Ivanhoe in the context of "Historical novel"

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels Ivanhoe (1819), Rob Roy (1817), Waverley (1814), Old Mortality (1816), The Heart of Mid-Lothian (1818), and The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), along with the narrative poems Marmion (1808) and The Lady of the Lake (1810). He greatly influenced European and American literature.

As an advocate and legal administrator by profession, he combined writing and editing with his daily work as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire. He was prominent in Edinburgh's Tory establishment, active in the Highland Society, long time a president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1820–1832), and a vice president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1827–1829). His knowledge of history and literary facility equipped him to establish the historical novel genre as an exemplar of European Romanticism. He became a baronet of Abbotsford in the County of Roxburgh on 22 April 1820; the title became extinct upon his son's death in 1847.

Ivanhoe is a very small township on the Cobb Highway between the Lachlan and Darling rivers in western New South Wales, Australia. It is located within the Central Darling Shire local government area. Ivanhoe functions as a service centre for the surrounding area. The township is characterised by a particularly wide high street. At the 2021 census, Ivanhoe had a population of 162.

The town was founded in the early 1870s, and was named after Sir Walter Scott's work of historical fiction, Ivanhoe. The township was situated on well-used coach and stock routes connecting Wilcannia on the Darling River with Balranald on the Murrumbidgee and Booligal on the Lachlan.