Sir Walter Scott

Scott was the first British novelist to discover in landscape a literary as well as a pictoral medium an insight which he exploits to powerful effect in his Scottish novels. Mr Reed's book breaks new ground by demonstrating the originality of Scott's landscapes in which romantic nature takes its place in a realistic context of people history architecture and traditions. The author shows how as poet and novelist Scott explores the notion of place to a depth where it operates not merely as dramatic background but as a force which shapes and directs the minds of its inhabitants. This study adds a new dimension to the understanding of Scott's work.