Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
Edinburgh, Scotland

"His transparent stream...becomes without warning...the universal ocean on which we put out with the greatest only." Virginia Woolf

Walter Scott was born to a solicitor and the daughter of a medicine professor. Struck by polio at 18 months, he was permanently damaged; as a result he was sent to his grandfather's farm in the Borders. From hence forward, Walter divided his time between Edinburgh and the Borders. In October 1779 Walter enrolled in the High School of Edinburgh and also attended Kelso Grammar School during stays in the Borders. Walter pursued law at Edinburgh University; however, he failed to qualify as an advocate until 1792. Walter, starting from childhood, was intrigued by ballads and German literature. One of his first publications translations of ballads by Gottfried Augustus Burger (1796), and of Goethe's "Gotz von Berlichingen" (1799). Charlotte Carpenter captured Walter's heart and in 1797 they were wed. In 1799 Walter became a Sherri- Depute and lived in Ashestiel where he produced "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border" with John Leyden, Richard Heber, William Laidlaw, and James Hogg. The first two volumes were printed by his Kelso friend James Ballantyne, and their success led Scott to lend Ballantyne ?00 so that he could set up a printing works in Edinburgh. Scott became his partner and principal shareholder, and also backed the new publishing business of Ballantyne's brother John. Scott's first wholly original publication was the ballad epic "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" (1805), which was an immediate critical and financial success. He followed it with "Marmion" (1808) and the hugely popular six-canto narrative poem "The Lady of the Lake" (1810), set around Loch Katrine and the Trossachs. The fourth canto includes Ellen's "Hymn To The Virgin", which begins: "Ave Maria! maiden mild/ Listen to a maiden's prayer!". Translated into German by D. A. Storck, the "Hymne an die Jungfrau" was set to music in 1825 by Franz Schubert; it is the song everyone knows as "Ave Maria". Aspiring to baronial country life, Scott began in 1811 to build himself a gothic castle, Abbotsford, near Galashiels, and it was partly to raise money for the project, and also so as to ensure his literary supremacy over Byron, that Scott turned to fiction. Another reason was a crisis in Ballantyne's business in 1813, which threatened Scott with bankruptcy. Scott wrote his way out of trouble with "Waverley" (1814), which defined a new literary genre and was to be followed by a stream of similar successes. Scott published all his novels anonymously. Initially this may have been a precaution against the possible failure of "Waverley"; but even after its enormous success, Scott seems to have enjoyed prolonging the mystery (he was nicknamed "The Great Unknown" and "The Wizard Of The North"). His identity as the author of "Waverley" and its successors soon became an open secret, fairly widely known, but it was not until February 1827 that he officially "revealed" himself, at a public dinner in Edinburgh. Though the novels were all published without his name (even after his "unmasking"), they were grouped into various series which associated them with a common author. Some were published as "By The Author of Waverley"; two appeared under the title "Tales From Benedictine Sources", another two as "Tales of the Crusaders", and four as "Chronicles of the Canongate". The remainder of Scott's novels were published under the heading "Tales of my Landlord", though there is no real connection between the various "Tales", other than the conceit (introduced in the prologue to "The Black Dwarf") that they were all written down by one Peter Pattison from stories told to him by the landlord of the Wallace Inn at Gandercleugh, then reworked and sold to the publisher by the village schoolmaster and parish clerk, Jedediah Cleishbotham.

Criticism

Walter is one of Europe's most prominent literary figures due to his novels. Even in his time the novels threw the poems into the shade. Nevertheless, his poetry made him famous and prosperous, some became English classics such as The Lady of the Lake. Few critics, contemporary and archaic was interested in Walter's poetry, they often focused on his novels of which he published anonymously. Walter's novels were masterpieces praised by critics of all times. Much of the best criticism of the novels has focused on Walter's treatment of historical themes. The nineteenth century attitude, historicism, which meant the awareness of man and events as a part on a continuum should be partly credited to Walter.

Works

1800 The Eve of St. John
1802 - 03 Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border
1805 The Lay of the Last Minstrel
1806 Ballads and Lyrical Pieces
1808 Marmion
1810 The Lady in the Lake
1813 Rokeby
1813 The Bridal of Triermain
1815 The Waverly Novels, The Lord of the Isles, Guy Mannering, The Field of Waterloo
1816 Paul's Letters to His Kinfolk, Old Mortality, Tales of my Landlord, The Black Dwarf and Old Mortality
1817 Rob Roy, Harold, the Dauntless
1818 The Heart of Midlothian
1819 The Bride of Lammermoor, A Legend of Montrose, Ivanhoe
1820 The Abbot, The Monastery
1821 The Pirate, Kenilworth
1822 The Fortunes of Nigel, Haildon Hill
1823 Quentin Durwarld, Peveril of the Peak, St. Ronan's Well, Macduff's Cross, Quentin Durward
1824 Redgauntler
1825 The Talisman, The Betrothed, Lives of the Novelists
1826 Woodstock
1827 The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, Chronicles of the Canongate, Miscellaneous Prose, The Surgeon's Daughter
1827 - 30 The Tales of a Grandfather
1828 The Fair Maid of Perth
1828 - 30 The History of Scotland
1829 Anne of Geierstein
1830 Letters of Demonology and Witchcraft, Essays on Ballad Poetry, The Doom of Devorgoil, Audchindrane or the Ayshire Tragedy
1832 Count Robert of Paris
1832 Castle Dangerous
1829 - 33 The Waverley Novels
1833 - 34 Poetical Works
1834 - 71 Miscellaneous Prose
1890 The Journal

Additional Information
A guide on Sir Walter Scott
http://www.literaryhistory.com/19thC/SCOTT.htm

Sources:

Lucid Interactive. Homepage. 1995 - 2001 < http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95aug/scott.html >

Simply Biographies. Homepage. 2001
< http://www.sacklunch.net/biography/S/SirWalterScott.html >