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The Works Of Sir Walter Scott: Waverly
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384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1814
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About the author
Walter Scott
11.7k books1,986 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Sir Walter Scott was a Scottish novelist, poet, historian, and biographer, widely recognized as the founder and master of the historical novel. His most celebrated works, including Waverley, Rob Roy, and Ivanhoe, helped shape not only the genre of historical fiction but also modern perceptions of Scottish culture and identity.
Born in Edinburgh in 1771, Scott was the son of a solicitor and a mother with a strong interest in literature and history. At the age of two, he contracted polio, which left him with a permanent limp. He spent much of his childhood in the Scottish Borders, where he developed a deep fascination with the region's folklore, ballads, and history. He studied at Edinburgh High School and later at the University of Edinburgh, qualifying as a lawyer in 1792. Though he worked in law for some time, his literary ambitions soon took precedence.
Scott began his literary career with translations and collections of traditional ballads, notably in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. He gained early fame with narrative poems such as The Lay of the Last Minstrel and The Lady of the Lake. As the popularity of poetic storytelling declined, especially with the rise of Lord Byron, Scott turned to prose. His first novel, Waverley, published anonymously in 1814, was set during the Jacobite rising of 1745 and is considered the first true historical novel. The success of Waverley led to a long series of novels, known collectively as the Waverley Novels, which blended historical events with compelling fictional narratives.
Over the following years, Scott produced a remarkable number of novels, including Old Mortality, The Heart of Midlothian, and The Bride of Lammermoor, each contributing to the romantic image of Scotland that became popular throughout Europe. With Ivanhoe, published in 1819, he turned his attention to medieval England, broadening his appeal and confirming his status as a major literary figure. His works were not only popular in his own time but also laid the groundwork for historical fiction as a respected literary form.
Scott married Charlotte Genevieve Charpentier in 1797, and they had five children. In 1820, he was granted a baronetcy and became Sir Walter Scott. He built a grand home, Abbotsford House, near Melrose, which reflected his passion for history and the Scottish past. However, in 1825, financial disaster struck when his publishers went bankrupt. Rather than declare bankruptcy himself, Scott chose to work tirelessly to pay off the debts through his writing. He continued to produce novels and non-fiction works at a staggering pace despite declining health.
Walter Scott died in 1832, leaving behind a literary legacy that influenced generations of writers and readers. His works remain widely read and studied, and he is credited with helping to revive interest in Scottish history and culture. Abbotsford House, now a museum, stands as a monument to his life and achievements.
Sir Walter Scott was a Scottish novelist, poet, historian, and biographer, widely recognized as the founder and master of the historical novel. His most celebrated works, including Waverley, Rob Roy, and Ivanhoe, helped shape not only the genre of historical fiction but also modern perceptions of Scottish culture and identity.
Born in Edinburgh in 1771, Scott was the son of a solicitor and a mother with a strong interest in literature and history. At the age of two, he contracted polio, which left him with a permanent limp. He spent much of his childhood in the Scottish Borders, where he developed a deep fascination with the region's folklore, ballads, and history. He studied at Edinburgh High School and later at the University of Edinburgh, qualifying as a lawyer in 1792. Though he worked in law for some time, his literary ambitions soon took precedence.
Scott began his literary career with translations and collections of traditional ballads, notably in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. He gained early fame with narrative poems such as The Lay of the Last Minstrel and The Lady of the Lake. As the popularity of poetic storytelling declined, especially with the rise of Lord Byron, Scott turned to prose. His first novel, Waverley, published anonymously in 1814, was set during the Jacobite rising of 1745 and is considered the first true historical novel. The success of Waverley led to a long series of novels, known collectively as the Waverley Novels, which blended historical events with compelling fictional narratives.
Over the following years, Scott produced a remarkable number of novels, including Old Mortality, The Heart of Midlothian, and The Bride of Lammermoor, each contributing to the romantic image of Scotland that became popular throughout Europe. With Ivanhoe, published in 1819, he turned his attention to medieval England, broadening his appeal and confirming his status as a major literary figure. His works were not only popular in his own time but also laid the groundwork for historical fiction as a respected literary form.
Scott married Charlotte Genevieve Charpentier in 1797, and they had five children. In 1820, he was granted a baronetcy and became Sir Walter Scott. He built a grand home, Abbotsford House, near Melrose, which reflected his passion for history and the Scottish past. However, in 1825, financial disaster struck when his publishers went bankrupt. Rather than declare bankruptcy himself, Scott chose to work tirelessly to pay off the debts through his writing. He continued to produce novels and non-fiction works at a staggering pace despite declining health.
Walter Scott died in 1832, leaving behind a literary legacy that influenced generations of writers and readers. His works remain widely read and studied, and he is credited with helping to revive interest in Scottish history and culture. Abbotsford House, now a museum, stands as a monument to his life and achievements.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 469 reviews
September 3, 2019
Waverly, or 'tis Sixty Years Since can be an infuriating book. Even those accustomed to the leisurely movement of 19th century prose will find its style not only wordy but also occasionally infelicitous, its plot not only meandering but also digressive. It takes at least a quarter of the book—-perhaps a third—-to get the plot going, and I must admit that one comic character in particular--the Baron Bradwardine, who continually spouts Latin tags, lecturing all and sundry on the minutiae of family history and heraldry—was almost enough, all by his aristocratic self, to make me abandon the book.
And yet . . . when we get to the Highlands, things start to open up. The scenery and tableaux vivants—from Donald Bean Lean lurking in his robber cavern, to the bonny Flora MacIvor harping and singing on a height near a highland waterfall--are thrillingly gothic, delightfully romantic; yet, as our young hero Edward Waverly—a bit of a Quixote—encounters the people of this magnificent landscape, the reader discovers—as Waverly also discovers--that even the best of them are deeply affected by politics, and that most of them are incapable of making a decision without considerable political calculation.
It is this political consciousness that makes Waverly--and all the Scott novels that came after--a unique contribution to the development of the form. He is commonly considered the first historical novelist because--unlike Mrs. Radcliffe, "Monk" Lewis and others--he uses the past for more than exotic locales, and establishes his narratives firmly in time, with characters who exhibit contemporary manners and participate in historical events. All of this is true, although I think it could be argued that a few earlier novels--Clara Reeve's The Old English Barron, Godwin's St. Leon, and, most particularly, Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent (set "eighteen years since," before Ireland's Constitution of 1782)--make good attempts in this direction. But it is Scott's profound understanding of politics--particularly Scottish politics--and his precise delineation of how those politics often inform and sometimes determine even the simplest actions, that enabled him to combine a lawyer's realism with a poet's love of atmosphere, creating from their union a distinctly new kind of novel.
March 21, 2014
Please don't read Scott. There are too many books and life's too short. Even Fenimore Cooper is better, and Fenimore Cooper is fall-down terribly terrible. Garbage like this is what destroys a newcomer's interest in reading true classics like Austen and Dickens, Melville and Tolstoy. I don't care if you're a casual reader or a bibliophile or a PhD or you're trapped on a desert island with only this one book. Burn it for warmth. Scotty Boy's long overdue for decanonization.
May 26, 2024
Waverley is my first Walter Scott experience. I've been meaning to read him for a long time now and am glad to have put a step forward in that direction. My choice of Waverley as the first read of Walter Scott is due to the historic time period it was set in. The history and the Scottish setting in this novel are charming, and as his first read, it didn't disappoint me.
I must first give credit to the story, for it was interesting. It tells the story of a young man named Edward Waverley who finds himself embroiled in a political intrigue in the middle of the Jacobite rising. The story is mainly of things that happen to him, the difficulties he faces, and his mind's debate on his loyalty. But the background of the history and the beautiful Scottish setting play an important role adding a lot of colour and weight to the story so as to make the story not only about the adventures of Edward Waverley. However, the flow of the story was painfully slow for me. The first half of the story was more of descriptions and introductions than any active action. I wouldn't say they were completely boring; there were parts that were quite interesting. But, as a whole, there were too many details making inroads into the plot and as such, its flow suffered. The second half picked on the action, yet in parts, the progress was slackened by Scott's obvious love for description. However, other than the speed of its progress, I had no issue with the plot, for I found it quite interesting.
As to Scott's writing, I didn't find it too difficult or too heavy to read. Of course, Scott has made use of a fair amount of Gaelic, but since I listened to those parts rather than me reading it, I didn't find those parts particularly difficult. That is the advantage of using audio along with the text. You can listen to the difficult parts while following the text without labouring to read them.
The characters were interesting and I enjoyed their different character traits. Yet, for some reason, I couldn't fully connect with them. I liked them but from a distance. Edward Waverley, though called the "hero" by the author, was only the center character, and though his character is developed from an idle, ignorant youth to an understanding, responsible man, I found myself enjoying some of the other characters, especially the Scottish Highland chief more than the "hero". The unlooked heroin (if I may say so) took me by surprise but was glad and thankful to Scott for including such a character. It was a fitting tribute to the women of the time to show that even though generally timid and gentle, they could rise to the occasion and show such a strength of character when in need.
