Celebrating Sir Walter Scott’s birthday, and his impact on Scotland
Celebrate the birthday of Sir Walter Scott, the first literary superstar, who established the prevailing image of a wild and romantic Scotland
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It’s impossible to imagine a Scotland without Scott
IT isn’t every day you celebrate someone’s 250th birthday, but Sir Walter Scott wasn’t just anybody. Born on August 15, 1771, Scott – a poet, novelist, historian and advocate – was a true Renaissance man who almost single-handedly created an idea of Scotland that sticks to this day.
The image of Scotland’s beautiful rolling hills, tartan dress and historical majesty can be linked back to Scott’s writing. His influence can be seen throughout the country, though perhaps nowhere more clearly than in Edinburgh.
At 70m (200ft), the Scott Monument on Princes Street is the tallest monument dedicated to a writer on the planet. Climb its 287 steps and gaze across the capital’s skyline to Waverley Station – named, by public demand, after Scott’s first novel. It’s the only train station that’s named after a book.
“Scott, his writing and his work are central to the identity of Edinburgh,” says Nico Tyack, collections review project manager at Museums & Galleries Edinburgh. “He created and projected an image of Edinburgh as a capital of a romantic, wild and beautiful Scotland entrenched in tradition and yet forward-facing.”
This level of adoration might seem a bit baffling these days, as Scott is far less celebrated than his contemporary Robert Burns. But no author – not even JK Rowling – has been as critically acclaimed and commercially successful.
Based in Edinburgh, Scott’s influence stretched far and wide. In his lifetime, he became the first literary superstar and he left a remarkable legacy.
Credited with creating the modern historical novel, his idea of inserting fictional characters into recent history was an instant hit. Waverley sold out its first 1000 copies in two days in 1814, and then sold more than all other novels sold in the UK that year put together.
Scott gave a respectability to reading novels
that had previously been lacking. Great writers such as Dickens and Tolstoy have acknowledged his influence on modern fiction, and Scott continues to inspire.
Both Game Of Thrones creator George RR Martin and Outlander author Diana Gabaldon are confirmed fans.
Scott’s success is all the more remarkable for the fact he only took up fiction writing in 1813, aged 42.
His first love was poetry – he was one of the best-read, best-reviewed and best-paid poets of the Romantic era. He was offered, and declined, the role of Poet Laureate, only turning to prose when he was slightly eclipsed by the “mad, bad and dangerous to know” Lord Byron.
When Scott died at the age of 61 in 1832, having penned the 28 best-sellers known collectively as the Waverley Novels, he was the most famous novelist the world had seen.
Yet, remarkably, the identity of the author of these works remained a mystery for 13 years. Scott finally outed himself as the writer to huge applause at a fundraising dinner in Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms in 1827.
Switching from poetry to prose was always going to be a gamble, and was probably the initial reason for Scott’s secrecy. However, he soon found that anonymity had its advantages. Rumours were flying about the identity of the author people were calling “The Great Unknown”. It created a buzz that was beneficial to sales – Scott might have been an early practitioner of the publicity stunt.
Yet this famous author came from humble beginnings. Born in a small flat in College Wynd in Edinburgh’s Old Town, Scott’s father was a solicitor while his mother was the daughter of a professor of medicine.
Although more privileged than most, his upbringing was far from easy. Six of his siblings died in infancy and Scott himself survived a bout of polio as a toddler that left him with a limp in his right leg.
To restore his health he was sent for extended visits to his paternal grandparents’ farm at Sandyknowe in the Scottish Borders. Listening to his grandfather’s stories
“It’s impossible to imagine a Scotland Scott” without
and learning to read with his Auntie Jenny,
Scott developed a love of Borders history, dialect and folklore that inspired much of his work.
Scott followed in his father’s footsteps, qualifying as a lawyer in 1792. The romance of the written word fascinated him though, and he began writing aged 25 – first translations and then poetry.
By the 1820s, having been granted the title of baronet and elected president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scott was the most famous living Scotsman.
Somewhat fittingly, in 1822, Scott was asked to stage-manage King George IV’S visit to Edinburgh. Despite controversy over the king’s choice of salmon pink tights and mini-kilt, the day was a success.
Scott had made tartan trendy and the event created an unprecedented interest in kilts and Highland dress – turning them into the symbols of national identity that they remain to this day. Items from the visit are available to view in Edinburgh’s Museums and Galleries, and are always popular with visitors, says history curator Vicky Garrington.
“We have one very bright pair of trews said to have been worn by a seven-foot Highlander – I would imagine he got noticed by his monarch!”
Scott is also credited with saving the Scottish banknote. In 1826, he wrote a series of letters to the Edinburgh Weekly Journals under the pseudonym Malachi Malagrowther, championing Scottish banks retaining the right to print their own banknotes. The government backed down and Bank of Scotland notes still bear a portrait of him in commemoration. Somewhat ironically, Scott was never very adept at managing his own finances. In 1825, following the collapse of his publishing company, he was left with considerable debts. Rather than declare bankruptcy, he proceeded to write his way out of trouble.
Scott lived at Abbotsford, the mansion he had built near Melrose, until his death in 1832, and was buried alongside his wife, Charlotte, at Dryburgh Abbey. For the next half century he was a national icon, as revered as Shakespeare, but his popularity waned from the 1880s. Yet, Scott deserves our respect and a great big toast on his birthday. He was the first to tell swashbuckling stories and bring heroes to life in glorious technicolour – it’s impossible to imagine a Scotland without Sir Walter Scott.
“King trendy” George IV’S visit made tartan