Sir Walter Scott
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1838
- Form
- Essay
- Language
- English
- Length
- Short · 65 ppunder 120 pages
- Difficulty
- Demanding3 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendCritical and Miscellaneous EssaysChapman and Hall, 1869The collected text of the review; the Harvard Classics volume 25 prints it with Characteristics and the Edinburgh address.
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A long review of Lockhart's Life of Scott, written for the London and Westminster Review. Carlyle uses the biography to take the measure of the most successful writer of the age and finds him healthy, honest, immensely capable and finally not great, because he wrote for money and amusement rather than out of inner necessity. He describes the Waverley novels as having taught readers that history was made by living men rather than by abstractions, praises Scott's manliness and good sense, and then tells the story of Abbotsford and the crash of 1826 as a tragedy of a man who spent his talent buying land.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Sir Walter Scott are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.