Most of the charm of the story was provided by the history of the Jacobite uprise and the beautiful Scottish setting. They complimented the story and increased its enjoyment. Sir Walter Scott seems unsympathetic to the cause, but he has done justice in describing the events without prejudice. I enjoyed the historical background as detailed by him. And as to the beautiful Scottish setting, it made me longing for a visit to the Scottish Highlands. :)
I'm glad to have finally crossed the barrier and stepped into the literary world of Sir Walter Scott. Taking the first step is always an effort. :) Now that I have, I'd like to check out some others in the Waverley series.
I must first give credit to the story, for it was interesting. It tells the story of a young man named Edward Waverley who finds himself embroiled in a political intrigue in the middle of the Jacobite rising. The story is mainly of things that happen to him, the difficulties he faces, and his mind's debate on his loyalty. But the background of the history and the beautiful Scottish setting play an important role adding a lot of colour and weight to the story so as to make the story not only about the adventures of Edward Waverley. However, the flow of the story was painfully slow for me. The first half of the story was more of descriptions and introductions than any active action. I wouldn't say they were completely boring; there were parts that were quite interesting. But, as a whole, there were too many details making inroads into the plot and as such, its flow suffered. The second half picked on the action, yet in parts, the progress was slackened by Scott's obvious love for description. However, other than the speed of its progress, I had no issue with the plot, for I found it quite interesting.
As to Scott's writing, I didn't find it too difficult or too heavy to read. Of course, Scott has made use of a fair amount of Gaelic, but since I listened to those parts rather than me reading it, I didn't find those parts particularly difficult. That is the advantage of using audio along with the text. You can listen to the difficult parts while following the text without labouring to read them.
The characters were interesting and I enjoyed their different character traits. Yet, for some reason, I couldn't fully connect with them. I liked them but from a distance. Edward Waverley, though called the "hero" by the author, was only the center character, and though his character is developed from an idle, ignorant youth to an understanding, responsible man, I found myself enjoying some of the other characters, especially the Scottish Highland chief more than the "hero". The unlooked heroin (if I may say so) took me by surprise but was glad and thankful to Scott for including such a character. It was a fitting tribute to the women of the time to show that even though generally timid and gentle, they could rise to the occasion and show such a strength of character when in need.
Most of the charm of the story was provided by the history of the Jacobite uprise and the beautiful Scottish setting. They complimented the story and increased its enjoyment. Sir Walter Scott seems unsympathetic to the cause, but he has done justice in describing the events without prejudice. I enjoyed the historical background as detailed by him. And as to the beautiful Scottish setting, it made me longing for a visit to the Scottish Highlands. :)
I'm glad to have finally crossed the barrier and stepped into the literary world of Sir Walter Scott. Taking the first step is always an effort. :) Now that I have, I'd like to check out some others in the Waverley series.
July 25, 2022
An interesting and compelling novel - I'm enjoying discovering Walter Scott.
Read
July 16, 2025I found it fascinating for a bunch of different reasons. First I enjoyed the story, even though the two main women in it were pretty much paper thin, as most heroines are in early novels striving for respectability. These one dimensional heroines whose primary characteristics were their beauty and their purity were not always written by men. Female writers could be just as determined to lift the novel out of the mire of trashiness such as the immensely popular but male-het-id-vortex The Monk (I think the author was nineteen when he wrote it?). One period writer firmly attested on her title page that her work was a romance, and not "a novel" as everyone knew novels were trash. (Jane Austen would had no patience with this false distinction: hers are labeled "novel.")
In Waverley, the cast is mostly male, and what a variety of complex figures! Scott--hitherto known primarily as a poet--sets out to put an ordinary fellow, Edward Waverley, through the '45. Which was in living memory for many, when Scott penned this novel. Scott keeps referring to Sixty Years Since, meaning sixty years in the past. He talked to a bunch of vets, and the research shows. He also knows Scottish dialects, and that shows. This is where a lot of readers bog down. But I've been listening to Scottish folk music for a long time, so I could parse most of it fairly quickly, though there were plenty of words I stumbled over--but I could always get the gist.
I could see why this novel kicked off the modern historical novel form in earnest. Historical novels had been around. As 17-year-old Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey says at one point, she isn't sure why she finds historical fiction so tiresome when events were so big, but it had something to do with the dullness of the speeches put in the mouths of famous characters, and either no women or they were all good-for-nothing. Austen wrote the first draft of that in 1793, if I remember right.
I think the problem is the preachiness of those earlier, well-meant historical novels. Not just earlier. Jane Porter wrote The Scottish Chiefs around the same time as Scott was writing, or just before, and it remained immensely popular as a kids' book for the next century or so, but wow is it a fine example of what Catherine is decrying. It's the story of William Wallace, complete to virtuous speeches, for the Scottish hero is an absolute saint all the way through, including to his saintly martyrdom. The heroes are pure and good, the villains dastardly and evil, the story interlarded with inspiring speeches at every turn.
In contrast, Scott's book breathes tolerance all the way through. His characters are complex, and some are comical, but everyone has actual human motivations for what they do, and there is a lot of grace on both sides. The characters talk to each other, they don't stand and pontificate. He does whitewash Charlie Stuart a bit--but even the bonnie prince's foibles are hinted at pretty strongly, meanwhile Scott demonstrates Charles Edward Stuart's immense charisma--and some of the problems it brought him. (One thing you can say for him, he inspired some terrific folk songs!)
The narrative voice is wry, observant, and witty. There are some great comic bits, and some vivid action. The main character is pretty much a stand-in for the author (in the journal he wrote later, he uses the same language for his early education as he does for the hero) but this hero has to grow up during the course of the novel. I can see why Scott rocketed to popularity right off the bat--and also how this novel began to lift The English Novel out of the general lack of respect with which it was regarded by society.
In Waverley, the cast is mostly male, and what a variety of complex figures! Scott--hitherto known primarily as a poet--sets out to put an ordinary fellow, Edward Waverley, through the '45. Which was in living memory for many, when Scott penned this novel. Scott keeps referring to Sixty Years Since, meaning sixty years in the past. He talked to a bunch of vets, and the research shows. He also knows Scottish dialects, and that shows. This is where a lot of readers bog down. But I've been listening to Scottish folk music for a long time, so I could parse most of it fairly quickly, though there were plenty of words I stumbled over--but I could always get the gist.
I could see why this novel kicked off the modern historical novel form in earnest. Historical novels had been around. As 17-year-old Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey says at one point, she isn't sure why she finds historical fiction so tiresome when events were so big, but it had something to do with the dullness of the speeches put in the mouths of famous characters, and either no women or they were all good-for-nothing. Austen wrote the first draft of that in 1793, if I remember right.
I think the problem is the preachiness of those earlier, well-meant historical novels. Not just earlier. Jane Porter wrote The Scottish Chiefs around the same time as Scott was writing, or just before, and it remained immensely popular as a kids' book for the next century or so, but wow is it a fine example of what Catherine is decrying. It's the story of William Wallace, complete to virtuous speeches, for the Scottish hero is an absolute saint all the way through, including to his saintly martyrdom. The heroes are pure and good, the villains dastardly and evil, the story interlarded with inspiring speeches at every turn.
In contrast, Scott's book breathes tolerance all the way through. His characters are complex, and some are comical, but everyone has actual human motivations for what they do, and there is a lot of grace on both sides. The characters talk to each other, they don't stand and pontificate. He does whitewash Charlie Stuart a bit--but even the bonnie prince's foibles are hinted at pretty strongly, meanwhile Scott demonstrates Charles Edward Stuart's immense charisma--and some of the problems it brought him. (One thing you can say for him, he inspired some terrific folk songs!)
The narrative voice is wry, observant, and witty. There are some great comic bits, and some vivid action. The main character is pretty much a stand-in for the author (in the journal he wrote later, he uses the same language for his early education as he does for the hero) but this hero has to grow up during the course of the novel. I can see why Scott rocketed to popularity right off the bat--and also how this novel began to lift The English Novel out of the general lack of respect with which it was regarded by society.
March 20, 2012
twas a bit o trouble
I like classics. I am not afraid of a little bit of antiquated language. I enjoy a challenge. However reading dialogue in archaic Scottish brogue, liberally seasoned with Latin and French quotes, without translations, well it twas a wee bit much – if you kin me meaning.
Then there his Waverly lad, he is also a wee bit much. A proud Englishman, who has a couple of brews with the local lads while in Scotland, reads some poetry, falls for a pretty yet serious Scottish lass, then takes up arms against the English. (Well, tis a known fact, Scottish ale being superior to English stout. So, it's not like he didn't have a good reason for his actions, not to mention the lass having long luxurious black hair and green eyes and all that.)
