50 Fun Facts About Walter Scott

In which year was Walter Scott born?

Scott was born on 15 August 1771 in a third-floor flat on College Wynd in Edinburgh's Old Town, the ninth child of a Writer to the Signet; six siblings died in infancy.

Which childhood illness in 1773 left Scott with a lifelong limp?

The illness was polio, caught at about 18 months; he was sent to his grandparents' Borders farm at Sandyknowe to recover, where his aunt Jenny taught him to read and fed him ballads.

Which famous Scottish poet did the 15-year-old Scott meet, just once, at an Edinburgh literary salon?

Scott alone could name the author of a poem Burns asked about, and was thanked for it.

What was Scott's profession alongside writing?

Scott was a lawyer: called to the bar as an advocate in 1792, he served as Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire from 1799 and as a Principal Clerk of Session from 1806.

Scott's wife Charlotte Charpentier was born in which country?

Charlotte Charpentier was born in Lyon, France, in 1770; Scott met her at the spa of Gilsland in Cumberland in 1797 and married her in Carlisle that Christmas Eve.

Scott's two-volume 1802 collection of traditional ballads was titled what?

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border appeared in two volumes in 1802, printed by James Ballantyne, with a third volume following in 1803; John Leyden helped gather the ballads.

Which German writer's poems did Scott translate in 1796 as his first published work?

Gottfried August Bürger's ballads Lenore and Der wilde Jäger became Scott's anonymous 1796 debut, The Chase, and William and Helen; he later admitted he had been 'German-mad'.

Scott's first long narrative poem, published in 1805, was called what?

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) took its irregular four-beat metre from Coleridge's then-unpublished Christabel, which Scott had heard recited, and it made his name as a poet.

Scott's 1808 poem Marmion builds to which battle?

Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field climaxes at the 1513 battle where James IV fell; each of its six cantos opens with a verse epistle to one of Scott's friends.

Which 1813 Scott poem is set in Yorkshire just after the Battle of Marston Moor?

Rokeby (1813) unfolds at Rokeby Park in Yorkshire in 1644, days after Marston Moor; the estate belonged to Scott's friend J. B. S. Morritt.

On which body of water does Ellen Douglas row out to rescue the lost huntsman in The Lady of the Lake?

Ellen Douglas rows her skiff from Ellen's Isle on Loch Katrine, in the Trossachs, to the stranger James Fitz-James, who proves to be the king himself.

Which poet's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ended Scott's reign as Britain's most popular poet in 1812?

Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812) made Byron the sensation of the day; Scott, sensing he had been outshone in verse, turned increasingly to prose fiction.

What was Scott's first novel, published anonymously in 1814?

Waverley came out anonymously in July 1814 and is often called the first historical novel in the Western tradition; Scott had begun it around 1805 and set it aside.

Which historical event forms the backdrop of Scott's first novel?

The Jacobite rising of 1745 is the backdrop: a young English officer is torn between the Crown and the romantic cause of Charles Edward Stuart.

Under what byline did most of Scott's later novels appear before he admitted authorship?

Later novels were billed 'By the Author of Waverley'; Scott publicly admitted authorship only at an Edinburgh Theatrical Fund dinner in February 1827, after his financial crash.

How many novels did Scott write in total?

Scott wrote 27 novels in under two decades, from his anonymous 1814 debut to Castle Dangerous, his last, published the year before his death.

Which Scott novel is set in 1715 and narrated by Frank Osbaldistone?

Rob Roy (1817) is told by young Frank Osbaldistone, whose journey north entangles him with the outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor on the eve of the 1715 Jacobite rising.

The Heart of Mid-Lothian takes its title from which building?

The 'Heart of Midlothian' was the nickname of Edinburgh's Old Tolbooth prison; the plot opens with the 1736 Porteous Riots and follows Jeanie Deans's walk to London to save her sister.

In The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Jeanie Deans's sister has been condemned for what?

Effie Deans is condemned for murdering her newborn baby under a statute that presumed guilt from a concealed pregnancy; Scott based Jeanie on Helen Walker, whose story reached him in an anonymous letter.

Which Scott novel became Donizetti's most famous tragic opera in 1835?

The Bride of Lammermoor (1819) became Lucia di Lammermoor, which premiered in Naples on 26 September 1835, three days after Bellini's death.

Scott dictated much of his 1819 tragedy set in the Lammermuir Hills after a near-fatal attack of what?

The attack was gallstones: agonising stomach cramps stopped his pen in March 1819, and he dictated the rest of the novel to John Ballantyne and William Laidlaw by early April.

Ivanhoe broke with Scott's earlier novels by being set where and when?

Ivanhoe (1819) is set in 12th-century England, in 1194; with no living tradition to draw on, Scott built its dialogue from Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.

Who is the Norman king that Wilfred of Ivanhoe supports, to his Saxon father's fury?

Richard the Lionheart is the king Wilfred followed on crusade; his Saxon father Cedric of Rotherwood disinherits him for that loyalty and for loving the Lady Rowena.

In Ivanhoe, Isaac of York equips the disguised hero for a tournament held where?

The tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, presided over by Prince John, is where the 'Disinherited Knight' wins the day on the horse and armour Isaac of York lent him.

Which Templar knight is the villain who pursues Rebecca in Ivanhoe?

Brian de Bois-Guilbert, the Templar, carries Rebecca off to Templestowe; Delacroix's 1846 painting of the abduction hangs in New York's Metropolitan Museum.

Kenilworth (1821) builds up to a lavish reception of Elizabeth I by which nobleman?

The Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley, hosts the queen at Kenilworth Castle; the novel makes him complicit in the death of his wife Amy Robsart, which historians have never settled.

