Waverley - Paperback

Sir Walter Scott, the Scotsman who is often credited with inventing the historical novel and who became the most popular author of his day, was born in Edinburgh on August 15, 1771, into a prosperous middle-class family. He was the fourth surviving child of Walter Scott, a staunchly Presbyterian solicitor, and Anne Rutherford, the well-educated daughter of a professor of medicine. Crippled by polio when he was eighteen months old, Scott spent his early childhood convalescing in the Border country southeast of Edinburgh and became fascinated by folklore of the region. At the age of twelve he entered the high school of Edinburgh to study Latin, Greek, and logic; afterward he pursued courses in law and philosophy. Following a five-year apprenticeship in his father's law office, Scott was admitted to the bar in 1792. Five years later he married Charlotte Charpentier, the daughter of a French royalist refugee; they had four children. In 1799 he was named sheriff-depute for the county of Selkirk, and in 1806 he be came a clerk of the Court of Session, two appointments he retained for life.

Kathryn Sutherland is a senior research fellow at St Anne's College, Oxford.