Scott's startlingly contemporary approach to theories of language and the creative impact of this on his work are explored in this new study. Alison Lumsden examines the linguistic diversity and creative playfulness of Scott's fiction and suggests that an evolving scepticism towards the communicative capacities of language runs throughout his writing. Lumsden re-examines this scepticism in relation to Scottish Enlightenment thought and recent developments in theories of the novel. Structured chronologically, the book covers Scott's output from his early narrative poems until the late, and only recently published, Reliquiae Trotcosienses