When Sir Walter Scott was made bankrupt, how did he pay off his debts?

In his own words “This right hand shall work it all off”. In 1809 he had supplied half the capital of the published, Ballantyne & Co. Although he made a lot of money from his poems and books, he spent much of it on building his home, Abbotsford. In 1826 Ballantyne were in very serious financial difficulties and Scott had not enough cash left to save the company from bankruptcy.

At the age of 55, with outstanding debts of 250,000, an enormous sum in those days, Sir Walter bravely wrote as much and as fast as he could to pay off the creditors. The strain at last began to tell. In February 1830, he had an attack of apoplexy. In spite of this, he continued to write and completed his last two novels, Castle Dangerous and Count Robert of Paris in 1831.

The following year, having suffered another severe attack of apoplexy, he died at Abbotsford; on September 21, 1832.
Ivanhoe, having been the subject of more than one successful film, is probably his most famous book.