On the occasion of her fifteenth birthday, Virginia Woolf received J. G. Lockhart's ten-volume Life of Scott from her father, Leslie Stephen. Lockhart's biography of Walter Scott is still considered a definitive account of the Scottish novelist, and the work contains a prodigious amount of Scott's personal writings; among the diaries and letters is even a lighthouse diary that tracks a six-week journey Scott took in 1814 to tour lighthouses off the Scottish coast. Leslie Stephen gifted the leather-bound volumes to his daughter out of his own collection and with a mind toward continuing his engagement with his daughter's reading habits. Young Virginia often commented in her letters about her father's strict instruction, and Stephen's interest in his daughter's literary education was an important facet of their relationship. Lockhart's extensive biography, it would seem, was simply another tome of instruction. However, Woolf was particularly thrilled by this weighty gift, writing to her brother:

Calling the volumes “lovely creatures,” Woolf 's excitement over the gift is palpable. Such enthusiasm for Lockhart's work and subject did not diminish as the texts remained in Woolf's possession, and an appreciation for Walter Scott soon transferred from father to daughter.

Critics often mark Woolf's interest in Walter Scott to be a function of grief or nostalgia, and suggest that the relationship between Woolf and Scott is largely sustained by the specter of Leslie Stephen (Parrott 32, DeSalvo 226–27). However, Woolf's view of the link between Scott and Stephen moves beyond mere nostalgic inclination. Leslie Stephen's role in establishing a critical tradition on Scott's work was hugely influential to his daughter's eventual writings on Scott. Stephen's position in the relationship between Scott and Woolf is a pivotal one, and is more fluid than the mere posthumous influence that critics point to.