Stars head for 'literature's Graceland'

• Sir Walter Scott's writing room at Abbotsford House, a shrine for writers. Picture: Phil Wilkinson

FOR writers, Abbotsford is Graceland. And this summer Britain's best historical novelists will make a pilgrimage to Walter Scott's house in the Borders. Drawn to the shrine of their hero, six of the seven writers shortlisted for the inaugural Walter Scott Prize of 25,000 for the best historical novel of 2009 will be appearing at the Borders Book Festival from 17 to 20 June at Melrose.

No posh black tie dinner in the Guildhall in London for them: they will all sing for a much more modest supper as they appear in public sessions at Harmony House Gardens. Uniquely the Scott Prize puts its shortlist alongside the reading public. And it will be an informed public.

Book groups in the Borders have been reading the shortlisted novels and none will be backwards in coming forward with their views. To justify their choices, the judges will probably find themselves as much under scrutiny as the novelists.

But before all of that they will go to Abbotsford for the announcement of the winning novel. And before that there will be a private tour of the house.

THE centrepiece for writers is not the unique library with its views over the Tweed or the collections of memorabilia and weaponry, but Walter Scott's study.

In the corner is a narrow staircase down which he came at the crack of dawn every morning.

On his glass-topped desk were quills, ink and paper, ready for him to sit down at the horsehair-stuffed black leather chair and begin.

Scott did not hang about waiting for the muse and before breakfast he was in the habit of writing reams and his output was prodigious. When bankruptcy overtook him in 1826 Scott's response was to act honourably and repay what he owed. Promising to write his way back to solvency, he declared "mine own right hand will do it!"

That attitude is what writers admire about Walter Scott. His novels and long poems are not much read now, but his sheer determination and dogged industry have survived literary fashion.

He knew better than any writer before him that the job was 99 per cent perspiration and if that showed occasionally, it is no wonder.

When Jean Maxwell Scott was alive she occasionally allowed visiting authors to sit in her ancestor's black leather chair, the tools of the trade laid out on the desk in front of it. Homage was being paid – as well as the anorak-thrill of sitting where the great man sat.

On the mantelpiece of the study is a modest card listing the sales figures for Scott's novels and poems in his lifetime. By today's standards they seem healthy enough; 40,000 here, 50,000 there. But in the first few decades of the 19th century his popularity was unprecedented. Scott wrote the first blockbusters and as result he was also the first celebrity author and the most famous Scotsman of the day.

The Walter Scott Prize celebrates the achievement of this phenomenal, attractive (tall, good-looking and very congenial) man but it also recreates some of the literary atmosphere in the Borders 200 years ago. The Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch have sponsored the 25,000 prize and their ancestors were equally enthusiastic patrons of Walter Scott. He loved their beautiful house at Bowhill, near Selkirk, and often visited. In a pleasing piece of historical symmetry, the duke and duchess have invited the shortlisted authors to be their guests and retrace the steps and social life of the great man.

In the library at Bowhill are many reminders of the time when Scotland was the centre of the literary and intellectual world. A copy from the first edition of The Wealth of Nations is inscribed to the 3rd Duke of Buccleuch "by the author".

The present duke and duchess are at the centre of a parallel, more concrete revival. In addition to sponsoring the Walter Scott Prize, Richard Buccleuch is also patron of the Abbotsford Trust.

He and his dynamic board of directors have striven mightily to raise the huge sums needed to restore the house and build a visitors' centre, thereby breathing new life into Scott's reputation.

Readers of his work may now be rarer than they were, but writers understand the achievement of this remarkable man. And Sir Walter would surely smile to see wonderfully talented historical novelists such as Adam Foulds, Robert Harris, Hilary Mantel, Simon Mawer, Iain Pears and Adam Thorpe walk through his front door this summer. Not only are they his posthumous guests and his intellectual heirs, they are also fans.

It may be Melrose and not Memphis, Tennessee, but Abbotsford is every bit as much a shrine as Graceland.