The letters of Sir Walter Scott, the novelist and poet, range in date from September 1788, when he was aged 17, to June 1832, a few weeks before his death.
[6][7] He does not write about his novels or his business concerns, since he had chosen to keep his involvement in both confidential, nor on the whole about his private feelings,[4] though letters to his closest friends can sometimes be revelatory of his inner life, disclosing sharply contrasting aspects of his personality depending on the character of his correspondent.
"[8] Scott had a wide range of correspondents, reflecting his diverse literary and business interests and his close family life.
About 6000 of them were collected together by Scott himself and bound into letter-books; these were kept at Abbotsford by his descendants until 1921, when they were sold by auction to the novelist Hugh Walpole.
[17] There is also a comprehensive online catalogue of all Scott's outgoing and incoming letters, which is published by the National Library of Scotland.