Short answers, pulled from the story.
Walter Scott was born on the 15th of August 1771 in a third-floor apartment on College Wynd in the Old Town of Edinburgh, a narrow alleyway leading from the Cowgate to the gates of the old University of Edinburgh.
Scott's best-known novel is Ivanhoe (1820), set in 12th-century England. His Waverley novels (1814-1831), a series of 27 historical novels, were among the most widely read in Europe for nearly a century. Other notable works include Rob Roy, The Heart of Mid-Lothian (1818), and The Bride of Lammermoor (1819).
Scott's most celebrated narrative poems are The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Marmion (1808), and The Lady of the Lake (1810). The Lady of the Lake sold 20,000 copies in its first year and caused a notable increase in tourism to the Perthshire Highlands.
Scott published his novels anonymously from 1814 until his financial ruin in 1826, with most appearing as "By the Author of Waverley." He never gave a single clear reason; at least eleven explanations have been proposed. As Scott himself said, quoting Shylock, "such was my humour."
In 1825, a British banking crisis caused the collapse of the Ballantyne printing business, of which Scott was the only partner with a financial interest. The debts amounted to £130,000. Rather than declare bankruptcy, Scott placed his home and income in a trust for his creditors and spent his remaining years writing to repay the debt.
Walter Scott was buried in Dryburgh Abbey, where his wife Charlotte had earlier been interred. His hereditary right of burial there came through his mother's Haliburton ancestry. He died at Abbotsford on the 21st of September 1832, aged 61.