Finally understanding that Walter Scott is a great writer

When a student in Edinburgh I regularly walked past by the huge Scott Monument, a memorial to the novelist Walter Scott, and wondered why there was such a huge memorial to a writer that I’d never read and didn’t seem to be read by anybody. Not only was there a huge memorial to him but the main station in Edinburgh, Waverley, was named after one of his novels. I can’t think of any other station named after a writer. But now that I have read Scott’s novel Waverley I understand. I thought it marvellous and ended the book in tears not once but twice. I had read The Heart of Midlothian and Old Mortality, but they didn’t reach my soul as Waverley has done. I’ve been more affected by Waverley because it’s a better novel written in stirring prose but also because it’s easy to identify with the romantically-misguided Jacobite uprising of 1745 (Bonnie Prince Charlie and The Skye Boat Song) and the horrors of Culloden and the clearances that followed. Waverley may also have had a bigger impact…