There has been no book-length biography of William Robertson since Dugald Stewart published his Account of the Life and Writings of William Robertson in 1801. First delivered as a paper presented to the Royal Academy of Edinburgh in 1795, Stewart's Account has been and remains a valuable resource. He prints, either whole or in part, about one-fourth of Robertson's known correspondence, and he offers a detailed narrative of Robertson's mature career. Robertson's deathbed request that Stewart write the book was clearly a good choice. But much more material is available today than was at Stewart's disposal. Robertson's known correspondence has increased from Stewart's citation of approximately 200 to almost 800 items, with more certainly to be found. We have excellent accounts of how he engaged Enlightenment ideas in history, politics, and religion. This book draws on the work of some of these recent scholars, who have done much to define the temper of Enlightenment in Scotland: Thomas Ahnert, David Allan, Stewart J. Brown, Alexander Du Toit, Colin Kidd, Karen O'Brien, Nicholas Phillipson, J. G. A. Pocock, Richard B. Sher, Jonathan Yeager, and William J. Zachs, among others.

This biography attempts to make three contributions to our knowledge of Robertson's life and writings. It provides fuller, more nuanced context to his motives and to events in his life than is currently available. A second contribution is a fuller sense of the personality and character of Robertson. Although Alexander Carlyle left a fascinating, first-hand account of his knowledge of Robertson, Carlyle often had his own axe to grind. The narrative here draws as much as possible from Robertson's correspondence in order to see events from his point of view and in his voice. Yet Robertson was complex, difficult to know, a great talker who was reticent about his inner life. At the opposite extreme from someone like James Boswell, Robertson left no journals, diaries, memoirs, or personal notebooks (except financial accounts). Even his youthful commonplace books have been lost. But with the large increase in his known correspondence, there is at least a fuller picture of him than we have had, if not an intimate one. Finally, this book pays greater attention than do previous accounts to Robertson's religious outlook.