Scott, Sir Walter: Later Life and Works

In 1825 Scott was ruined financially. He had assumed responsibility for the Ballantyne printing firm in 1813 (previously, for a brief time, he had run it as a publishing house), and subsequently he had met Ballantyne's expenses out of advances from his publishers, Constable and Company. In 1825 an English depression brought ruin to both Constable and Ballantyne's. Refusing to go through bankruptcy, Scott assigned to a trust his property and income in excess of his official salary and set out to pay his debt and much of Constable's.

The next few years' work included Woodstock (1826), a life of Napoleon (1827), Chronicles of the Canongate (1827), The Fair Maid of Perth (1828), and Anne of Geierstein (1829). Scott's health began to fail in 1830. After finishing (1831) Count Robert of Paris and Castle Dangerous, he went abroad, returning to Abbotsford, his estate, in 1832, the year of his death. The remainder of the debt he had assumed was paid from the earnings of his books.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Assessment
• Later Life and Works
• Novels
• Early Life and Works
• Bibliography

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