The SCOTNOTES booklets are a series of study guides to major Scottish writers and texts frequently used within literature courses, aimed at senior secondary school pupils and students in further education. The individual authors are not only experts on a particular writer or text but also experienced in teaching in schools or colleges.John Galt (1779–1839) was a contemporary of Sir Walter Scott and Jane Austen, and a friend and biographer of Lord Byron. His writings are full of acute observation, penetrating psychological insight, rich Scots language and great good humour. This SCOTNOTE examines two key novels by Galt, which chronicle the changes in Scottish society in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.