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{{Short description|Scottish
{{Other people}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2014}}
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| honorific_suffix = {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100|Bt}}
| image = Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) - Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) - RCIN 400644 - Royal Collection.jpg
| caption = ,''[[Portrait of Sir Walter Scott]]'' by [[Thomas Lawrence]], {{circa|
| birth_date = 15 August 1771
| birth_place = [[Edinburgh]], Scotland
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1832|9|21|1771|8|15}}
| death_place = [[Abbotsford House|Abbotsford]], [[Roxburghshire]], Scotland
| nationality = [[Scotland|Scottish]]
| occupation = {{unbulleted list |Historical novelist|Poet|[[Faculty of Advocates|Advocate]]|[[Sheriff-Depute]]|[[Clerk of Session]]}}
| period = 19th century
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|embed = yes
|embed_title = Military Service
|allegiance = [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]]
|branch = British Militia
|serviceyears =
|unit = [[British Volunteer Corps|Royal Edinburgh Volunteer Light Dragoons]]
|rank = Quartermaster
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}}
'''Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRSE}} {{post-nominals|list=[[Society of Antiquaries of Scotland#Fellowship|FSAScot]]}} (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a
As an advocate, judge, and legal administrator by profession, he combined writing and editing with his daily work as [[Clerk of Session]] and [[Sheriff court|Sheriff-Depute]] of [[Selkirkshire]]. He was prominent in Edinburgh's [[Tory (political faction)|Tory establishment]], active in the [[Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland|Highland Society]], long time a president of the [[Royal Society of Edinburgh]] (1820–1832), and a vice president of the [[Society of Antiquaries of Scotland]] (1827–1829).<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.socantscot.org/resources/famous-fellows/ |title=Famous Fellows |publisher=Society of Antiquaries of Scotland |access-date=18 January 2019}}</ref> His knowledge of history and literary facility equipped him to establish the [[Historical fiction|historical novel]] [[Genre fiction|genre]] as an exemplar of European [[Romanticism]]. He became a [[baronet]] of [[Abbotsford House|Abbotsford]] in the [[County of Roxburgh]], Scotland, on 22 April 1820; the title became extinct upon his son's death in 1847.
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Walter Scott was born on 15 August 1771, in a third-floor apartment on College Wynd in the [[Old Town, Edinburgh|Old Town]], Edinburgh, a narrow alleyway leading from the [[Cowgate]] to the gates of the old [[University of Edinburgh]].<ref name="homes">{{Cite web |last=Edinburgh University Library |title=Homes of Sir Walter Scott |url=http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/biography/homes.html |publisher=[[Edinburgh University Library]] |date=22 October 2004 |access-date=9 July 2013}}</ref> He was the ninth child (six having died in infancy) of Walter Scott (1729–1799), a member of a cadet branch of the [[Clan Scott]] and a [[Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet|Writer to the Signet]], and his wife Anne Rutherford, a sister of [[Daniel Rutherford]] and a descendant both of the [[Clan Swinton]] and of the [[William Hersey Otis Haliburton|Haliburton family]] (descent from which granted Walter's family the hereditary right of burial in [[Dryburgh Abbey]]).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/biography/origins.html |title=Family Background |website=Walter Scott |publisher=Edinburgh University Library |date=24 October 2003}}</ref>
Walter was, through the Haliburtons, a cousin of the [[James Burton (property developer)|London property developer James Burton]] (d. 1837), who was born with the surname 'Haliburton', and of the same's son the architect [[Decimus Burton]].<ref name="BSLS">{{Cite web |title=Who were the Burtons |url=http://www.burtonsstleonardssociety.co.uk/history_-_the_burtons.html |website=The Burtons' St Leonards Society |access-date=18 September 2017 |archive-date=8 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190908112908/http://www.burtonsstleonardssociety.co.uk/history_-_the_burtons.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Walter became a member of the [[Clarence Club]], of which the Burtons were members.<ref name="Life and Letters p. 55">{{Cite book |last=Beattie |first=William |title=Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell, In Three Volumes, Volume II |year=1849 |publisher=Edward Moxon, Dover Street, London |page=55}}</ref><ref name="Athenaeum">{{Cite book |title=The Athenaeum, Volume 3, Issues 115–165 |year=1830 |publisher=J. Lection, London |page=170}}</ref>
[[File:Smailholm Tower 001.jpg|alt=|thumb|Scott's childhood at Sandyknowes, in the shadow of [[Smailholm Tower]], introduced him to the tales and folklore of the [[Scottish Borders]]]]
[[File:The Scott's family home in George Square, Edinburgh.jpg|thumb|The Scott family's home in [[George Square, Edinburgh|George Square]], Edinburgh, from about 1778]]
