Stuart Kelly

Stuart Kelly provides a wry and erudite account of books destroyed, misplaced, never finished, or never even begun – from ancient Greek and Arabic masters through Shakespeare, Dante and Hemingway right up to the present day.

'Very engaging, highly intelligent … I loved this book and heartily recommend it,' - AN Wilson

'A lovely piece of work – the best book on Scott, indeed, since Edwin Muir’s Scott and Scotland,' - Andrew O'Hagan

'Kelly engagingly assesses Scott’s various works and insightfully sets Scott in his context' - The Independent

His name and image are everywhere – from Bank of Scotland fivers to the bizarre monument in Edinburgh’s city centre. Is Sir Walter Scott really the father of modern Scotland? Or should that be Scott-land?