Writing and Orality

Speech and writing form the basis of much modern critical thinking, but there is little consensus about what they are or whether there is any essential difference between them. This book argues that the differences between speech and writing are created by social forces and explores how these differences act as a foundation for the literary construction of national identity in the particular context of 19th-century Scottish fiction, through the novels and stories of four key writers: Walter Scott, James Hogg, R.L. Stevenson and Margaret Oliphant.