So anyways, the war progresses and things once again turn out badly for the Scots and our friend Waverly starts thinking that being a Brit again might be a fine thing. I mean fighting manly with your mates is a good and noble thing, but then a proper uniform, a privileged family, a nice castle, these things deserve consideration as well. (Not to mention the needs of young domestic, native, blond, blue eyed girls awaiting the attention of suitably fine handsome young gentlemen, processing castles.)
Anyway, all is forgiven ... he gets married .. he has kids (they all have blue eyes), hires ground-keepers (mostly, Scots), leaving the poor reader to wonder .. so what was he fighting for?
I like classics. I am not afraid of a little bit of antiquated language. I enjoy a challenge. However reading dialogue in archaic Scottish brogue, liberally seasoned with Latin and French quotes, without translations, well it twas a wee bit much – if you kin me meaning.
Then there his Waverly lad, he is also a wee bit much. A proud Englishman, who has a couple of brews with the local lads while in Scotland, reads some poetry, falls for a pretty yet serious Scottish lass, then takes up arms against the English. (Well, tis a known fact, Scottish ale being superior to English stout. So, it's not like he didn't have a good reason for his actions, not to mention the lass having long luxurious black hair and green eyes and all that.)
So anyways, the war progresses and things once again turn out badly for the Scots and our friend Waverly starts thinking that being a Brit again might be a fine thing. I mean fighting manly with your mates is a good and noble thing, but then a proper uniform, a privileged family, a nice castle, these things deserve consideration as well. (Not to mention the needs of young domestic, native, blond, blue eyed girls awaiting the attention of suitably fine handsome young gentlemen, processing castles.)
Anyway, all is forgiven ... he gets married .. he has kids (they all have blue eyes), hires ground-keepers (mostly, Scots), leaving the poor reader to wonder .. so what was he fighting for?
March 4, 2021
When Waverley was published in 1814, Scott was already famous as the author of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, and The Lady of the Lake, as well as his collection of Scottish ballads and a few other poems which were less successful. He had first begun this novel in 1808 but, discouraged by his publisher's lukewarm praise, he laid it aside. By 1813, when he discovered the manuscript in a drawer while rummaging for fishing tackle, his popularity as a poet was declining. Scott took up the work with renewed interest, and shared it once again with his publisher and a few close friends, who were now very enthusiastic. But, still uncertain how the work would be accepted by the public, besides having a rather sly idea that an air of mystery about the author would help boost sales, Scott determined to publish it anonymously. Of course it was a wild success, and many more novels followed in rapid succession, all by the unknown "author of Waverley".
I thoroughly enjoyed the descriptions of the Scottish Highlands and manners, and I love Scott's ability to give his characters such interesting personalities, drawing out all their little eccentricities in a way that just makes you love them all the more! 😂 I also think Scott may have drawn a little from his own youth in describing Edward Waverley. Especially in his rather desultory reading habits, which, however, did not prove useless to Scott at least!
I believe I said something in a previous review about being surprised by Scott's use of names that describe his characters' personalities or occupations. I don't know what my mind was doing at the time, but come to think of it, he does that quite often! There were a few in Waverley, my favorites being Madam Nosebag (a very "nosy" person too! 🤣) and John Heatherblutter, the gamekeeper!
A very enjoyable and informative read...Scott was truly brilliant!! 😊
I thoroughly enjoyed the descriptions of the Scottish Highlands and manners, and I love Scott's ability to give his characters such interesting personalities, drawing out all their little eccentricities in a way that just makes you love them all the more! 😂 I also think Scott may have drawn a little from his own youth in describing Edward Waverley. Especially in his rather desultory reading habits, which, however, did not prove useless to Scott at least!
I believe I said something in a previous review about being surprised by Scott's use of names that describe his characters' personalities or occupations. I don't know what my mind was doing at the time, but come to think of it, he does that quite often! There were a few in Waverley, my favorites being Madam Nosebag (a very "nosy" person too! 🤣) and John Heatherblutter, the gamekeeper!
A very enjoyable and informative read...Scott was truly brilliant!! 😊
June 5, 2011
Wily Walter may have been engaged on his first prose narrative, but he knew what he was doing: "I must remind my reader of the progress of a stone rolled down a hill by an idle truant boy (a pastime at which I was myself expert in my more juvenile years:) it moveth at first slowly, avoiding, by inflection, every obstacle of the least importance; but when it has attained its full impulse, and draws near the conclusion of its career, it smokes and thunders down, taking a rood at every spring, clearing hedge and ditch like a Yorkshire huntsman, and becoming most furiously rapid in its course when it is nearest to being consigned to rest for ever. Even such is the course of a narrative, like that which you are perusing; the earlier events are studiously dwelt upon, that you, kind reader, may be introduced to the character rather by narrative, than by the duller medium of direct description; but when the story draws near its close, we hurry over the circumstances, however important, which your imagination must have forestalled, and leave you to suppose those things, which it would be abusing your patience to narrate at length." (page 331). Indeed, in the second and third volumes the narrative does smoke and thunder. Once Waverley is in Scotland and in the midst of the action, the pace picks up, and when in the final volume there is the added interest of the ladies and whether Waverley will at last realise which lady holds his best interests at heart, and all the intrigue is at last uncovered, and the rebels must be punished or pardoned, well, then it takes on a spanking pace that hardly allows you to draw breath. The contrast is made all the greater by the slow, slow drag of those infamous first seven chapters. I'm not the first to bemoan their dullness, and I daresay I won't be the last.
Nor is it particularly original of me to point out that this is considered the prototype of the historical novel, especially in the use of a 'middling' character as the main protagonist, one who could enter both the higher echelons of society and yet still be at home with the ordinary foot soldier. Scott claims in his preface of 1829 that the story was put together "with so little care that I cannot boast of having sketched any distinct plan of the work.", but that claim must surely be disingenuous, as this middling character, Waverley, is involved in what can only have been seen by his sovereign as a treasonous uprising, but is exculpated and pardoned as he was duped and tricked into joining the rebels in a plot that is carefully laid down and swiftly, nay even perfunctorily explained in the last few chapters.
So with this carping how come I still give it four stars? Well, for one thing I find the portrayal of that period fascinating, to gain a glimpse of those Highland clans and their quite different culture. It must be remembered that the Highlands of Scotland really were remote in the middle of the 18th century, their loyalties were based on the structure of the clan, it was in no sense a modern society. In fact that was an interesting aspect: in our time we tend to think only in terms of ideology when taking sides in any kind of political conflict, but here the idea of personal fealty is still the strongest factor, homage given in return for favour expected. And the attitude to the ladies also shows up the demarcation between an archaic and a more modern society: Waverley's friend Vich Ian Vohr thinks nothing of deciding for his sister who she is to marry, since he is her legal guardian, whereas Waverley cannot consider taking a wife who does not give her hand freely.
A tough read, but rewarding for those interested in British history or the development of the historical novel.
Nor is it particularly original of me to point out that this is considered the prototype of the historical novel, especially in the use of a 'middling' character as the main protagonist, one who could enter both the higher echelons of society and yet still be at home with the ordinary foot soldier. Scott claims in his preface of 1829 that the story was put together "with so little care that I cannot boast of having sketched any distinct plan of the work.", but that claim must surely be disingenuous, as this middling character, Waverley, is involved in what can only have been seen by his sovereign as a treasonous uprising, but is exculpated and pardoned as he was duped and tricked into joining the rebels in a plot that is carefully laid down and swiftly, nay even perfunctorily explained in the last few chapters.
So with this carping how come I still give it four stars? Well, for one thing I find the portrayal of that period fascinating, to gain a glimpse of those Highland clans and their quite different culture. It must be remembered that the Highlands of Scotland really were remote in the middle of the 18th century, their loyalties were based on the structure of the clan, it was in no sense a modern society. In fact that was an interesting aspect: in our time we tend to think only in terms of ideology when taking sides in any kind of political conflict, but here the idea of personal fealty is still the strongest factor, homage given in return for favour expected. And the attitude to the ladies also shows up the demarcation between an archaic and a more modern society: Waverley's friend Vich Ian Vohr thinks nothing of deciding for his sister who she is to marry, since he is her legal guardian, whereas Waverley cannot consider taking a wife who does not give her hand freely.
A tough read, but rewarding for those interested in British history or the development of the historical novel.
May 24, 2020
3.5 stars
I will be honest with you friends, I've never been particularly interested in Scotland, as a seat of romance or adventure or otherwise. I'm probably the only period-drama addict who doesn't watch Outlander, and I've never really been into the whole ruggedly-handsome-kilted-Highlander thing either.
I have, however, been interested in reading Scott for a while now, for mostly educational purposes and through a curiosity to read more of the popular literature of the Regency era. Also, Sir Walter Scott is credited by many with the first historical-fiction novel, and as an eternal historical fiction reader, well, that is interesting to me.
Poor Scott would undoubtedly have still lay unread for many years to come had I not taken a 19th-century-British-novel class in university this year, in which one of the novels we studied happened to be Waverley.
