Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels
4 primary works • 29 total works
Book 3
The third of the Waverley Novels is dominated by two old men, Jonathan Oldbuck (the Antiquary of the title) and the beggar Edie Ochiltree. Together they apply their knowledge of the past to sort out the confusion of the present, and in doing so restore the fortunes of ancient houses. This was Scott's favourite among his novels, and presents a quizzical and amusing view of the profession of history and, by implication, of Scott's own practice as writer and collector.
Book 8
Set in the summer of 1765, Redgauntlet centers around a fictitious Jacobite rebellion. This is the last of Scott's major Scottish novels. The text is that of the 'Magnum' edition of 1832.
Book 11
In his ever-popular romance of Tudor England, Scott brilliantly recreates all the passion, brutality, verve and vitality of the Elizabethan world. Only two of his novels end tragically - Kenilworth ends with the death of Amy Robsart, who unwisely loved Queen Elizabeth's favourite, the Earl of Leicester.
Book 16
Meg Dods, a sentimental virago, keeps a rundown inn in a derelict Tweedale village, while the young Laird is living way beyond his means. When a nearby spring becomes a Spa, life changes as a hotel and a troop of social climbers move in. But this is not a tale of antique virtue giving way to decadent ostentation: although the gang at the 'Well' dance the seven deadly sins, everyone in the book has feet of clay.
Relates the adventures of the Saxon knight Ivanhoe in 1194, the year of Richard the Lion-Hearted's return from the Third Crusade.
Quentin Durward (1823) was Scott's first `European' novel, and an experiment in transferring the historical romance to foreign soil. Fifteenth-century France, the French Revolution of 1789, and contemporary Britain come together in this sharp-eyed novel of political expediency and intrigue. The young Scottish adventurer Quentin Durward embarks upon a dangerous journey through the forest of the Ardennes seeking a name, a partner, and a position in the world. Meanwhile the machiavellian King Louis XI of France manoeuvres his realm out of the hands of feudal barons and into the centralized control that Scott believed to characterize the modern state. This edition includes a map of Quentin Durward's journey, notes, and an Introduction which shows how Quentin Durward broke new ground for Scott and examines his treatment of history, nationality, and personal heroism. This book is intended for general readers, students of Scottish literature, 19th century literature, Franco-Scottish relations, the political novel at sixth-form, undergraduate, and graduate level.
Set during the Jacobite rising in Scotland in 1745, this novel springs from Scott's childhood recollections and his desire to preserve in writing the features of life in the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland. Waverley was first published anonymously in 1814 and was Scott's first novel.
Set on the eve of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, The Monastery is full of supernatural events, theological conflict, and humour. Located in the lawless Scottish Borders, the novel depicts the monastery of Kennaquhair (a thinly disguised Melrose Abbey, whose ruins are still to be seen near Scott's own home at Abbotsford) on the verge of dissolution, and the fortunes of two brothers as they respond to a new social and religious order. Highlights of the narrative include a moving encounter between two representatives of opposing sides in the Reformation controversy who had been students together in less troubled times, and the final formal procession of the Kennaquhair monks as the Reformed forces arrive. A talking-point when the work was first published, the mysterious spectral White Lady, guardian of the magical Black Book, still intrigues readers. A strong comic element is provided by Sir Piercie Shafton with his absurd linguistic mannerisms fashionable at the English court. The narrative is preceded by one of Scott's most charming and playful introductory exchanges between the fictional local antiquary Cuthbert Clutterbuck and the Author of Waverley.
This novel, which has always been regarded as one of Scott's finest, opens with the Edinburgh riots of 1736. The people of the city have been infuriated by the actions of John Porteous, Captain of the Guard, and when they hear that his death has been reprieved by the distant monarch they ignore the Queen and resolve to take their own revenge. At the centre of the story is Edinburgh's forbidding Tolbooth prison, known by all as the Heart of Midlothian.
