Introduction to talk on Walter Scott by John Davison, 11 December 2015

In his day Walter Scott was the most successful novelist who had ever written, and the most famous Scotsman in the world. He knew practically everyone in British society from the King (George IV) downwards; his books were translated across the world, and provided the plots for more than ninety operas.

Beginning as a successful (and not very good) poet he began writing novels almost by accident, and became the most successful novelist ever to have written in English. He was the inventor of the historical novel; every writer of historical fiction from Bulwer Lytton to Philippa Gregory and Hilary Mantel is in his debt. His influence on the Scotland of his time was profound, both through his novels and his political involvement. It can be argued that he helped to create modern Scotland by  reconciling lukewarm Scots to the Hanoverian crown, and  helping to heal the rift between  the  romantically backward Highlands and the Lowlands of the Enlightenment.

To a remarkable extent he and his books are one: the themes he treats in fiction are those which concerned him in life, and his own was quite as heroic as any of his characters'.  He had the distinction of being loved by almost everyone with whom he came into close contact, from aristocrats to servants. He is one of the most attractive figures the gallery of English letters.