Scott, Sir Walter

Scott, Sir Walter (1771–1832), was educated at Edinburgh High School and University, and was called to the bar in 1792. His interest in the old Border tales and ballads was stimulated by Percy's Reliques and by the study of the old romantic poetry of France and Italy and of the modern German poets. He devoted much of his leisure to the exploration of the Border country. In 1797 he published anonymously in The Chase and William and Helen, a translation of Bürger's ‘Der wilde Jäger’ (‘The Wild Huntsman’) and ‘Lenore’, and in 1799 a translation of Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen. In 1797 he married Margaret Charlotte Charpentier (or Carpenter). In 1802–3 appeared the three volumes of Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border; and in 1805 his first considerable original work, the romantic poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel. He then became a partner in James Ballantyne's printing business and published Marmion in 1808. This was followed by The Lady of the Lake (1810), Rokeby and The Bridal of Triermain (1813), The Lord of the Isles (1815), and Harold the Dauntless (1817), his last long poem. In 1811 he had purchased Abbotsford on the Tweed, where he built himself a residence. Scott promoted the foundation in 1809 of the Tory Quarterly Review—he had been a contributor to the Edinburgh Review, but seceded from it owing to its Whig attitude. In 1813 he refused the offer of the laureateship and recommended Southey for the honour. Eclipsed in a measure by Byron as a poet in spite of the great popularity of his verse romances, he now turned his attention to the novel as a means of giving play to his wide erudition, his humour, and his sympathies. His novels appeared anonymously in the following order: Waverley (1814); Guy Mannering (1815); The Antiquary (1816); The Black Dwarf and Old Mortality (1816), as the first series of Tales of My Landlord; Rob Roy (1817); The Heart of Midlothian (1818), the second series of Tales of My Landlord; The Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of Montrose (1819), the third series of Tales of My Landlord; Ivanhoe (1819); The Monastery (1820); The Abbot (1820); Kenilworth (1821); The Pirate (1821); The Fortunes of Nigel (1822); Peveril of the Peak (1823); Quentin Durward (1823); St Ronan's Well (1823); Redgauntlet (1824); The Betrothed and The Talisman (1825), together as Tales of the Crusaders; Woodstock (1826); Chronicles of the Canongate (1827, containing ‘The Highland Widow’, ‘The Two Drovers’, and The Surgeon's Daughter); Chronicles of the Canongate (second series): Saint Valentine's Day, or The Fair Maid of Perth (1828); Anne of Geierstein (1829); Tales of My Landlord (fourth series): Count Robert of Paris and Castle Dangerous (1831). Scott was created a baronet in 1820, and avowed the authorship of the novels in 1827. In 1826 James Ballantyne & Co. became involved in the bankruptcy of Constable & Co., and Scott, as partner of the former, found himself liable for a debt of about £114,000. He shouldered the whole burden himself and henceforth worked heroically, shortening his own life by his strenuous efforts, to pay off the creditors, who received full payment after his death.

Scott's dramatic work, in which he did not excel, includes Auchindrane or the Ayrshire Tragedy (1830). Scott wrote, or issued under his editorship, many important historical, literary, and antiquarian works. These include The Works of Dryden with a life (1808); The Works of Swift with a life (1814); The Tales of a Grandfather (1827–30); History of Scotland (1829–30); and the Memoirs of Captain George Carleton (1808). Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk appeared in 1816. Scott founded the Bannatyne Club in 1823.

Scott's Life by J. G. Lockhart, published in 1837–8, has been considered one of the great biographies of English literature. Scott's Journal was published in 1890 and in subsequent editions. An edition of his letters in 12 vols was published by H. J. C. Grierson (1932–7).

Scott's influence as a novelist was incalculable; he established the form of the historical novel, and, according to V. S. Pritchett, the form of the short story (with ‘The Two Drovers’ and ‘The Highland Widow’). He was avidly read and imitated throughout the 19th cent., after which his reputation gradually declined until there was a revival of interest from European Marxist critics in the 1930s (see Luckács), who interpreted his works in terms of historicism.