50 Fun Facts About Walter Scott

In which year was Walter Scott born?

He arrived in a third-floor flat on College Wynd in Edinburgh's Old Town, the ninth child of a Writer to the Signet; six of his siblings died in infancy.

A childhood illness in 1773 left Scott with a lifelong limp. What was it?

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?

He served as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire throughout his literary career.

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

They married on Christmas Eve 1797 in Carlisle after a three-week courtship, having met in the Lake District.

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

Of its 48 traditional ballads, 26 had never been printed before; John Leyden helped him gather them.

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

Scott later admitted he had been 'German-mad'; the two poems appeared as The Chase, and William and Helen.

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

He borrowed its irregular four-beat metre from Coleridge's then-unpublished Christabel and it went through five editions in a year.

Scott's 1808 poem Marmion builds to which battle?

Each of its six cantos opens with a verse epistle to one of Scott's friends.

How many copies did The Lady of the Lake sell in its first year, the peak of Scott's poetic career?

The poem's disguised king is James V, and it kicked off a tourist boom in the Trossachs.

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

The huntsman, James Fitz-James, turns out to be the king himself.

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

Scott turned to prose instead, and Waverley appeared two years later.

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

Its subtitle was 'Tis Sixty Years Since, and it is often called the first historical novel in the Western tradition.

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

Edward Waverley, an 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?

He kept the secret until his financial ruin in 1826, and at least eleven reasons have been suggested for the anonymity.

How many novels did Scott write in total?

Only one, Saint Ronan's Well, has a wholly modern setting; sixteen take place in Scotland.

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

The Highland outlaw of the title bears little relation to the historical Rob Roy MacGregor.

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

The plot opens with the 1736 Porteous Riots and follows Jeanie Deans's walk to London to save her sister from the gallows.

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

Scott based the story on Helen Walker, whose case reached him in an anonymous letter.

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

Edgar Allan Poe called the novel 'the master novel of Scott', and Donizetti's 1835 opera premiered just after Bellini's death.

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

He had to suspend work in March 1819 and finished the book by dictation about a week into April.

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

Relying on printed sources alone, he invented an artificial speech based on Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.

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

Cedric of Rotherwood disinherits his son for that loyalty and for loving the Lady Rowena.

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

Prince John presides over the tournament, and Robin of Locksley and his men are in the crowd.

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

Delacroix painted the abduction of Rebecca in 1846, and the picture hangs in New York's Metropolitan Museum.

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

The novel makes Leicester complicit in the death of his wife Amy Robsart, a scandal historians still cannot settle.

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

The regalia had been hidden from Cromwell, then locked away after the 1707 Union until rumours said they were lost.

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

It was the first visit by a reigning monarch in nearly two centuries, and Scott had only three weeks to organise it.

Scott was made a baronet in 1820. What happened to the title after his son's death in 1847?

His eldest son had married Jane Jobson, heiress of Lochore, in 1825, but the line ended with him.

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

He named it after a nearby ford used by the monks of Melrose Abbey, then spent more than £25,000 building the mansion.

On which river does Abbotsford stand?

It sits on the south bank near Galashiels and is now open to the public as a Category A listed building.

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

The Scott Monument's marble statue shows the dog at his master's side.

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

Refusing bankruptcy or help, even from the King, he put his income in trust for creditors and wrote to pay it off.

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

Parliament wanted to ban notes under five pounds; the outcry forced it to relent, which is why he appears on Bank of Scotland notes.

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

It was one of eleven non-fiction works he produced between 1826 and 1832 while writing off his debts.

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

He suffered his final stroke on a Rhine steamboat near Emmerich on the way home.

Where was Walter Scott buried in 1832?

His mother's Haliburton ancestry gave him a hereditary right of burial there, and his wife was already interred in the abbey.

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

Its 287 steps lead to the top platform, and the tower carries 68 statues of characters from Scott's books.

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

He entered as 'John Morvo', fearing his lack of qualifications; his son placed the finial in 1844.

The Scott Monument is the second-largest monument to a writer in the world. Which is the largest?

Its centre statue of Scott is carved from white Carrara marble by John Steell.

Edinburgh's main railway station is named after what?

It stands beside the Scott Monument and is the northern terminus 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?

Around 90 operas draw on Scott, and 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 nine-volume Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott in 1837?

It ranked with Thomas Moore's Life of Byron as the most influential literary biography of its decade.

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

Their ancestors were closely linked to Scott, and the prize is presented at Abbotsford.

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

He was sent to stay with his aunt Jenny in the Borders for six months in 1783 because his parents thought he had outgrown his strength.

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

He had cancelled his Edinburgh Review subscription in 1808 over its advocacy of peace with Napoleon, and wrote for the rival for the rest of his life.

Which is the only one of Scott's 27 novels with a wholly modern setting?

The rest range from 1794 in The Antiquary back to the First Crusade in Count Robert of Paris; sixteen are set in Scotland.

In which kirk was Scott ordained an elder in 1806?

Raised Presbyterian, he also adhered to the Scottish Episcopal Church in adult life, reading Book of Common Prayer services at home.

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

Working with architects William Atkinson and Edward Blore, he expanded the house massively in 1816-19 and 1822-24.

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

The large house stood on the south bank of the Tweed, six miles north of Selkirk; he moved when its lease expired in 1811.