This is a stimulating introduction to Sir Walter Scott. It is a succinct and penetrating study of the influences on him of both classical and enlightened Edinburgh and of Border and Jacobite tradition. In his famous book in 1936 Edwin Muir raised, but did not satisfactorily answer, the questions of what Scotland had done for Scott and what he had done for Scotland. This book offers new and more deeply considered answers. It throws light both on Sir Walter Scott and on the dilemma which faced Scotland then and which faces it still.



P.H. Scott is a former diplomat who has written extensively on Scottish literature, history and politics, and who has made a special study of the Union question, both in its origins and its consequences.