Alison Lumsden is a senior lecturer in the School of Language & Literature at the University of Aberdeen and co-director of the Walter Scott Research Centre. She was for many years research fellow and then General Editor for the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels and has published on several Scottish authors including Robert Louis Stevenson, Nan Shepherd and Louis Grassic Gibbon. She is about to begin work on a scholarly edition of Scott's poetry.

• Acknowledgements; Abbreviations and Permissions; Introduction: The ‘Poverty’ of Words; 1: ‘Living in a World of Death’: Scott’s Narrative Poems; 2: Speaking my Language:Waverley, Guy Mannering and The Antiquary; 3: ‘Dying Words and Last Confessions’:The Heart of Mid-Lothian; 4: Lost in Translation: Ivanhoe, The Fortunes of Nigel and Peveril of the Peak; 5: ‘Narrative Continued’: Redgauntlet and Chronicles of the Canongate; 6: Last Words: Count Robert of Paris, Reliquiae Trotcosiensesand Castle Dangerous; Afterword; Bibliography; Index.