Walter Scott (1771-1832) was a Scottish novelist, poet and advocate who effectively invented the historical novel with Waverley in 1814, publishing anonymously for years while serving as a sheriff-depute. Ivanhoe turned him from a chronicler of recent Scottish history to a shaper of the popular image of the Middle Ages. The collapse of his printing partners in 1826 left him with enormous debts, which he spent his last years writing off.