From Bannockburn to Flodden

In 1828 the world's greatest storyteller sat down to weave yet another yarn. Over the past dozen or so years, Sir Walter Scott had almost single-handedly revived Scottish pride and of course, his novels had fanned the flames of passion for the kilts, bagpipes, and highland burr of the Scots. He had become the world's spokesman for all things Celtic. But now he had something entirely different in mind. His Tales from a Scottish Grandfather proved to be his most intimate, most accessible, and most dramatic stories of all. The reason was simple: He was no longer telling his stories to the world. He was telling them to his own grandson. Scott was far and away the most popular writer of the nineteenth century. Often mentioned in the same breath with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton, his output was prodigious: twenty-seven novels, five major works of epic poetry, three biographies, fourteen histories, and half a dozen collections of tales, legends, and ballads. All remain classics to this day. But it was for his popularisation of his native Scotland that he is best remembered. Scott was proud of his work but he was especially proud of the stories in Tales from a Scottish Grandfather. Here he recovered the whole story of his beloved Scotland - its actual history, not a fictionalised approximation. From William Wallace and Robert the Bruce (volume 1) to John Knox and Mary, Queen of Scots (volume 2), from the subjugation of Rob Roy and the rising of the Jacobites (volume 3) to the crusade of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the quest of the Duke of Cumberland (volume 4), the entire romantic tapestry is unrolled, not as a historian would tell it, but as a grandfather would. In these four volumes Scott marshals all his narrative power for the sake of love - love of family, love of place, and love of legacy. At a time when interest in Scotland has never been greater, these volumes are sure to strike a nerve and find a treasured place in schools, libraries, and, most especially, in homes, where they most belong.