Waverley (Vintage Past)

　　Vintage Past: Inventive tales of times gone by to tell the histories we think we know

作者簡介

　　Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh on 15 August 1777. He was educated in  Edinburgh and called to the bar in 1792, succeeding his father as  Writer to the Signet, then Clerk of Session. He published anonymous  translations of German Romantic poetry from 1797, in which year he also  married. In 1805 he published his first major work, a romantic poem  called The Lay of the Last Minstrel, became a partner in a printing business, and several other long poems followed, including Marmion (1808) and The Lady of the Lake (1810). These poems found acclaim and great popularity, but from 1814 and the publication of Waverley,  Scott turned almost exclusively to novel-writing, albeit anonymously. A  hugely prolific period of writing produced over twenty-five novels,  including Rob Roy (1817), The Heart of Midlothian (1818), The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), Kenilworth (1821) and Redgauntlet  (1824). Already sheriff-depute of Selkirkshire, Scott was created a  baronet in 1820. The printing business in which Scott was a partner ran  into financial difficulties in  1826, and Scott devoted his energies to  work in order to repay the firm’s creditors, publishing many more  novels, dramatic works, histories and a life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Sir  Walter Scott died on 21 September 1832 at Abbotsford, the home he had  built on the Scottish Borders.