Often, there is no surer way to kill one's enjoyment of a novel than to be forced to read it for school. Sometimes, you're lucky enough to be studying one of your favourite books and are free to proclaim your love for it to anyone who might listen (like when we read Pride and Prejudice and I could unashamedly defend Mr. Bingley's honour). But rarely, very rarely (as in like, never), will you actually be thankful that the first time you read a novel was for a class because it actually helped you.
Especially not for a 400+ page book that you somehow had to finish in less than two weeks, with barely enough time and energy to muster through the first few chapters.
All the elements combined to turn reading Waverley a most unpleasant experience: forced reading for school, super-lengthy book, ENDLESS PAGES OF EXPOSITION AND DESCRIPTION, the most slow-going plot imaginable in all historyand no time to read.
But…I actually quite enjoyed this book. I enjoyed it because it was interesting to read a novel that was so popular in the 19th century. I enjoyed it because a lot of the descriptions and passages were very beautiful. I enjoyed it because, deeply buried under the layers of prosy prose lay a very good plot and a sweet little romance. I enjoyed it because discussing it in class was actually fun, and made me so much more motivated to finish than if I’d been reading it on my own. I’m not sure I would have finished it otherwise, but I’m glad I did. It’s just important to be mentally prepared for a historiography and not a thriller.
I will be honest with you friends, I've never been particularly interested in Scotland, as a seat of romance or adventure or otherwise. I'm probably the only period-drama addict who doesn't watch Outlander, and I've never really been into the whole ruggedly-handsome-kilted-Highlander thing either.
I have, however, been interested in reading Scott for a while now, for mostly educational purposes and through a curiosity to read more of the popular literature of the Regency era. Also, Sir Walter Scott is credited by many with the first historical-fiction novel, and as an eternal historical fiction reader, well, that is interesting to me.
Poor Scott would undoubtedly have still lay unread for many years to come had I not taken a 19th-century-British-novel class in university this year, in which one of the novels we studied happened to be Waverley.
Often, there is no surer way to kill one's enjoyment of a novel than to be forced to read it for school. Sometimes, you're lucky enough to be studying one of your favourite books and are free to proclaim your love for it to anyone who might listen (like when we read Pride and Prejudice and I could unashamedly defend Mr. Bingley's honour). But rarely, very rarely (as in like, never), will you actually be thankful that the first time you read a novel was for a class because it actually helped you.
Especially not for a 400+ page book that you somehow had to finish in less than two weeks, with barely enough time and energy to muster through the first few chapters.
All the elements combined to turn reading Waverley a most unpleasant experience: forced reading for school, super-lengthy book, ENDLESS PAGES OF EXPOSITION AND DESCRIPTION, the most slow-going plot imaginable in all historyand no time to read.
But…I actually quite enjoyed this book. I enjoyed it because it was interesting to read a novel that was so popular in the 19th century. I enjoyed it because a lot of the descriptions and passages were very beautiful. I enjoyed it because, deeply buried under the layers of prosy prose lay a very good plot and a sweet little romance. I enjoyed it because discussing it in class was actually fun, and made me so much more motivated to finish than if I’d been reading it on my own. I’m not sure I would have finished it otherwise, but I’m glad I did. It’s just important to be mentally prepared for a historiography and not a thriller.
August 28, 2025
What a great read! I was nervous going in, even after loving Ivanhoe, and it is wordy (😂) but it’s also full of grand adventures and so many great characters. Edward Waverley is such a fun hero to follow because he starts off so romantic and fluffy-minded and becomes quite a man by the end. It took some effort for me to keep the history straight at the beginning but by a third of the way through, I was sailing along. I loved the romantic tragedy of Fergus MacIvor and his sister. Though it’s wordy, the descriptions are also superb. The world of Scotland in 1745/46 comes to life brilliantly. No wonder my favorite Scottish writers loved their Scott. (And English writers too like Yonge and Charlotte Mason!) I think we vastly underestimate how popular Scott was in his day and what a debt we owe him. He’s no Austen (who I really think is a genius along the lines of Shakespeare) but he is a superb storyteller.
July 9, 2017
Edward Waverly is an utter drip. That is all.
March 16, 2023
Edward Waverley goes on a vacation to Scotland, staying with an old friend of his uncle's. He meets a Highland Chief and is invited to spend a couple of weeks hunting in the highlands. Waverley is inspired by the noble demeanor of the highland clans, and his romantic side gets the better of him. He becomes embroiled in the Jacobite Rebellion, and he falls in love with the Chief's pretty sister. At first, his adventures seem glamorous and exciting, but he quickly learns that he must deal with reality and give up his childish daydreams of glory.
A beautiful, intriguing tale of valor, love, honor, loyalty, with absurd funny bits and sorrow intermingled. This is my favorite book of Sir Walter Scott's!
I love the setting of the Scottish Highlands! It is absolutely beautiful. I found it incredibly interesting to learn about the old customs and rich culture of Scotland, and the way the Highlands and the Lowlands have such different manners and even a different language. Some of the Highland characters only speak Gaelic and only know a few words in English.
I absolutely adore Waverley's character. He is brave and honorable and true. He is a dreamer, preferring books and poetry, but also an active person, ready to dive into any adventure or defend his honor with a duel. The best thing about Edward Waverley is his intense character development. Through all his adventures and experiences, he learns to navigate reality as it really is, instead of wishing for foolish dreams. He has a very fiery personality, and he learns to tame some of those wild emotions.
All the supporting characters are fantastic! Every one of them is unique and memorable and interesting. They are a wild group sometimes! I love that each personality is well-written in a thoughtful way. They have their own character arcs, their own little intrigues and sorrows in the background.
The writing is phenomenal! It draws you in slowly and completely immerses you in this old world of history. I love that we get to see the inner workings of Edward Waverley's thoughts and emotions as he grows and changes. The rich language really puts the reader into the middle of every scene. There is a wonderful balance of serious and comical scenes, and moments of rest and action.
I adore everything about this book!
A beautiful, intriguing tale of valor, love, honor, loyalty, with absurd funny bits and sorrow intermingled. This is my favorite book of Sir Walter Scott's!
I love the setting of the Scottish Highlands! It is absolutely beautiful. I found it incredibly interesting to learn about the old customs and rich culture of Scotland, and the way the Highlands and the Lowlands have such different manners and even a different language. Some of the Highland characters only speak Gaelic and only know a few words in English.
I absolutely adore Waverley's character. He is brave and honorable and true. He is a dreamer, preferring books and poetry, but also an active person, ready to dive into any adventure or defend his honor with a duel. The best thing about Edward Waverley is his intense character development. Through all his adventures and experiences, he learns to navigate reality as it really is, instead of wishing for foolish dreams. He has a very fiery personality, and he learns to tame some of those wild emotions.
All the supporting characters are fantastic! Every one of them is unique and memorable and interesting. They are a wild group sometimes! I love that each personality is well-written in a thoughtful way. They have their own character arcs, their own little intrigues and sorrows in the background.
The writing is phenomenal! It draws you in slowly and completely immerses you in this old world of history. I love that we get to see the inner workings of Edward Waverley's thoughts and emotions as he grows and changes. The rich language really puts the reader into the middle of every scene. There is a wonderful balance of serious and comical scenes, and moments of rest and action.
I adore everything about this book!
February 1, 2019
Much like Ivanhoe in Ivanhoe, the Waverley of Waverley isn't the true hero of this story. And, much like Ivanhoe did with the Crusades, this paints a picture of what life was like for the lesser knowns, the less influential but no less heroic or passionate of a failed cause. In this case it's the Jacobite Rebellion, and the Battle of Culloden. We don't actually see the battle, not really, because our narrator, our stand-in, is injured and ill and taken away from the scene. But through him we encounter major and minor players, everyone from the would-be king to his supporters and his detractors. Simple farm folk who don't know what's going on, servants who only support a cause because their master does. It's a deceptively simple slice-of-life, during a time when life was rather thrilling and tragic.
March 15, 2019
From the books of this great writer I had read so far only Ivanhoe at a young age in a Greek edition made for children. These two elements obviously made me unable to appreciate him as I should, but now that at a mature age I decided to read more, aspiring to read all the Waverley novels, finishing the first of them I think I can to understand why these books have such a place in the history of literature and why their writer is considered so important. Apart from this "academic" recognition, however, which may not be so important, I can say it is a book I really enjoyed.
The author is taking us to Scotland of 1745, just before the outbreak of the Jacobite uprising of that year. There, a young English gentleman, a little frivolous and very romantic, visits the area to reach in the end to the Highlands, where he is admiring the wild natural landscape, meet the proud inhabitants, sinks into the region's rich culture and falls in love. With him the reader follows this road and with the very beautiful descriptions given to him by the writer's pen, it is very difficult not to fall in love with this enchanting place where brave warriors roam and beautiful women singing touching lyrics from the long tradition of the region.
