page_title: Walter Scott
section_title: Start of literary career, marriage and family
hierarchical_section_title: Walter Scott / Career / Start of literary career, marriage and family
caption_attribution_description: English: A copy of Scott's Minstrelsy Of The Scottish Border in the National Museum of Scotland.
context_page_description: Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet FRSE FSA Scot was a Scottish historical novelist, poet, playwright, and historian. Many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature. Famous titles include The Lady of the Lake and the novels Waverley, Old Mortality, Rob Roy, The Heart of Mid-Lothian, The Bride of Lammermoor, and Ivanhoe.
  Although primarily remembered for his extensive literary works and his political engagement, Scott was an advocate, judge and legal administrator by profession, and throughout his career combined his writing and editing work with his daily occupation as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire.
  A prominent member of the Tory establishment in Edinburgh, Scott was an active member of the Highland Society, served a long term as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was a Vice President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
  Scott's knowledge of history, and his facility with literary technique, made him a seminal figure in the establishment of the historical novel genre, as well as an exemplar of European literary Romanticism.
context_section_description: Scott was prompted to embark on his literary career by the enthusiasm in Edinburgh during the 1790s for modern German literature. Recalling that period in 1827 Scott said that he 'was German-mad'. In 1796 he produced English versions of two poems by Gottfried August Bürger, Der wilde Jäger and Lenore, publishing them as The Chase and William and Helen. Scott responded to the contemporaneous German interest in national identity, folk culture, and medieval literature. This linked up with his own developing passion for traditional ballads. One of his favourite books since childhood had been Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, and during the 1790s he engaged in research in manuscript collections and on Border 'raids' to collect ballads from oral performance. With the help of John Leyden he produced a two-volume collection Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border in 1802 containing 48 traditional ballads and two imitations apiece by Leyden and himself. Of the 48 traditional items, 26 were published for the first time. A greatly enlarged edition appeared in three volumes the following year. With many of the ballads Scott fused different versions to create more coherent texts, a practice he later repudiated. The Minstrelsy was the first, and most important, of a series of editorial projects over the following two decades, including the medieval romance Sir Tristrem (which Scott wrongly assumed to have been produced by Thomas the Rhymer) in 1804, the works of John Dryden (18 vols, 1808), and the works of Jonathan Swift (19 vols, 1814).
  On a trip to the English Lake District with old college friends he met Charlotte Charpentier (Anglicised to "Carpenter"), a daughter of Jean Charpentier of Lyon in France, and a ward of Lord Downshire in Cumberland, an Anglican. After three weeks of courtship, Scott proposed and they were married on Christmas Eve 1797 in St Mary's Church, Carlisle (in the nave of Carlisle Cathedral). After renting a house in Edinburgh's George Street, they moved to nearby South Castle Street. They had five children, of whom four survived by the time of Scott's death. His eldest son Sir Walter Scott, 2nd Baronet (1801–1847), inherited his father's estates and possessions: on 3 February 1825 he married Jane Jobson, only daughter of William Jobson of Lochore (died 1822) (by his wife Rachel Stuart (died 1863)), the heiress of Lochore and a niece of Lady Margaret Ferguson. In 1799 Scott was appointed Sheriff-Depute of the County of Selkirk, based in the Royal Burgh of Selkirk. In his early married days Scott had a decent living from his earnings as a lawyer, his salary as Sheriff-Depute, his wife's income, some revenue from his writing, and his share of his father's modest estate.
  After Walter Jr was born in 1801, the Scotts moved to a spacious three-storey house at 39 North Castle Street, which remained as Scott's base in Edinburgh until 1826, when it was sold by the trustees appointed after his financial ruin. From 1798 Scott had spent the summers in a cottage at Lasswade, where he entertained guests including literary figures, and it was there that his career as an author began. There were nominal residency requirements for his position of Sheriff-Depute, and at first he stayed at a local inn during the circuit. In 1804 he ended his use of the Lasswade cottage and leased the substantial house of Ashestiel, 6 miles (9.7 km) from Selkirk, was sited on the south bank of the River Tweed and incorporating an ancient tower house.
  At Scott's insistence the first edition of the Minstrelsy was printed by his friend James Ballantyne at Kelso. In 1798 James had published Scott's version of Goethe's Erlkönig in his newspaper The Kelso Mail, and in 1799 he included it and the two Bürger translations in a small privately printed anthology Apology for Tales of Terror. In 1800 Scott suggested that Ballantyne set up business in Edinburgh and provided a loan for him to make the transition in 1802. In 1805 they became partners in the printing business, and from then until the financial crash of 1826 Scott's works were routinel
caption: A copy of Scott's Minstrelsy, in the National Museum of Scotland
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