ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
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Walter Scott: The father of the historical novel
On his 250th birth anniversary, JENNY FARRELL looks back at the life and work of the great Scottish writer
HOME FROM HOME: The early 16th-century Mailholm Tower in Scotland was where Walter Scott spent much time time during his youth
[Keith Proven/Creative Commons]
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
WALTER SCOTT, celebrated by Marxist critic Gyorgy Lukacs as the founder of the historical novel, was born in Edinburgh 250 years ago on August 15, 1771.
Born into the upper middle class, his family preserved a sense of tradition of one of the great Scottish clans. Like Rabbie Burns, Scott grew up with the songs and legends of Scotland, a cultural awareness that created a deep sense of national identity.
Scott’s collection Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, a ballad anthology, made him famous. Besides writing, he was deputy sheriff of Selkirkshire, part-owner of a printing press and later a publishing house. Growing debts, however, impacted on his writing.
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