But this is the backdrop for the political upheaval that existed in Britain and was about the struggle for which family was entitled to sit on the throne. The exiled successor arrives in Scotland, his supporters are preparing to rise and our hero witnesses these preparations. All the beautiful things I described and the fact that his family are supporters of the exiled Stuart dynasty makes him friendly to this cause and so he starts his biggest adventures and drifts into the river of history. The writer, through the look of our hero, shows us a part of these events, with fascinating descriptions and is deepening in the feelings of the protagonists and the purposes they served. Finally, we understand the consequences of the rebellion, both in Scotland and the Highlands, as well as in our hero.
That's how the author ends his story, without putting his name, creating what is considered the first historical novel. The last claim I do not know if it is true but certainly this book is a model for the genre, having all these elements that make up an important historical novel as we know it. There is the story of the old, the existence of real and imaginary characters involved in important events, the thorough investigation of the conditions of the time manifested by the reporting of many details and in general a combination of a fictional story with the historical truth that makes us not only to know the story but also to somehow live it. All this is done by the author in the best possible way by creating a masterpiece and I can do nothing but to put the top rate and to bow on this wonderful ability of the writer.
Από τα βιβλία αυτού του μεγάλου συγγραφέα είχα διαβάσει ως τώρα μόνο τον Ιβανόη σε νεαρή ηλικία σε μια ελληνική έκδοση για παιδιά. Αυτά τα δύο στοιχεία προφανώς με έκαναν να να μην μπορώ να τον εκτιμήσω όπως θα έπρεπε, τώρα, όμως, που σε μία ώριμη ηλικία αποφάσισα να διαβάσω περισσότερα, φιλοδοξώντας να διαβάσω όλα τα λεγόμενα μυθιστορήματα του Waverley, τελειώνοντας το πρώτο από αυτά νομίζω ότι μπορώ να καταλάβω γιατί έχουν αυτά τα βιβλία μία τέτοια θέση στην ιστορία της λογοτεχνίας και γιατί ο συγγραφέας που θεωρείται τόσο σπουδαίος. Πέρα από αυτήν την "ακαδημαϊκή" αναγνώριση, όμως, που ίσως δεν έχει τόση σημασία, μπορώ να πω ότι είναι ένα βιβλίο που πραγματικά το απόλαυσα.
Ο συγγραφέας μας μεταφέρει στην Σκωτία του 1745, λίγο πριν από το ξέσπασμα της εξέγερσης των Ιακωβιτών εκείνη την χρονιά. Εκεί ένας νεαρός Άγγλος ευγενής, λίγο επιπόλαιος και πολύ ρομαντικός, επισκέπτεται την περιοχή για να καταλήξει τελικά στα Highlands, ο οποίος θαυμάζει το άγριο φυσικό τοπίο, γνωρίζει τους περήφανους κατοίκους, βυθίζεται στην κουλτούρα της περιοχής και ερωτεύεται. Μαζί του και ο αναγνώστης ακολουθεί αυτόν τον δρόμο και με τις πολύ ωραίες περιγραφές που μας χαρίζει η πένα του συγγραφέα είναι πολύ δύσκολο να μην ερωτευτεί αυτό το μαγευτικό μέρος που περιφέρονται γενναίοι πολεμιστές και όμορφες γυναίκες που τραγουδάνε συγκινητικούς στίχους από τη μακρά παράδοση της περιοχής.
Αυτό είναι όμως το φόντο για τις πολιτικές αναταραχές που υπήρχαν στην Βρετανία και είχαν ως αφορμή την διαμάχη για το ποια οικογένεια δικαιούταν να κάθεται στο θρόνο. Ο εξόριστος διάδοχος φτάνει στη Σκωτία και οι υποστηρικτές του ετοιμάζομαι να ξεσηκωθούν και ο ήρωας μας γίνεται μάρτυρας αυτών των προετοιμασιών. Όλα τα όμορφα πράγματα που περιέγραψα αλλά και το γεγονός ότι η οικογένειά του είναι υποστηρικτές της εξόριστης δυναστείας των Στιούαρτ τον κάνει να είναι φιλικός σε αυτόν τον σκοπό και έτσι ξεκινάνε οι μεγαλύτερες περιπέτειες του και παρασύρεται από το ποτάμι της ιστορίας. Ο συγγραφέας μέσα από τη ματιά του ήρωα μας μας δείχνει ένα μέρος από αυτά τα γεγονότα, με συναρπαστικές περιγραφές και εμβάθυνση στα συναισθήματα των πρωταγωνιστούν και στους σκοπούς που υπηρετούσαν. Στο τέλος καταλαβαίνουμε και τις συνέπειες της εξέγερσης, τόσο στην Σκωτία και τον πολιτισμό των Highlands, όσο και στον ήρωά μας.
Κάπως έτσι τελειώνει ο συγγραφέας την ιστορία του, χωρίς στο τέλος να βάζει το όνομά του, δημιουργώντας έτσι αυτό που θεωρείται το πρώτο ιστορικό μυθιστόρημα. Ο τελευταίος ισχυρισμός δεν ξέρω αν ισχύει αλλά σίγουρα αυτό το βιβλίο είναι ένα πρότυπο για το είδος, έχοντας όλα αυτά τα στοιχεία που συγκροτούν ένα σημαντικό ιστορικό μυθιστόρημα όπως το γνωρίζουμε. Υπάρχει η ιστορία από τα παλιά, η ύπαρξη πραγματικών και φανταστικών χαρακτήρων που εμπλέκονται σε σημαντικά γεγονότα, η ενδελεχής έρευνα για τις συνθήκες της εποχής που εκδηλώνεται με την αναφορά πολλών λεπτομερειών και γενικότερα ένας συνδυασμός μιας φανταστικής ιστορίας με την ιστορική αλήθεια που μας κάνει όχι μόνο να γνωρίζουμε την ιστορία αλλά και με κάποιον τρόπο να τη ζούμε. Όλα αυτά τα κάνει ο συγγραφέας με τον καλύτερο δυνατό τρόπο δημιουργώντας ένα αριστούργημα και εγώ δεν μπορώ να κάνω τίποτα άλλο από το να βάλω την άριστη βαθμολογία και να υποκλιθώ σε αυτήν την θαυμαστή ικανότητα του συγγραφέα.
The author is taking us to Scotland of 1745, just before the outbreak of the Jacobite uprising of that year. There, a young English gentleman, a little frivolous and very romantic, visits the area to reach in the end to the Highlands, where he is admiring the wild natural landscape, meet the proud inhabitants, sinks into the region's rich culture and falls in love. With him the reader follows this road and with the very beautiful descriptions given to him by the writer's pen, it is very difficult not to fall in love with this enchanting place where brave warriors roam and beautiful women singing touching lyrics from the long tradition of the region.
But this is the backdrop for the political upheaval that existed in Britain and was about the struggle for which family was entitled to sit on the throne. The exiled successor arrives in Scotland, his supporters are preparing to rise and our hero witnesses these preparations. All the beautiful things I described and the fact that his family are supporters of the exiled Stuart dynasty makes him friendly to this cause and so he starts his biggest adventures and drifts into the river of history. The writer, through the look of our hero, shows us a part of these events, with fascinating descriptions and is deepening in the feelings of the protagonists and the purposes they served. Finally, we understand the consequences of the rebellion, both in Scotland and the Highlands, as well as in our hero.
That's how the author ends his story, without putting his name, creating what is considered the first historical novel. The last claim I do not know if it is true but certainly this book is a model for the genre, having all these elements that make up an important historical novel as we know it. There is the story of the old, the existence of real and imaginary characters involved in important events, the thorough investigation of the conditions of the time manifested by the reporting of many details and in general a combination of a fictional story with the historical truth that makes us not only to know the story but also to somehow live it. All this is done by the author in the best possible way by creating a masterpiece and I can do nothing but to put the top rate and to bow on this wonderful ability of the writer.
Από τα βιβλία αυτού του μεγάλου συγγραφέα είχα διαβάσει ως τώρα μόνο τον Ιβανόη σε νεαρή ηλικία σε μια ελληνική έκδοση για παιδιά. Αυτά τα δύο στοιχεία προφανώς με έκαναν να να μην μπορώ να τον εκτιμήσω όπως θα έπρεπε, τώρα, όμως, που σε μία ώριμη ηλικία αποφάσισα να διαβάσω περισσότερα, φιλοδοξώντας να διαβάσω όλα τα λεγόμενα μυθιστορήματα του Waverley, τελειώνοντας το πρώτο από αυτά νομίζω ότι μπορώ να καταλάβω γιατί έχουν αυτά τα βιβλία μία τέτοια θέση στην ιστορία της λογοτεχνίας και γιατί ο συγγραφέας που θεωρείται τόσο σπουδαίος. Πέρα από αυτήν την "ακαδημαϊκή" αναγνώριση, όμως, που ίσως δεν έχει τόση σημασία, μπορώ να πω ότι είναι ένα βιβλίο που πραγματικά το απόλαυσα.
