<b>Sir Walter Scott</b> (1771-1832) was born in Edinburgh. Educated for the law, he obtained the office of sheriff-depute of Selkirkshire in 1799 and in 1806 the office of clerk of session, a post whose duties he fulfilled for some twenty-five years. His lifelong interest in Scottish antiquity and the ballads which recorded Scottish history led him to try his hand at narrative poems of adventure and action. <b>The Lay of the Last Minstrel</b> (1805), <b>Marmion</b> (1808), and <b>The Lady of the Lake</b> (1810) made his reputation as one of the leading poets of his time. A novel, <b>Waverley</b>, which he had begun in 1805, was published anonymously in 1814. Subsequent novels appeared with the note “by the author of Waverley”; hence his novels often are called collectively “the Waverley novels.” Some of the most famous of these are <b>Old Mortality</b> (1816), <b>Rob Roy</b> (1817), <b>Ivanhoe</b> (1819), <b>Kenilworth</b> (1821), and <b>Quentin Durward</b> (1823). In recognition of his literary work Scott was made a baronet in 1819. During his last years he held various official positions and published biographies, editions of Swift and Dryden, tales, lyric poetry, and various studies of history and antiquity.