Mark Twain thought that Scott's works had a pernicious influence on the minds of Southerners. He felt that that they absorbed confused ideas about chivalry from his books and used these notions to justify racism and slavery. I don't think he advocated banning the books, but he thought that people shouldn't read them.

Now Sir Walter is mostly forgotten, but Mark Twain is banned for using the N-word. Go figure.

Anyway, Ivanhoe is good escape reading, especially if you're an adolescent boy.