Ο συγγραφέας μας μεταφέρει στην Σκωτία του 1745, λίγο πριν από το ξέσπασμα της εξέγερσης των Ιακωβιτών εκείνη την χρονιά. Εκεί ένας νεαρός Άγγλος ευγενής, λίγο επιπόλαιος και πολύ ρομαντικός, επισκέπτεται την περιοχή για να καταλήξει τελικά στα Highlands, ο οποίος θαυμάζει το άγριο φυσικό τοπίο, γνωρίζει τους περήφανους κατοίκους, βυθίζεται στην κουλτούρα της περιοχής και ερωτεύεται. Μαζί του και ο αναγνώστης ακολουθεί αυτόν τον δρόμο και με τις πολύ ωραίες περιγραφές που μας χαρίζει η πένα του συγγραφέα είναι πολύ δύσκολο να μην ερωτευτεί αυτό το μαγευτικό μέρος που περιφέρονται γενναίοι πολεμιστές και όμορφες γυναίκες που τραγουδάνε συγκινητικούς στίχους από τη μακρά παράδοση της περιοχής.
Αυτό είναι όμως το φόντο για τις πολιτικές αναταραχές που υπήρχαν στην Βρετανία και είχαν ως αφορμή την διαμάχη για το ποια οικογένεια δικαιούταν να κάθεται στο θρόνο. Ο εξόριστος διάδοχος φτάνει στη Σκωτία και οι υποστηρικτές του ετοιμάζομαι να ξεσηκωθούν και ο ήρωας μας γίνεται μάρτυρας αυτών των προετοιμασιών. Όλα τα όμορφα πράγματα που περιέγραψα αλλά και το γεγονός ότι η οικογένειά του είναι υποστηρικτές της εξόριστης δυναστείας των Στιούαρτ τον κάνει να είναι φιλικός σε αυτόν τον σκοπό και έτσι ξεκινάνε οι μεγαλύτερες περιπέτειες του και παρασύρεται από το ποτάμι της ιστορίας. Ο συγγραφέας μέσα από τη ματιά του ήρωα μας μας δείχνει ένα μέρος από αυτά τα γεγονότα, με συναρπαστικές περιγραφές και εμβάθυνση στα συναισθήματα των πρωταγωνιστούν και στους σκοπούς που υπηρετούσαν. Στο τέλος καταλαβαίνουμε και τις συνέπειες της εξέγερσης, τόσο στην Σκωτία και τον πολιτισμό των Highlands, όσο και στον ήρωά μας.
Κάπως έτσι τελειώνει ο συγγραφέας την ιστορία του, χωρίς στο τέλος να βάζει το όνομά του, δημιουργώντας έτσι αυτό που θεωρείται το πρώτο ιστορικό μυθιστόρημα. Ο τελευταίος ισχυρισμός δεν ξέρω αν ισχύει αλλά σίγουρα αυτό το βιβλίο είναι ένα πρότυπο για το είδος, έχοντας όλα αυτά τα στοιχεία που συγκροτούν ένα σημαντικό ιστορικό μυθιστόρημα όπως το γνωρίζουμε. Υπάρχει η ιστορία από τα παλιά, η ύπαρξη πραγματικών και φανταστικών χαρακτήρων που εμπλέκονται σε σημαντικά γεγονότα, η ενδελεχής έρευνα για τις συνθήκες της εποχής που εκδηλώνεται με την αναφορά πολλών λεπτομερειών και γενικότερα ένας συνδυασμός μιας φανταστικής ιστορίας με την ιστορική αλήθεια που μας κάνει όχι μόνο να γνωρίζουμε την ιστορία αλλά και με κάποιον τρόπο να τη ζούμε. Όλα αυτά τα κάνει ο συγγραφέας με τον καλύτερο δυνατό τρόπο δημιουργώντας ένα αριστούργημα και εγώ δεν μπορώ να κάνω τίποτα άλλο από το να βάλω την άριστη βαθμολογία και να υποκλιθώ σε αυτήν την θαυμαστή ικανότητα του συγγραφέα.
January 10, 2016
Worth reading simply because it one of the most significant novels in the history of western literature. The publication of Waverley changed the face of the novel forever and therefore deserves to be read and studied. However, it's also a very engaging historical romance and adventure, following Edward Waverley's journey into Scotland and its romantic landscape and finally into the Jacobite rebellion.
December 27, 2014
This year I set myself the task of reading all Sir Walter's Scottish novels. It was hard going at times, but worth it … Here's the start of my essay on them.
Was it a recognition that Waverley speaks ultimately for peace and stability, for social and political cohesion and harmony, that made the Waverley novels so popular, or was it after all the other Scott, the Scott who speaks in the lofty tones of the heroic Evan Dhu rebuking the prudential Saxons, the romantically subversive and revolutionary Scott, who in the end called forth an irresistible response?
What was it that made Scott the most important writer of his day, the appeal to the romantic in his readers, or the essential stability of his message?
Scott’s invention of the ‘historical novel’:
I would like to start by looking at Scott’s invention of the ‘historical novel’ which is now such an important part of every bookshop’s income. The main form of novel set in history at the time was the Gothic novel, generally agreed to have started with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), subtitled ‘A Gothic Story’ in its second edition. It was followed by novels by Clara Reeve in the 1770s, which tried to mix the sensational elements with 18th century realism. In the 1790s, popular novels included The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), by Mrs Radcliffe. She combined the supernatural element with explanations. Lewis’s The Monk (1796) was moving towards pastiche, and Jane Austen satirised the genre in her early novel, Northanger Abbey (1798-9, published 1817). Whether explained away or not, the key elements of Gothic novels were suspense mingled with the supernatural. The characters were black-and-white villains or innocent heroines, the plots involved medieval castles, murders, dark stairs and gloomy housekeepers, and were often set abroad, with Italy being a favourite.
Scott also set his novels ‘abroad’, as Scotland was then unknown to many English readers. The Lakes had become a romantic success, following the poetry of Wordsworth and his friends (Lyrical Ballads was published in 1798), but the Scottish Highlands were still untravelled country, and his readers’ main aquaintance with them would be through the works of Pennant (A Journey in Scotland, 1769) and Boswell (The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnston (1785). Of particular interest in the context of Waverley is Boswell's interviews with those involved in helping the escape of the 'grandson of King James II' after Culloden. The Pirate’s setting of Orkney and Shetland is even further removed, being foreign territory to most Scots of Scott’s day – Scott visited it with the ‘Lighthouse’ Stevenson brothers.
Instead of returning to the medieval past often used in Gothic romances (despite the Gothic sounding titles, The Monastry and The Abbot are set in the early and mid sixteenth century; of the sixteen Scottish novels, only The Fair Maid of Perth and Castle Dangerous could be called medieval), Scott chose, in his Scottish novels, to write about recent history, using the stories he had heard: his father’s tales of the Covenanters, his grandfather’s stories of the ’45, and his own researches. Speaking as Mr Pattieson, the teacher who patronises Jedediah Cleisbotham’s inn, he goes into details of his method in the opening to Old Mortality:
‘On the part of the Presbyterians, I have consulted such moorland farmers from the western districts, as ... have been able ... to retain possession of the grazings on which their grandsires fed their flocks and herds. ... I have ... called in the supplementary aid of those modest itinerants ... we have learned to call packmen or pedlars. ... I have been enabled to qualify the narratives of Old Mortality and his Cameronian friends, by the reports of more than one descendant of ancient and honorable families, who ... look proudly back on the period when their ancestors fought and fell in behalf of the exiled house of Stewart. ... more than one non-juring bishop ...have deigned ... to furnish me with information corrective of the facts which I learned from others.’
A comparison here could be with Daniel Defore’s Journal of the Plague Year (1722). Unlike Moll Flanders (1722) and Roxana (1724), which were ostensibly autobiographical, but accepted as fiction, or Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Colonel Jack (1722), which were fictionalized lives of real people, The Journal of the Plague Year was published as non-fiction, and accepted as such by its readers. Purporting to be written in 1665, but actually written almost sixty years later (unless it genuinely was a re-working of the journals of Defoe’s uncle, Henry Foe, under whose initials it was originally published) it has to be taken as a fictional work. In 1665, Defoe was five years old. Like Scott, he has used memoirs, memories and contemporary documents to create his own version of a historical event. Waverley began as Tis Fifty Years Since, meaning that people present at the events mentioned would be at least in their seventies (as were Defoe’s plague memory informants), and few would be alive by 1814, the time of publication; the Covenanting events of Old Mortality begin in 1679, so stories would have come from five generations earlier. This does not mean the incidents passed down in this way are completely false; the plague, the Covenanter rebellion, the ’45, were stirring events which impressed themselves on those who were involved. Studies have shown how well memories can pass down an illiterate people, and the memories may well have been supported by written evidence. Scott was always interested in history, and would have been listening to stories as a child, when Culloden was only thirty years distant.
