The Life of Sir Walter Scott by John Macrone: edited with an introduction by Daniel Grader

This is an annotated critical edition of a newly discovered life of Scott by one of his contemporaries. John Macrone, who wrote this life of Scott in 1832-1833, was admirably suited to the task; for, while he had never met Scott, his friends and associates included Cunningham, Galt, and Hogg, who wrote his Anecdotes of Scott for publication in Macrone’s book. A quarrel with Lockhart, however, put a stop to the project, and nothing more was heard of it until the recent discovery of an autograph manuscript, here edited and published for the first time. A well-written and carefully-researched narrative, it increases our knowledge of Scott’s life and work as perceived by his contemporaries, as well as enabling us to read Hogg’s Anecdotes in their original context. The editor’s introduction draws extensively on uncollected and unpublished material to illuminate Macrone’s career, in the course of which he became the friend and publisher of Dickens, Thackeray, and Moore. It is the first publication of a manuscript which was believed to be lost. It provides a hitherto unknown contemporary perspective on Sir Walter Scott’s life and work. It includes an introduction by the editor and a specially commissioned essay by Gillian Hughes giving a detailed account of Macrone’s career based largely on uncollected or unpublished material. It establishes a new context for James Hogg’s Anecdotes of Scott.