SOURCE: McClure, J. D. “The Language of The Entail.” Scottish Literary Journal 8, no. 1 (May 1981): 30-51.

In the following essay, McClure details Galt's use of Scots dialect to delineate his characters and realistically depict eighteenth-century Scottish society in The Entail.

The Entail was regarded by John Galt as his masterpiece; and one of its most outstanding features is the author's skill in handling the western rural dialect of Scots. The finest Scots dialogue in Galt's work—indeed, some of the best in all Scottish literature—is to be found in this book. The contribution which this makes to the success of the novel is twofold. As is usual with Galt, The Entail is a social documentary novel: the careful dating of events in the narrative by references to actual history, the passing comments on developments in trade, commerce, agriculture, and even sartorial fashions, and the scrupulous accuracy with which...