In December 1825 Scott was 54 and at the height of his fame. He lived in aristocratic splendour at Abbotsford, the estate he had bought from his vast earnings as a popular novelist. But within weeks of beginning the Journal which was to record the happiness of his old age he suffered the most terrible reversal of fortune. His own account of his tragedy and triumph is one of the most moving of all literary self-portraits.
Compiled by BARRY CARMAN Producer ALAN HAYDOCK