… Hi Mairiuna! While checking my agenda this morning, I noticed a scribble indicating that today was Sir Walter Scott’s birthday! I said to myself that we could not let this day go by without honouring our favorite scottish writer . To celebrate his priceless legacy which had such a great impact on historical fiction and upon so many worldwide … Continue reading →
As revealed in Mairiuna’s post “Sir Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border Rediscovered “, I am now quite pleased to introduce you to a series of articles about Sir Walter Scott’s cherished friends, be them on two legs or four. 😉 As you will surely agree with me, this is a very daunting project to undertake because Sir … Continue reading →
Hi everybody, Holiday time and time reading too 😉 We’d like to wish you a very good summer, whether you go on holiday or not. Why not take advantage of this leisure time to read this or that old volume by one of your favourite authors that has been waiting for you since ages in a dark corner of … Continue reading →
In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time:the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. (Thomas Carlyle) Hi everybody, Day after day, we’re adding colourful pieces to our great Scottish mosaic and when we aren’t roaming the beautiful roads of Scotland we … Continue reading →
By the green hill and clear blue heaven. It was a barren scene, and wild, Where naked cliff’s were rudely piled; But ever and anon between Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green; And well the lonely infant knew Recesses where the wall-flower grew, And honey-suckle loved to crawl Up the low crag and ruin’d wall. I deem’d such nooks the … Continue reading →
‘I have read all Walter Scott’s novels at least fifty times’ (Byron) While we are longing to go back to Scotland, our quest for the author of the Waverley novels, which began in 2000 with the visit of Abbotsford, has never ceased to go on through our readings and it has taken a new dimension when, in February 2008, we … Continue reading →
. Under the shade of more than centenary cedars, on a loop of the River Tweed, amidst the beautiful ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, lies Sir Walter Scott, the beloved man and great Scottish writer who, having done so much to celebrate his country, finally died like the heroe of one of his novels, with courage and dignity. Since his death, … Continue reading →
Today people are discovering or rediscovering the great authors of the past. Walter Scott is one of them, a most famous one and not only in Scotland. In France, for example, a new translation of his books is under way, in the prestigious “Bibliothèque de la Pleiade”, each novel being translated, introduced, and annotated by a French university scholar. Henri … Continue reading →
. Hi Mairiuna! I’m back online and must tell you that reading your great post about Sir Walter Scott’s romantic home, Abbotsford, brought back to mind the great number of memorable, historical and valuable objects we saw when visiting the many rooms of his beloved house. Let alone the magnificent library which contains more than 7,000 books, I was amazed by all the memorabilia that Sir … Continue reading →
Abbotsford! The Home of Sir Walter Scott! With hills, fields and woods in the background, like a fairytale castle, the old house emerges from beautiful gardens with its many chimneys, its crenellated turrets and crow stepped gables… No wonder Sir Walter was so deeply attached to Abbotsford. He designed the house in the same way he wrote his books, with … Continue reading →
