Sir Walter Scott wrote romantic poems and adventure stories of the past. The setting is often in Scotland. Famous writers whose historical novels he influenced include James Fenimore Cooper, Alexandre Dumas and Aleksandr Pushkin. He popularized his country's history and traditions.
Early Years of Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, First Baronet, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on August 15, 1771, the son of a lawyer whose name was also Walter Scott, and a doctor's daughter. He was said to have inherited his father's disciplined attitude and his imaginative gifts from his cultured mother. At two, he became ill, which caused his right leg to be permanently crippled, but this did not deter him from his pursuits. He attended Edinburgh University and trained as a lawyer. At 26, he married Charlotte Carpenter and had five children.
Scott walked and rode around the countryside when he had spare time from his legal work. He collected the old ballads that people sang. These had fascinated him since boyhood, which he spent near Scotland's border with England.
Scott Turns to Writing
Aged 31, Scott's ballads appeared in a three-volume collection called Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Soon after came The Lay of the Last Minstrel, his own long poem about an old border country legend followed. At 40, Scott had written two more story-poems. By this time he became rich and famous. He purchased a border country estate and started building a mansion beside the River Tweed.
Waverley was the first of his 27 novels which he wrote; he was 43 years old. This novel deals with the rebellion of 1745, which attempted to restore a Scottish family to the British throne. Like most of his later novels, his hero's loyalty is often split between two rulers, affecting a way of life.
Last Years of Scott
In 1820, he became a baronet. Six years later, he went bankrupt; his wife also died. Sir Walter Scott eventually worked himself into ill health trying to pay off debts left to him by his partners in a publishing firm. He died at Abbotsford on September 21, 1832, aged 61.
List of Books by Sir Walter Scott:
- Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1802-1803
- The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1805
- Marmion, 1808, Poetry
- The Lady of the Lake, 1810, Poetry
- Rokeby, 1813, Poetry
- Waverley, 1814
- Guy Mannering, 1815
- Old Mortality, 1816
- Rob Roy, 1817
- The Heart of Midlothian, 1818
- Ivanhoe, 1819
- The Monastery, 1820
- The Talisman, 1825
- Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, 1827
- Castle Dangerous, 1831
Sources:
Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers, 2002
Cambridge Literature in English, New Edition, edited by Ian Ousby,Cambridge, 1993
Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse, 1994
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