off your feet.”

“Well, but there’s still--” I swallowed a mouthful of saliva. “Well, maybe--”

He took my elbow and led me to my rocking chair, this temporarily empty. I sat, suddenly grateful for the throb of relief that shot up from my ankles to the back of my neck. Jamie put the plate on my lap and thrust a fork into my hand.

“Ye’re no going anywhere, Sassenach, until ye’ve eaten that, so dinna be telling me otherwise. Jem! Bring your grannie some nut bread and some of the peach cobbler--wi’ a good bit o’ cream on it.”

“I—that’s--well...if you insist...” I smiled up at him, forked up a bite of honeyed yams, and closed my eyes, giving myself up to ecstasy.

(From GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 155, "Quaker Wedding, Redux". Copyright © 2021 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

      

The best-selling book series author, Dr. Diana Gabaldon, has selected Texas A&M University’s Cushing Memorial Library & Archives as the permanent home for her literary papers, notes and memorabilia from the historical science fiction, adventure-romance series and its hit streaming adaptation.

The collection will capture the evolution of Gabaldon’s storytelling and offer a glimpse into how her 1991 debut novel “Outlander” grew into a global phenomenon spanning novels, companion works and a long-running television adaptation.

[....]

Gabaldon’s archives will join Cushing’s extensive Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection, including materials from George R.R. Martin, Martha Wells ’86, Kristen Britain, and other acclaimed authors whose work have shaped literature and culture. The catalogued collection is one of the world’s largest.

      

It will showcase a live ensemble of musicians and vocalists, including instruments such as bagpipes, fiddles and the hurdy-gurdy, alongside expansive cinematic visuals from the Outlander seasons.

Tickets for the May 30, 2026 event — kicking off a global tour with more cities to be revealed at a later date — will go on sale Nov. 21 at 10:00 a.m. U.K. time (2:00 a.m. PT) and are available here.

      

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION examines how America’s founding turned the world upside-down. Thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic Coast rose in rebellion, won their independence, and established a new form of government that radically reshaped the continent and inspired centuries of democratic movements around the globe.

An expansive look at the virtues and contradictions of the war and the birth of the United States of America, the film follows dozens of figures from a wide variety of backgrounds. Viewers will experience the war through the memories of the men and women who experienced it: the rank-and-file Continental soldiers and American militiamen (some of them teenagers), Patriot political and military leaders, British Army officers, American Loyalists, Native soldiers and civilians, enslaved and free African Americans, German soldiers in the British service, French and Spanish allies, and various civilians living in North America, Loyalist as well as Patriot, including many made refugees by the war. The American Revolution was a war for independence, a civil war, and a world war. It impacted millions – from Canada to the Caribbean and beyond.