The Writers' Museum

This guide to the Writers' Museum centers on the iron hand-press that printed Walter Scott's Waverley novels anonymously, and on the secret that anonymity was hiding: Scott had quietly bought out the printer James Ballantyne's firm in 1815, keeping his own name off the business. It follows the money he poured into building Abbotsford instead, and the 1826 publishing crash that pulled the hidden firm toward ruin. What Scott chose to do next, rather than declare bankruptcy, is the guide's turn.