Woodstock opens in farce, yet it is one of Scott's darkest novels. It deals with revolution, to Scott the most disturbing of all subjects: 'it appears that every step we made towards liberty, has but brought us in view of more terrific perils'. Written during the financial crisis which led to his insolvency in January 1826, the novel, Scott feared, 'would not stand the test'. Yet it does: it is set in England in 1651 as Parliamentary forces hunt the fugitive Charles Stewart who days previously had been defeated at Worcester. In the superb portrait of Cromwell we see a self-torturing despot who attempts to be in full control in the name of religion; in the rakish Charles we see a man without self-reflection whose own libertarianism after his restoration to the English throne in 1660 permitted a great burgeoning in scientific enquiry and the arts. This edition of Woodstock is based on the first, but emended in the light of readings in the manuscript and proofs that were misread, and at times deliberately suppressed, as Scott's own hand-written words were turned into a printed book.
No historical figures appear in The Pirate, and there are no historical events, but it is still an historical novel because it dramatises those 'corners of time' where an old era is coming to an end, and a new is beginning. The novel is set in Orkney and Shetland in 1689, and for the northern isles the 'Glorious Revolution' actually means the beginning of the cultural dominance of Scotland and the advent of English power. Scott draws heavily on the diary he kept on his tour round the lighthouses of Scotland in 1814. In both the diary and the novel he weighs the real need to improve the agricultural methods of this barely subsistence economy against the force of tradition and the human cost of rapid change. The plot hinges on an illicit relationship, and is driven by dark men twisted by their criminality, an obsessed woman searching for her lost son, and the murderous rivalry of two young men - a family tale which illustrates the uses and abuses of traditional lore, as well as Scott's extraordinary grasp of the literature of the north.
Chronicles of the Canongate is unique among Scott's works as it is his only collection of shorter fiction. It contains his best-known tales, 'The Highland Widow' and 'The Two Drovers', and a third, less well known but of startling originality, 'The Surgeon's Daughter'. The three are set within the framing narrative of Chrystal Croftangry, an old bankrupt with pretensions to literature, who must inevitably be seen as a portrait of the artist facing up to his own insolvency in 1826. Tales in a framework have a long ancestry in European and Oriental literature, and in Chronicles of the Canongate Scott adapts the genre with consummate skill. Each of the stories and Croftangry's narrative may be read independently, but together they constitute a themed work in which the narrator treats of the cultural conflicts in the new Britain and its growing empire in the thirty years from 1756. This edition of Chronicles of the Canongate recovers a truly inventive work which is here republished in its original form for only the second time since Scott's death in 1832.
The Fair Maid of Perth centres on the merchant classes of Perth in the fourteenth century, and their commitment to the pacific values of trade, in a bloody and brutal era in which no right to life is recognised, and in which the Scottish nobles fight for control of the weak Scottish monarchy, and clans are prepared to extinguish each other to gain supremacy in the central Highlands. It is a remarkable novel, in part because late in his career Scott has a new subject, and in part because he employs a spare narrative style that is without parallel in the rest of his oeuvre. Far too many critics, from his son-in-law J.G. Lockhart to the present day, have written off late Scott, and seen his last works as evidence of failing powers. The readers of this edition of The Fair Maid of Perth will see that these critics are mistaken, for in it we witness a luminous creative intelligence working at high pressure to produce a tightly organised and deeply moving novel.
No. 4A
Set in south-west Scotland in the immediate aftermath of the 1707 Union, The Black Dwarf was intended to be a story about the first, abortive, Jacobite uprising of 1708. Instead it developed into a gothic tale of the supernatural. This new edition brings out the virtues in the story, long overlaid by Scott's embellishments in later editions.
The Abbotconcludes the fiction begun in The Monastery. Scott follows the fortunes of young Roland Graeme as he emerges from rural obscurity to become an attendant of Mary Queen of Scots during her captivity in Lochleven Castle. Roland's part in Mary's escape from the Castle is excitingly narrated, and Mary herself is vividly characterised in captivity, in her brief period of freedom, and in her final defeat. Based on the first edition, this new text restores, from Scott's manuscript and from the evidence of early American editions set from proof sheets at different stages, nearly 2000 authorial readings hitherto omitted. It has also been possible for the first time, on the evidence of history, to make coherent the family relationships in the novel. Key Features *Authoritative text *Detailed explanatory notes and glossary *Essay giving a detailed account of background to the novel, its composition and its subsequent textual development *Textual apparatus
Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, first published in 1815, was Walter Scott's second novel. Guy Mannering only half-believes in his art, but does believe in the ability of his patriarchal power, wealth and social position to sort out social confusion. However he has to learn the limits of a nabob's authority in a society that (in the 1780s) is no longer a single hierarchy but has many subsets, each with its own laws - gypsies, smugglers, Edinburgh lawyers, the Border store farmer, the traditional landowner. Guy Mannering is set at the time of the American Revolution, and represents a Scotland at once backward and advanced, patriarchal and commercial, traditional and modern, a country in very varied stages of progression. This is the first modern edition of one of Scott's finest works. It is based on the first edition, but is corrected from the manuscript, and restores around two thousand readings lost through error or misunderstanding. For the first time it includes Scott's extended portraits of the Edinburgh literati which were unaccountably omitted from the printed version.
