One of my favorite books when I was a youngster--junior high?--was Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. I haven't read any others since, so I'm starting Waverley, which begins his long series of historical novels. I thought I would like this one since it is set during the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745, a period that I've always been interested in. One of the places that I visited in Scotland was Scott's home at Abbottsford, near Melrose. (I found out much later that a branch of my family hails from Melrose. It is not at all unlikely that one of my ancestors helped lay the stone on the additions, or worked in the scullery!) It is such a beautiful place--mostly its location there in the Borderlands. But what I loved were his collections of historical memorabilia that hung on the walls and stuffed the curio cabinets. Cuirasses from Waterloo with holes punched through them from bullets, keys that locked in Mary Queen of Scots, a lock of Bonnie Prince Charlie's hair. It was wonderful and I could have spent a lot more time mooning about.
The image is BPC, not Scott, by the way.
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