Walter Scott and Short Fiction

Daniel Cook is a Reader in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Associate Director of the Centre for Scottish Culture at the University of Dundee. He is the author of Thomas Chatterton and Neglected Genius, 1760-1830 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and Reading Swift’s Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 2020). He has edited essay collections including The Afterlives of Eighteenth-Century Fiction (Cambridge University Press, 2015; pb 2018) and a forthcoming anthology in the Oxford World’s Classics series titled Scottish Literature, 1730-1830.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction Scott and Shorter FictionWandering Tales The Highland StoriesAn Indian NovellaGothic KeepsakesFantastic and BizarroAfterword The Modern Scottish Short StoryNotesBibliographyIndex

Scott’s shorter fiction has been seriously neglected. This is the first book-length study to explore its significance and development. By situating Scott’s work in the shorter form in the context of a much wider engagement with the short story in Scotland, Cook also widens our understanding of this important genre and its origins. This study is particularly welcomed as we celebrate Scott 250 and re-assess our understanding of Scott and his legacies in so many different ways.