Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) is one of the best-loved Scottish writers. Beginning with a series of poetry collections and nonfiction works, Scott quickly became known as a rising force in British letters. But it was with the publication of Waverley (1814), the first of a series of sixteen bestselling historical novels known collectively as the Waverley novels, that the writer established himself as a literary icon. Such works as Guy Mannering, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, and Kenilworth, among many others, are still widely read today, and have never been out-of-print. S. Fowler Wright here provides a definitive biography of the writer and the man, showing how his antecedents in Scotland colored all of his later work, and following the rapid rise of his reputation—and the simultaneous onset of the financial troubles that plagued his later years. A masterful portrait of a great (and still vital) poet and novelist.