“I have read all W. Scott’s novels at least fifty times… grand work … great English poet – wonderful man! I long to get drunk with him.” -- Byron

Despite his staggering output as a novelist, poet, biographer historian and anthologist, copious letters and the celebrated Journal, Walter Scott began his literary career as a middle-aged man. In the face of constant poor health, financial and domestic difficulties, he successfully combined his career as a much-loved, influential author with that of a lawyer, landowner, Border farmer, part-time soldier, and paterfamilias.

Weaving together Scott’s life with his works, A.N. Wilson has produced a lively, and contagiously enthusiastic reassessment of the writer who he believes was, “the greatest single imaginative genius of the nineteenth century.”