His _Life of Napoleon Buonaparte_, which appeared in nine volumes in 1827, enabled him to make the first large payment on the debts that had fallen upon him in the financial crash of the preceding year, and the _Tales of a Grandfather_ were among the most successful of his later books.

His critical biographies and many of his other essays were brought together for the first time in 1827, and issued under the title of _Miscellaneous Prose Works_.

The world of books was making his life weary with its importunate demands in those years when he was writing to pay his debts, and it is pleasant to see that some of his later reviews discussed matters that were not less dear to his heart because they were not literary.

The articles on fishing, on ornamental gardening, on planting waste lands, remind us of the observation he once made, that his oaks would outlast his laurels.
By this time the "Author of Waverley" was no longer the "unknown." His business complications compelled him to give his name to the novels, and with the loss of a certain kind of privacy he gained the freedom of which later he made such fortunate use in annotating his own works.

From the beginning of 1828 until the end of his life in 1832, Scott was engaged, in the intervals of other occupations, in writing these introductions and notes for his novels, for an edition which he always called the _Opus Magnum_.