Walter Scott

Walter Scott is a famous Scottish poet and novel-writer. Because of his significant and wide literary work with historical novels, he came to be known as the father of the historical novel.

He was born in 1771 in Edinburgh. As a child, he went through child’s paralysis and as a consequence, he limped and it affected him later on work. To be able to cure his state he was sent to live with his grandparents in the village, where he started his education. He was schooled by his aunt and she implemented many historical stories, legends, and myths into his studies. Later on, he went to a private school and he went to high school in Edinburgh. He was never able to participate in school trips so he would spend his free time reading historical stories, poems…

He studied literature since he was 12. Since he was a child he was obsessed with folk literature so he started gathering poems and stories from the Scottish folk literature. He gathered Scottish ballads and in 1802 he published a book named "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border".

Poetry introduced him to the literary world. He wrote poems about Scotland and the medieval themes. He was a declared moralist so he was always prone to good conquering the bad, justice conquering the injustice and good guys conquering the bad guys.

Soon he started writing historical novels which had many characteristics from the Romanticism such as a dramatic plot, heroic main characters, description of chivalry and moral which it represents. His first novel was "Waverly", published in 1814 and the most famous are "Rob Roy" from 1817 and "Ivanhoe" from 1820. He wrote over 20 novels including "The Black Dwarf" and "The Heart of Midlothian".

He died in 1832.