Sir Walter Scott—who invented the historical novel—is still the writer to whom we turn when we seek the undiluted pleasures of narrative romance. His Rob Roy (1817) is a rousing tale of skulduggery and highway robbery, villainy and nobility, treasonous plots and dramatic escapes—and young love. From London to the North of England to the Scottish Highlands, it follows the unjustly banished young merchant's son Francis as he strives to out-maneuver the unscrupulous adventurer plotting to destroy him—and allies himself with the cunning, dangerous, and dashing outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor in a heroic effort to regain his rightful place and win the hand of the girl he loves.
(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)
Set at the time of the Third Crusade (1189 - 92), The Betrothed is the first of Scott's Tales of the Crusaders. The betrothed is Eveline, daughter of a Norman noble, who is a victim of the Crusade in that her intended husband is required by the Church to fulfil his vow to join the war and departs for three years. The full horror of an arranged marriage, and of being a possible prize as men seek to gain possession of her is vividly realised--the heroine is never free; her fate is always determined by the agency of men. And being set on the Marches of Wales, it is not just men but differing cultures that strive for mastery over her. The Betrothed is a problem novel: as Scott was writing he himself was arranging the marriage of his elder son. It is a problem novel too in that it was deeply disliked by Scott's printer and publisher who forced significant changes. What Scott was required to do to meet their objections has been confronted for the first time in this, the first critical edition of the novel.
The most haunting and Shakespearean of Scott's novels, The Bride of Lammermoor is a fast-paced tragedy set on the eve of the 1707 Union. The proud young Master of Ravenswood sees his estate pass to the astute Sir William Ashton. When Ravenswood falls in love with Ashton's daughter, her diabolical mother takes extreme measures to thwart the match - with tragic results. A story of immense gloomy power, infused by the unforgiving spirit of the North Sea. "The Edinburgh Edition respects Scott the artist by 'restoring' versions of the novels that are not quite what his first readers saw. Indeed, it returns to manuscripts that the printers never handled, as Scott's fiction before 1827 was transcribed before it reached the printshop. Each volume of the Edinburgh edition presents an uncluttered text of one work, followed by an Essay on the Text by the editor of the work, a list of the emendations that have been made to the first edition, explanatory notes and a glossary ! The editorial essays are histories of the respective texts.
Some of them are almost 100 pages long; when they are put together they constitute a fascinating and lucid account of Scott's methods of compostion and his financial manoeuvres. This edition is for anyone who takes Scott seriously." Times Literary Supplement
Some of them are almost 100 pages long; when they are put together they constitute a fascinating and lucid account of Scott's methods of compostion and his financial manoeuvres. This edition is for anyone who takes Scott seriously." Times Literary Supplement
The second of Tales of the Crusaders, The Talisman is set in Palestine during the Third Crusade (1189 - 92). Scott constructs a story of chivalric action, apparently adopting a medieval romance view of the similarities in the values of both sides. But disguise is the leading theme of the tale: it is not just that characters frequently wear clothing that conceals their identity, but that professions and cultures hide their true nature. In this novel the Christian leaders are divided by a factious criminality, and are contrasted to the magnanimity and decisiveness of Saladin, the leader of the Moslem armies. In a period when the west was fascinated with the exotic east, Scott represents the Moslem other as more humane than the Christian west. The Talisman is one of Scott's great novels. It is a superb tale. It is also a bold departure as, for the first time, Scott explores not cultural conflict within a country or society but in the opposition of two world religions.