[1] It was mainly written between 1808 and 1811, then revised and completed in 1826, and first published posthumously in 1837 as Chapter 1 of J. G. Lockhart's multi-volume Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
The author now reaches his own birth in Edinburgh on 15 August 1771 ("I believe")[2] and his infancy, in the course of which he fell ill and lost the use of one leg and also survived an attempt on his life by a deranged servant.
Sent to recover with his maternal grandparents on their farm he heard tales of the Jacobite rebellions and traditional songs and ballads which formed his future taste and pursuits.
Though a popular boy his record as a scholar there was not at first distinguished, but it later improved under the teaching of the school's rector, Dr. Adams, from whom he derived a love of Latin literature.
As a student at the University of Edinburgh Scott entirely failed to learn Greek and made a poor showing at mathematics, but did better at ethics and moral philosophy, and also studied history and law.
[5] Scott began composing it, as the manuscript itself records, on 26 April 1808 at Ashestiel, his home near Selkirk, and continued until he had filled the first fascicle, ending with the account of his stay in Bath.
Among other faults it contained inconsistencies arising from the fact that it had been written over such a long stretch of time, but Scott gave the work no final polishing to remove them.
[7] Scott's "Memoirs" have often been considered a fragment,[8][9][7][10] though the literary scholar David Hewitt has argued that it is a complete work, only ever intended to show how the author came to man's estate.
[12] The Ashestiel fragment was displayed at the Scott Centenary Exhibition in 1871, but thereafter was unavailable to scholars for almost a hundred years until, in 1970, it was acquired by the National Library of Scotland.
The Literary Gazette thought it "decidedly the most interesting portion of the work",[15] The Monthly Review called it "the most engaging and diversified [memoir] that we have ever perused regarding the early life of any man",[16] and Tait's Edinburgh Magazine said that it "bears many characteristics of Scott's mingled sagacity, modesty, and amiability".
[18] Lord Cockburn, a former Solicitor General for Scotland, noted in his diary that the "Memoirs" were admirable; "no man ever traced the sources of his own mental peculiarities more satisfactorily".