The Journal of Sir Walter Scott by Walter Scott

Description

For the last years of his life, Sir Walter Scott — the most famous novelist in Europe — wrote to himself. The Journal that survives from 1825 to 1832 is one of the great records of the human spirit in adversity, a diary kept by a man at the summit of his fame as it began to crumble beneath him. In its pages Scott records the collapse of his publishing finances, the ruin that threatened his family and his honor, and his decision to pay off a fortune in debt by writing his way back to solvency — a project the journal watches fail and then triumph, illness and age doing their quiet work all the while.

The entries are untutored, candid, and alive. Scott was too experienced a writer to pose even in privacy, and the journal gives us the man at first hand: his humor leavening the worst weeks, his affection for his dogs and his guests, his extraordinary discipline, and the rolling Gaelic cadence of a mind built for storytelling. Because he was among the most celebrated men of letters in Europe, the journal is also a running record of the literary world of the 1820s — meetings, reflections, feuds, and friendships with almost every figure of consequence in Britain and beyond.

This edition follows the standard scholarly text of the journal, presenting the diary’s full sweep. For students of Scott, for readers of biography, and for anyone who has ever admired a man going down fighting, it is indispensable.

Why readers still come back to it

• The unfiltered voice of a great literary figure at his most human.
• An unrivaled window into the 1820s literary world.
• A stirring, genuinely moving account of courage under financial ruin.

About this DodaBooks edition

This edition presents the complete text with clean professional typesetting, a working table of contents, and chapter navigation optimized for phone, tablet, and e-reader.