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walter scott; The reputation: His novels were ponderous, his politics backward and his romanticisation of Scotland a cultural disaster. Right or wrong?

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From: The Sunday Herald
Date: 20040905
Author:Trevor Royle and Alan Taylor

Right By Trevor Royle IN May 1831, with just a year of his life remaining, Sir Walter Scott, encountered a crowd in Jedburgh who were demonstrating in favour of political reform. The great man was not amused, angrily telling his fellow Borderers: "I regard your gabble no more than the geese on the green." As the critic David Daiches put it, Scott's Toryism hardened unpleasantly in his last years as he attempted to sway Scotland into standing firm against the introduction of electoral reforms.

Ironically, when his health started deteriorating during the following winter and it was clear that ...

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