I mention the distance in time, however, to remind myself that Scott was writing novels, however much they were rooted in his historical researches. For our own generation, the sources for Waverley are equivalent to re-working handed-down stories of World War II, with the handicap of not being able to consult contemporary film and news-reels (newspapers would have been available to Scott), or, for Old Mortality and A Legend of Montrose, stories of the Boer War. Of the two, Waverley has a more particular interest to the historically-minded, given that Scott spoke directly to first-hand witnesses. Redgauntlet takes place some years later, and The Antiquary is more recent again; Scott refers to his own memories in the notes to the alarm of Napoleonic invasion.
Most of Scott’s novels end with detailed notes on the ‘real’ source of an incident : for example, in Waverley, Flora is hit with a musket ball during the triumphant entry of the Prince into Edinburgh. She exclaims, ‘...thank God with me that the accident happened to Flora MacIvor; for had it befallen a Whig, they would have pretended that the shot was fired on purpose.’ (p 358) This actually happened to Miss Nairne, ‘a lady known to [the author]’, who is quoted as having said the less lofty: ‘Thank God that the accident happened to me, whose principles are known. Had it befallen a Whig they would have said it was done on purpose.’ (Note Y, p508). Similarly, there are footnotes on Queen Mary’s escape from Loch Leven and final confrontation with Moray in The Abbot. In later novels, the quotations which head the chapters are not necessarily genuine (The Antiquary, for example, or the ‘Old Play’ headings of The Monastry, which seem far too apposite to be probable), and several novels, for example Rob Roy, include deliberate anachronisms, pointed out by the author in a footnote.
A Legend of Montrose is a good example of how far Scott is willing to play with history. It takes as its base the incident of Drummond’s head, and the slaying of Kilpont by Ardvoirlich. However, having given us to believe in Kilpont’s death, as in the original, Scott keeps him alive, and unlike the original Ardvorlich, who became a Covenanting soldier, Allan disappears, presumably murdered by the ‘children of the mist’. The two separate tales are thus woven into one, linked by Campbell’s missing child, Annot Lyle, giving a more orderly whole. Similarly, in Castle Dangerous, Sir John de Walton is kept alive in spite of the historical source (quoted at the start of the novel), to marry the Lady Augusta. In the English novels, far from being a new bride, the doomed Amy Robsart (Kenilworth) had been married to Leicester for ten years at the time of her death.
Writing in a time which was recent and known to his readers was as interesting to them as, for example, Monica Ali’s account (in Brick Lane) of the bombing of the World Trade Centre is to us. Scott’s account would be compared to the reader’s own memories or family tales. The setting was attractively remote, yet with a personal connection. It’s also evident in Waverley how Scott wishes to focus on the hero’s journey, rather than write a historical account of the ’45 campaign: for example he says,
‘It is not necessary to record in these pages the triumphant entrance of the Chevalier into Edinburgh after the decisive affair at Preston.’ (p358)
He then recounts the musket-ball incident. Similarly, only the results of the campaign after Waverley has left it are given; Scott expected his readers to know the general shape of the rebellion. In Old Mortality, The Black Dwarf (set just after the Union of the Crowns in 1707), Rob Roy (1715) and The Heart of Midlothian (which opens with the Porteous Riots) he does not expect this knowledge, and so goes more into the political situation and events of the time, but the '15, for example is covered in Rob Roy only by a recital of events affecting the hero and his family, and he assumes reasonable reader knowledge of the story of Mary, Queen of Scots in The Abbot: the death of Darnley, her first husband, the subsequent marriage with Bothwell, and her defeat at Carberry by her half-brother, Moray.
Scott’s realism compared to the Gothic novel, in plot and character; The Bride of Lammermoor and St Ronan’s Well:
Scott’s novels are as full of incident as any Gothic novel, and reality is at times stretched for a good story: the prolonged villainy of Donald Bean Lean which leads to the hero joining the rebels in Waverley, the kidnapping and return of Harry Bertram in Guy Mannering, the quite ridiculous plot against Eveline Neville in The Antiquary, the way nobody recognises Henry Morton when he returns at the end of Old Mortality (or, given the regularity with which this is used as a plot device, was it easier to forget a face in those pre-photograph days?), the excessive malevolence of Dwining, Ramorny’s apothecary in The Fair Maid of Perth, and Rashleigh Osbaldistone in Rob Roy, the mysterious behaviour of ‘Green Mantle’ in Redgauntle and, particularly, the interaction between humans and supernatural beings in Scott’s least well-received Scottish novel, The Monastry. With the exception of this last, and of Scott’s first Scottish tragedy, The Bride of Lammermoor, while there is often a supernatural frisson evoked by a night-time scene – for example when Jeanie Deans meets with her sister’s lover at night (The Heart of Midlothian, Chapter XV) – the main use of the supernatural is through his gipsy women, Meg Merrilees (Guy Mannering) and, particularly, the Shetland wise woman Norna (The Pirate), who seems able to command the elements. Here, however, the level-headed hero, Mordaunt Mertoun, argues that she reads the weather signs, reacts to them, and then persuades herself she has caused the storm, and by the end of the novel she has become a normal woman. Margaret Graeme (The Abbot) is also of this type. Fergus and Flora MacIvor (Waverley) and some other Highlanders, have an element of ‘the sight’ about them, particularly Allan (A Legend of Montrose), who forsees the death of Montrose, and his own attack on Monteith (p 60, p 67), but in general the characters who seem to have extra knowledge, like Edie the King’s Bedesman (The Antiquary), Elshie (The Black Dwarf), Rob Roy McGregor, Margaret Graeme’s hits regarding her grandson Roland’s future, or Meg Merrilees’ knowledge of Harry Bertram, have aquired it through natural means.
Generally, Scott’s narratives are plausible, with a bit of helpful leeway from being set in the past. He himself said (in a comment on Jane Austen) that he could do ‘the big bow-wow strain’ – the rollicking adventures, the chases by foot, on horse, in carriage, the battles, a breathless movement which keeps you reading. His large canvas goes from cottager to prince, and in novels like Waverley, Old Mortality, Rob Roy, The Fair Maid of Perth, The Abbot, A Legend of Montrose and Redgauntlet, the sovereignty of Scotland is at stake. His characters play for national issues, in contrast to the Gothic novel’s individual issues, and the tension is not lessened for the reader by knowledge of the broad outcome of Mary’s escape to England, Montrose’s campaign, Culloden or the declining fortunes of the Bonny Prince, because there are still the fates of the individual characters to be worked out against them – indeed, our anxiety is heightened by our awareness of the real tragic end.
Scott’s characters too are very far from the monochrome characters of the classic Gothic tales. Some, to be sure, are reminiscent of the Gothic: the malignant apothecary, Dwining (The Fair Maid of Perth), and the equally malicious Rashleigh Osbaldistone, who is the more determined to do Frank down because he has done him a favour; the obsessed Redgauntlet, the melancholy Earl of Glenallan in his mouldering grandeur (The Antiquary), the smuggler Dick Hatterick (Guy Mannering), the dwarf Elshie (The Black Dwarf), Allan McAulay’s visions, even the determined Covenanter John Balfour of Burley (Old Mortality) and the pantomime pedant Tullibardine (Waverley). Some of his women are rather sketchily drawn – for example, Mary Avenel of The Monastry, whose love of Halbert is only shared with the reader almost at the end of the book, or Annot Lyle of A Legend of Montrose. Most, however, are exaggerated versions of people we can believe in. Jeanie Deans’ sister Effie (The Heart of Midlothian), for example, grew up a lively young girl in a strict household, and fell for a glamorous aristocrat who had taken to robbery. When she was sentenced for child murder, her sister walked to London to plead to the Queen, but on her release, back with her simple family, Effie quickly became bored of the rural life, and ran back to her lover – and what could be more natural, in the character Scott has drawn? Jeanie herself is equally a product of her environment, the sturdy, barely literate Cameronian’s daughter who does her best to do the right thing as her simple creed understands it. Dominie Sampson (Guy Mannering), with his cry of ‘Prodigious!’, is a simpler version of Baron Tullibardine; we believe his erudition, but aren’t bored by constant Latin, and his recognition of Harry Bertram is one of the moving moments of the book. Dugald Dalgetty, the dogged, pragmatic soldier of fortune, is the anti-hero who holds A Legend of Montrose together.