What did Scott and a small military team find in a locked box in Edinburgh Castle on 4 February 1818?

The Scottish crown jewels, the Honours of Scotland, lay in an oak chest in the Castle's Crown Room; hidden from Cromwell's army in 1651, they had been locked away after the 1707 Union.

Which monarch's 1822 visit to Scotland did Scott stage-manage as a tartan pageant?

George IV landed at Leith in August 1822, the first visit by a reigning monarch since Charles II in 1651; Scott orchestrated the tartan pageantry in a matter of weeks.

What became of Scott's 1820 baronetcy after his son's death in 1847?

It became extinct: the 2nd baronet, who had married Jane Jobson, heiress of Lochore, in 1825, died childless on his way home from India in 1847.

What was the muddy nickname of the farm Scott bought in 1811 and renamed Abbotsford?

Clarty Hole, 'clarty' being Scots for muddy, was the farm Scott bought in 1811 and renamed Abbotsford after a nearby ford once used by the monks of Melrose Abbey.

On which river does Abbotsford stand?

Abbotsford stands on the south bank of the Tweed near Galashiels; the house is a Category A listed building open to visitors.

What was the name of Scott's favourite dog, a large staghound?

Maida, a deerhound named after the 1806 Battle of Maida, was Scott's favourite; John Steell's marble statue beneath the Scott Monument shows the dog at his master's side.

How large were the debts that ruined Scott when the Ballantyne printing firm collapsed in 1826?

The debts came to about £130,000 when Constable and the Ballantyne firm failed in January 1826; refusing bankruptcy, Scott put his income in trust for creditors and wrote to pay them off.

Under which pseudonym did Scott write 1826 letters that saved Scotland's right to issue its own banknotes?

As 'Malachi Malagrowther' Scott attacked the plan to ban Scottish notes under five pounds; the outcry made the government drop it, and Bank of Scotland later put his portrait on its notes.

Which emperor was the subject of Scott's nine-volume 1827 biography?

The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte appeared in nine volumes in June 1827, written at speed to pay creditors; Scott visited Paris in 1826 to research it.

In a last search for health in 1831, Scott sailed to Malta and Naples aboard which Royal Navy frigate?

The Admiralty lent him the frigate HMS Barham, which sailed from Portsmouth in October 1831; he reached Malta and Naples before a further stroke on the journey home via the Rhine.

Where was Walter Scott buried in 1832?

Scott was buried at Dryburgh Abbey on 26 September 1832; his mother's Haliburton ancestry gave him a hereditary right of burial there, and his wife had been interred there in 1826.

How tall is the Scott Monument on Edinburgh's Princes Street?

The Scott Monument rises about 61 metres (200 feet); 287 steps climb to the top platform, and the spire's niches hold statues of characters from Scott's novels and figures from Scottish history.

Which self-taught architect entered the Scott Monument design competition under a medieval Melrose Abbey mason's name?

George Meikle Kemp, a joiner and self-taught draughtsman, entered as 'John Morvo' for fear his lack of training would count against him; he drowned in 1844, and his son placed the finial.

Which monument to a writer is the only one larger than the Scott Monument?

José Martí's in Havana, the 109-metre memorial tower in the Plaza de la Revolución, is the only writer's monument larger than the Scott Monument.

Edinburgh's main railway station is named after what?

Edinburgh Waverley takes its name from Scott's Waverley novels; the station lies beside the Scott Monument and is the northern end of the East Coast Main Line from King's Cross.

Which composer's opera La donna del lago (1819) is based on Scott's The Lady of the Lake?

Rossini's La donna del lago premiered in Naples in 1819; Schubert's famous Ave Maria began as a setting of Ellen's song from the same poem.

Which son-in-law of Scott published the Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott in 1837?

John Gibson Lockhart, who married Scott's daughter Sophia in 1820, published the seven-volume Memoirs in 1837–38, drawing on Scott's journal and letters.

Which aristocratic couple founded the £25,000 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in 2010?

The Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, whose ancestors were Scott's friends and patrons, founded the prize in 2010; its first winner, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, was announced at the Borders Book Festival that June.

At which grammar school did Scott meet James Ballantyne, his future printer and business partner?

Scott spent six months of 1783 at Kelso with his aunt Jenny, attending the grammar school there, where James Ballantyne, later his printer, was a fellow pupil.

Which Tory periodical did Scott help establish in 1809 as a rival to the Whig Edinburgh journal?

The Quarterly Review was launched by John Murray in 1809 with Scott's backing after he had dropped the Edinburgh Review over its 1808 Cevallos article, which urged an end to the war.

Which is the only Scott novel with a wholly modern setting?

Saint Ronan's Well (1823), set in a contemporary Scottish spa town, is the only one; the rest run from The Antiquary's 1794 back to Count Robert of Paris in the First Crusade.

In which kirk was Scott ordained an elder in 1806?

Scott became an elder of Duddingston Kirk, beside Duddingston Loch in Edinburgh, in 1806; raised Presbyterian, he also adhered to the Scottish Episcopal Church in adult life.

Which architectural style did Scott pioneer with his 'Conundrum Castle', Abbotsford?

Abbotsford's turrets, crow-stepped gables and battlements made it a founding example of the Scottish Baronial revival; William Atkinson and Edward Blore designed its 1816–19 and 1822–24 expansions.

Where did Scott spend his summers from 1804 before buying the farm that became Abbotsford?

Ashestiel, a rented house near Clovenfords about six miles from Selkirk, was Scott's summer home from 1804; he left when the lease ran out in 1811 and moved to his new farm.