SCOTT-LAND: The Man Who Invented a Nation

A BBC Radio Four Book of the Week, part biography, part literary criticism, part exploration of Scottish identity, this is by far the best book on Sir Walter Scott. No writer has ever been as famous as Scott once was and none ever enjoyed such huge acclaim followed by such absolute neglect and outright hostility. But Scotland would not be Scotland except for Scott. All the icons of Scottishness have their roots in his novels, poems, public events and histories and it's a legacy both inspiring and constraining and just one of the ironies that fuse Scott and Scotland. Stuart Kelly reveals the paradox - the celebrity unknown, the nationalist unionist, the aristocrat loved by communists, the forward-looking reactionary. Part surreptitious autobiography, Stuart Kelly unveils a complex and contradictory man and the complex country he created in his witty and melancholy 'Voyage around my Fatherland' like no other. Sir Walter Scott was passionate, wholly European and the first truly global writer, heralded as inventing the historical novel. Chapters include The Royal Mile, Minstrelsy, Waverley, Ghosts, Ivanhoe, Captain Clutterbuck, Balmorality, Tartanry and Scotlandshire and The Last Works among them. 328pp, paperback.