Scott, Walter ___ 1771-1832 ___ British ___ writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Scott was born in Edinburgh, trained as a lawyer, but became a legal official, a job which gave him time to write. He began his writing career by translating German Gothic romances. By 1805, though, his ballads, such as 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel'.had brought him popularity. Many romantic poems - including 'The Lady of the Lake' and 'The Lord of the Isles' - followed; moreover, he worked on new editions of writings by Dryden and Swift. In the 1810s, he turned to novels, publishing them anonymously, and found a new level of success with 'Waverly', 'Rob Roy' and 'Ivanhoe, among many others. A celebrity of his day, the income from these works gave him the money to build a huge mansion, which he called Abbotsford. In 1820, he was made a baronet. In 1826, when his printer and his publisher, two firms in which he was deeply involved, went bust, he suffered financial ruin. Rather than declaring bankruptcy, he tried, for the rest of his life, to repay the debts. Scott did not start writing a journal until 1825, but he then kept it up until his death. Today, some consider it his greatest work.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - Death of a bandit

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1825-1832 ___ literary travel health creativity family

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
about
googlebooks

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
The Morgan Library

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Journal of Sir Walter Scott
The Journal of Walter Scott
 

May 2005, August 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.