Among the early critics of Scott was
Mark Twain, who blamed Scott's "romantacization of battle" for what he saw as the South's decision to fight the
Civil War. Twain's ridiculing of
chivalry in
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is considered as specifically targeting Scott's books.
From being one of the most popular novelists of the 19th century, Scott suffered from a disastrous decline in popularity after the
First World War. The tone was set early on in
E.M. Forster's classic "Aspects of the Novel" (1927), where Scott was savaged as being a clumsy writer who wrote slapdash, badly plotted novels. Scott also suffered from the rising star of
Jane Austen. Considered merely an entertaining "woman's novelist" in the 19th century, in the 20th Austen began to be seen as perhaps the major English novelist of the first few decades of the 19th century. As Austen's star rose, Scott's sank, although, ironically, he had been one of the few male writers of his time to recognize Austen's genius.
Scott's many flaws (ponderousness, prolixity, lack of humor) were fundamentally out of step with Modernist sensibilities. Nevertheless, Scott was responsible for two major trends that carry on to this day. First, he essentially invented the modern historical novel; an enormous number of imitators (and imitators of imitators) would appear in the 19th century. It is a measure of Scott's influence that Edinburgh's central railway station, opened in
1854 for the
North British Railway, is called
Waverley Station. Second, his Scottish novels followed on from
James Macpherson's Ossian cycle in rehabilitating the public perception of
Highland culture after years in the shadows following southern distrust of hill bandits and the
Jacobite rebellions. As enthusiastic chairman of the
Celtic Society of Edinburgh he contributed to the reinvention of Scottish culture. It is worth noting, however, that Scott was a
Lowland Scot, and that his re-creations of the
Highlands were more than a little fanciful. His organisation of the
visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 was a pivotal event, leading Edinburgh tailors to invent many "clan
tartans" out of whole cloth, so to speak.
After being essentially unstudied for many decades, a small revival of interest in Scott's work began in the
1970s and
1980s. Ironically,
postmodern tastes (which favoured discontinuous narratives, and the introduction of the 'first person' into works of fiction) were more favourable to Scott's work than Modernist tastes. Despite all the flaws, Scott is now seen as an important innovator, and a key figure in the development of Scottish and world literature.
Scott was also responsible, through a series of pseudonymous letters published in the
Edinburgh Weekly News in 1826, for retaining the right of Scottish banks to issue their own banknotes, which is reflected to this day by his continued appearance on the front of all notes issued by the
Bank of Scotland.
Many of his works were illustrated by his friend,
William Allan.
In addition to Landseer, fine portraits of him were painted by fellow-Scots Sir
Henry Raeburn and
James Eckford Lauder.
Sir Walter Scott is commemorated in Makars' Court, outside The Writers' Museum, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh.
Selections for Makars' Court are made by
The Writers' Museum; The Saltire Society; The Scottish Poetry Library.