A childhood bout of [[polio]] in 1773 left Scott lame,<ref name="T E Cone">{{Cite journal |last=Cone |first=T E |title=Was Sir Walter Scott's Lameness Caused by Poliomyelitis? |journal=Pediatrics |date=1973 |volume=51 |issue=1 |page=33 |url=http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/51/1/35.abstract}}</ref> a condition that would greatly affect his life and writing.<ref name=Robertson>{{Cite web |last=Robertson |first=Fiona |title=Disfigurement and Disability: Walter Scott's Bodies |url=http://www.otranto.co.uk/index.php/publication/view/54#_ftn3 |work=Otranto.co.uk |access-date=9 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140512213344/http://www.otranto.co.uk/index.php/publication/view/54#_ftn3 |archive-date=12 May 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
To improve his lameness he was sent in 1773 to live in the rural [[Scottish Borders]], at his paternal grandparents' farm at Sandyknowe, by the ruin of [[Smailholm Tower]], the earlier family home.<ref name="Sandy">{{Cite web |url=http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/biography/sandy.html |title=Sandyknowe and Early Childhood |website=Walter Scott |publisher=Edinburgh University Library |date=24 October 2003}}</ref> Here, he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny Scott and learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends that later marked much of his work. In January 1775, he returned to Edinburgh, and that summer with his aunt Jenny took spa treatment at [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]] in Somerset,
In 1778, Scott returned to Edinburgh for private education to prepare him for school and joined his family in their new house, one of the first to be built in [[George Square, Edinburgh|George Square]].<ref name="homes"/> In October 1779, he began at the [[Royal High School (Edinburgh)|Royal High School]] in Edinburgh (in High School Yards). He was by then well able to walk and explore the city and the surrounding countryside. His reading included chivalric romances, poems, history and travel books. He was given private tuition by James Mitchell in arithmetic and writing, and learned from him the history of the [[Church of Scotland]] with emphasis on the [[Covenanters]].
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Although he continued to be extremely popular and widely read, both at home and abroad,<ref>"...it would be difficult to name, from among both modern and ancient works, many read more widely and with greater pleasure than the historical novels of ... Walter Scott." – [[Alessandro Manzoni]], ''On the Historical Novel''.</ref> Scott's critical reputation declined in the last half of the 19th century as serious writers turned from romanticism to realism, and Scott began to be regarded as an author suitable for children. This trend accelerated in the 20th century. For example, in his classic study ''[[Aspects of the Novel]]'' (1927), [[E. M. Forster]] harshly criticized Scott's clumsy and slapdash writing style, "flat" characters, and thin plots. In contrast, the novels of Scott's contemporary [[Jane Austen]], once appreciated only by a discerning few (including, as it happened, Scott himself) rose steadily in critical esteem, though Austen, as a female writer, was still faulted for her narrow ("feminine") choice of subject matter, which, unlike Scott, avoided the grand historical themes traditionally viewed as masculine.
Nevertheless, Scott's importance as an innovator continued to be recognised. He was acclaimed as the inventor of the genre of the modern historical novel (which others{{who?|date=July 2024}} trace to [[Jane Porter]], whose work in the genre predates Scott's{{cn|date=July 2024}}) and the inspiration for enormous numbers of imitators and genre writers both in Britain and on the European continent. In the cultural sphere, Scott's Waverley novels played a significant part in the movement (begun with [[James Macpherson]]'s ''[[Ossian]]'' cycle) in rehabilitating the public perception of the [[Scottish Highlands]] and its culture, which had been formerly been viewed by the southern mind as a barbaric breeding ground of hill bandits, religious fanaticism, and [[Jacobitism|Jacobite risings]].
Scott served as chairman of the [[Royal Society of Edinburgh]] and was also a member of the [[Royal Celtic Society]]. His own contribution to the reinvention of Scottish culture was enormous, even though his re-creations of the customs of the [[Scottish Highlands|Highlands]] were fanciful at times. Through the medium of Scott's novels, the violent religious and political conflicts of the country's recent past could be seen as belonging to history—which Scott defined, as the subtitle of ''Waverley'' ("'Tis Sixty Years Since") indicates, as something that happened at least 60 years earlier. His advocacy of objectivity and moderation and his strong repudiation of political violence on either side also had a strong, though unspoken, contemporary resonance in an era when many conservative English speakers lived in mortal fear of a revolution in the French style on British soil. Scott's orchestration of [[Visit of King George IV to Scotland|King George IV's visit to Scotland]], in 1822, was a pivotal event intended to inspire a view of his home country that accentuated the positive aspects of the past while allowing the age of quasi-medieval blood-letting to be put to rest, while envisioning a more useful, peaceful future.
