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Scottish novelist whose beastly home visited by girlfriend (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

smollett

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'scottish novelist' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.

'beastly home visited by girlfriend' is the wordplay.
'beastly home' becomes 'sett' (a sett is a badger's burrow).
'visited by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'girlfriend' becomes 'moll' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'sett' enclosing 'moll' is 'SMOLLETT'.

'whose' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for smollett that I've seen before include "Tobias --, author" , "He wrote" , "Random producer" , "Tobias -- (The Adventures of Roderick Random)" , "Tobias ---, Scottish novelist" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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