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===Memorials and commemoration===
[[File:Charles Robert Leslie - Sir Walter Scott - 96.945 - Museum of Fine Arts.jpg|thumb|left|Painted by C R Leslie 1824. Engraved by [https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG24434 M I Danforth]
1829]][[File:Scott Monument from St. David Street.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Scott Monument]] on Edinburgh's [[Princes Street]]]]
[[File:Sir Walter Scott statue at Scott Monument.jpg|thumb|upright|Statue by [[John Steell|Sir John Steell]] on the [[Scott Monument]] in Edinburgh]]
[[File:Scott Monument, Glasgow.JPG|thumb|upright|Scott Monument in Glasgow's [[George Square]]]]
[[File:Walter Scott statue, Glasgow.JPG|thumb|upright|Statue on the Glasgow monument]]
During his lifetime, Scott's portrait was painted by Sir [[Edwin Landseer]] and fellow Scots Sir [[Henry Raeburn]] and [[James Eckford Lauder]]. In
Post Scott's life, 1833, W J Thompson painted a miniature for a gold memorial locket shown in [[William John Thomson|William John Thompson]].
In Edinburgh, the 61.1-metre-tall [[Victorian Gothic]] spire of the [[Scott Monument]] was designed by [[George Meikle Kemp]]. It was completed in 1844, 12 years after Scott's death, and dominates the south side of [[Princes Street]]. Scott is also commemorated on a stone slab in [[Makars' Court]], outside The Writers' Museum, [[Lawnmarket]], Edinburgh, along with other prominent Scottish writers; quotes from his work are also visible on the [[Canongate]] Wall of the [[Scottish Parliament building]] in [[Holyrood, Edinburgh|Holyrood]]. There is a tower dedicated to his memory on [[Corstorphine Hill]] in the west of the city and Edinburgh's Waverley railway station, opened in 1854, takes its name from his first novel.
In [[Glasgow]], [[public statues in Glasgow#George Square|Walter Scott's Monument]] dominates the centre of [[George Square]], the main public square in the city. Designed by [[David Rhind]] in 1838, the monument features a large column topped by a statue of Scott.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/143263/details/glasgow+george+square+walter+scott+s+monument/|title=Glasgow, George Square, Walter Scott's Monument|access-date=9 April 2011}}</ref>
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[[Jane Austen]], in a letter to her nephew James Edward Austen on 16 December 1816, writes:
{{Blockquote|
Uncle Henry writes very superior Sermons.– You & I must try to get hold of one or two, & put them into our Novels;– it would be a fine help to a volume; & we could make our Heroine read it aloud of a Sunday Evening, just as well as Isabella Wardour in ''[[the Antiquary]]'', is made to read the History of the Hartz Demon in the ruins of St Ruth– tho' I
}}
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==Cited sources==
*{{Cite book |ref=Johnson |last=Johnson |first=Edgar |title=Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown|place=London |year=
*{{Cite book |last=Lockhart |first=John Gibson |title=Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g2MVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA378 |year=1852 |publisher=A. and C. Black}}
*{{citation |last=Sherwood |first=Mary Martha |year=1857 |title=The life of Mrs Sherwood |publisher=Darton & Co., London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rsMEAAAAYAAJ }}
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*Millgate, Jane. ''Walter Scott: The Making of the Novelist'' (Edinburgh, 1984).
*Oliver, Susan. ''[https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/walter-scott-and-the-greening-of-scotland/47C8826A0C768FE593830757CBCE21CF Walter Scott and the Greening of Scotland: Emergent Ecologies of a Nation]''. Cambridge University Press, 2021. {{ISBN|9781108917674}}
*[[Una Pope-Hennessy|Pope-Hennessy, Una]], ''Sir Walter Scott'', Home & Van Thal, 1948 (The English Novelists series).
*[[Ann Rigney|Rigney, Ann]]. ''The Afterlives of Walter Scott: Memory on the Move''. Oxford UP, 2012. {{ISBN|9780199644018}}
*{{cite book |last1=Stephen |first1=Leslie |author-link1=Leslie Stephen |title=Studies of a Biographer |url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Studies_of_a_Biographer |volume=2 |year=1898 |publisher=Duckworth & Co. |location=London |chapter=The Story of Scott's Ruin |chapter-url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Studies_of_a_Biographer/The_Story_of_Scott's_Ruin}}
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|motto = (above) ''Reparabit cornua phoebe'' – the moon shall fill her horns again<br />(below) ''Watch weel''
}}
<references />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Walter}}
[[Category:Walter Scott|
[[Category:1771 births]]
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[[Category:18th-century Scottish biographers]]
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[[Category:18th-century Scottish poets]]
[[Category:19th-century antiquarians]]
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[[Category:19th-century British civil servants]]
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[[Category:18th-century Scottish dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:19th-century Scottish dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:19th-century British essayists]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh]]
[[Category:British literary editors]]
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[[Category:Scottish anti-communists]]
[[Category:Scottish biographers]]
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[[Category:Scottish folk-song collectors]]
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[[Category:Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period]]
[[Category:Writers of historical fiction set in the Middle Ages]]
[[Category:Scott baronets|601]]
[[Category:British lawyers with disabilities]]
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