Scott’s first Scottish tragedy, The Bride of Lammermoor, is the novel nearest to the Gothic mode. We have a dark, vengeful hero whose father has been ruined by a lawyer’s cleverness, and a simple, gentle heroine whose sanity has been undermined by her malevolent mother in league with an actual witch, Dame Gourlay, who 'was tried, condemned and burned on the top of Berwick Law' [p 300]. There is the ruined castle of Wolf’s Crag, where Lucy and her father spend the night. There are the dire warnings of Old Alice that their love is fated [p 190-5], the witch’s prophecy at Lucy’s wedding that ‘her winding-sheet is up as high as her throat already’ [p 319] and the family curse [p178] which is fulfilled with Ravenswood’s eventual disappearance. There is the spectre of Old Alice at the well [p236], and the portrait that appears at the wedding [p 322]. However, even among this high drama, Scott insists on the reality of the tale, among the Dalrymples of Stair in the 1660s, with an introduction detailing his sources at length, and even in this esentially domestic drama there is still a political dimension, with Ruthven’s relative, the Marquis of A______ in the ascendent in the new government, Sir William Ashton descending, and Craigengelt and Bucklaw Jacobites, and the place-jostling is mirrored in the ‘low’ characters, the Cooper family [p142ff] and the villagers. In a strict tragic sense, Ravenswood’s flaw is his pride: he feels he has set aside his own honour for Lucy, and lets that rule him in the betrothal confrontation with her mother [Chapter XXXIII] However there is reality in their characters, as they come to know each other: 'The lovers soon discovered that they differed on other and no less important topics ... Religion ... Lucy felt a secret awe of Ravenswood. His soul was of a higher, prouder character ... Ravenswood saw in Lucy a soft and flexible character, which ... seemed too susceptible of being moulded to any form by those with whom she lived. [p206-7] The gloom of The Bride of Lammermoor is also relieved by one of Scott’s finest comic characters, Caleb Balderstone, Ravenswood’s only remaining retainer, whose desperation to uphold the family honour in worldly things is a comic mirror of Ravenswood’s dark broodings.
St Ronan’s Well, Scott’s other Scottish tragedy, written five years later, also has echoes of the Gothic. It’s his most modern novel, set in the early nineteenth century, and the surprising thing about it, given that most of the novel is taken up by the various comic characters who have gathered around the watering spa, is that it is a tragedy at all, when it would have been easy to have let Clara live, recover, and be happy. As in The Bride of Lammermoor, we have the half-mad heroine; there is a surprising amount of duelling for so late-set a work; we have half-brothers who resemble each other so much that one takes the other’s place at his wedding (not even twilight and the bride’s sensibilities will excuse her not noticing); we have a dastardly plot against the rightful heir; we have the strange will enjoining an unusual marriage. The ‘twinning’ of low and high is evident here too: Touchwood is a distortion of Etherington’s plotting against Clara, and the novel concludes that ‘He often talks of his disappointments, but can never be made to understand, or at least to admit, that they were in some measure precipitated by his own talent for intrigue and manoeuvring.’ Etherington himself, in his letters to his friend, is a direct descendent of Richardson’s Lovelace (Clarissa).
The romantic nature of Scott’s novels: scenery and emotions:
However, to my question: was it the romantic elements of his tales that made Scott the runaway best-seller of his day, or the essential stability underlying his nostalgia for the days of high romance? Let me start by asking what Scott and his readers understood by 'romantic'. For a start, the Lakes poets wrote about the beauty of unspoiled nature, and Scott mentions this in The Monastry, when he is describing Glendearg, that in the days of which he is writing, the people had not learned to consider this scenery romantic. His descriptions of the Scottish scenery emphasise this, making the countryside almost take part in the events: ‘... the road now suddenly emerged from the forset ground, and, winding close by the margin of the loch, afforded us a full view of its spacious mirror, which now, the breeze having totally subsided, reflected in its still magnificence the high dark heathy mountains, huge grey rocks, and shaggy banks, by which it is encircled. The hills now sunk on its margin so closely, and were so broken and precipitous, as to afford no passage except just upon the narrow line of the track which we occupied, and which was overhung
Was it a recognition that Waverley speaks ultimately for peace and stability, for social and political cohesion and harmony, that made the Waverley novels so popular, or was it after all the other Scott, the Scott who speaks in the lofty tones of the heroic Evan Dhu rebuking the prudential Saxons, the romantically subversive and revolutionary Scott, who in the end called forth an irresistible response?
What was it that made Scott the most important writer of his day, the appeal to the romantic in his readers, or the essential stability of his message?
Scott’s invention of the ‘historical novel’:
I would like to start by looking at Scott’s invention of the ‘historical novel’ which is now such an important part of every bookshop’s income. The main form of novel set in history at the time was the Gothic novel, generally agreed to have started with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), subtitled ‘A Gothic Story’ in its second edition. It was followed by novels by Clara Reeve in the 1770s, which tried to mix the sensational elements with 18th century realism. In the 1790s, popular novels included The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), by Mrs Radcliffe. She combined the supernatural element with explanations. Lewis’s The Monk (1796) was moving towards pastiche, and Jane Austen satirised the genre in her early novel, Northanger Abbey (1798-9, published 1817). Whether explained away or not, the key elements of Gothic novels were suspense mingled with the supernatural. The characters were black-and-white villains or innocent heroines, the plots involved medieval castles, murders, dark stairs and gloomy housekeepers, and were often set abroad, with Italy being a favourite.
Scott also set his novels ‘abroad’, as Scotland was then unknown to many English readers. The Lakes had become a romantic success, following the poetry of Wordsworth and his friends (Lyrical Ballads was published in 1798), but the Scottish Highlands were still untravelled country, and his readers’ main aquaintance with them would be through the works of Pennant (A Journey in Scotland, 1769) and Boswell (The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnston (1785). Of particular interest in the context of Waverley is Boswell's interviews with those involved in helping the escape of the 'grandson of King James II' after Culloden. The Pirate’s setting of Orkney and Shetland is even further removed, being foreign territory to most Scots of Scott’s day – Scott visited it with the ‘Lighthouse’ Stevenson brothers.
Instead of returning to the medieval past often used in Gothic romances (despite the Gothic sounding titles, The Monastry and The Abbot are set in the early and mid sixteenth century; of the sixteen Scottish novels, only The Fair Maid of Perth and Castle Dangerous could be called medieval), Scott chose, in his Scottish novels, to write about recent history, using the stories he had heard: his father’s tales of the Covenanters, his grandfather’s stories of the ’45, and his own researches. Speaking as Mr Pattieson, the teacher who patronises Jedediah Cleisbotham’s inn, he goes into details of his method in the opening to Old Mortality:
‘On the part of the Presbyterians, I have consulted such moorland farmers from the western districts, as ... have been able ... to retain possession of the grazings on which their grandsires fed their flocks and herds. ... I have ... called in the supplementary aid of those modest itinerants ... we have learned to call packmen or pedlars. ... I have been enabled to qualify the narratives of Old Mortality and his Cameronian friends, by the reports of more than one descendant of ancient and honorable families, who ... look proudly back on the period when their ancestors fought and fell in behalf of the exiled house of Stewart. ... more than one non-juring bishop ...have deigned ... to furnish me with information corrective of the facts which I learned from others.’
A comparison here could be with Daniel Defore’s Journal of the Plague Year (1722). Unlike Moll Flanders (1722) and Roxana (1724), which were ostensibly autobiographical, but accepted as fiction, or Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Colonel Jack (1722), which were fictionalized lives of real people, The Journal of the Plague Year was published as non-fiction, and accepted as such by its readers. Purporting to be written in 1665, but actually written almost sixty years later (unless it genuinely was a re-working of the journals of Defoe’s uncle, Henry Foe, under whose initials it was originally published) it has to be taken as a fictional work. In 1665, Defoe was five years old. Like Scott, he has used memoirs, memories and contemporary documents to create his own version of a historical event. Waverley began as Tis Fifty Years Since, meaning that people present at the events mentioned would be at least in their seventies (as were Defoe’s plague memory informants), and few would be alive by 1814, the time of publication; the Covenanting events of Old Mortality begin in 1679, so stories would have come from five generations earlier. This does not mean the incidents passed down in this way are completely false; the plague, the Covenanter rebellion, the ’45, were stirring events which impressed themselves on those who were involved. Studies have shown how well memories can pass down an illiterate people, and the memories may well have been supported by written evidence. Scott was always interested in history, and would have been listening to stories as a child, when Culloden was only thirty years distant.
I mention the distance in time, however, to remind myself that Scott was writing novels, however much they were rooted in his historical researches. For our own generation, the sources for Waverley are equivalent to re-working handed-down stories of World War II, with the handicap of not being able to consult contemporary film and news-reels (newspapers would have been available to Scott), or, for Old Mortality and A Legend of Montrose, stories of the Boer War. Of the two, Waverley has a more particular interest to the historically-minded, given that Scott spoke directly to first-hand witnesses. Redgauntlet takes place some years later, and The Antiquary is more recent again; Scott refers to his own memories in the notes to the alarm of Napoleonic invasion.
Most of Scott’s novels end with detailed notes on the ‘real’ source of an incident : for example, in Waverley, Flora is hit with a musket ball during the triumphant entry of the Prince into Edinburgh. She exclaims, ‘...thank God with me that the accident happened to Flora MacIvor; for had it befallen a Whig, they would have pretended that the shot was fired on purpose.’ (p 358) This actually happened to Miss Nairne, ‘a lady known to [the author]’, who is quoted as having said the less lofty: ‘Thank God that the accident happened to me, whose principles are known. Had it befallen a Whig they would have said it was done on purpose.’ (Note Y, p508). Similarly, there are footnotes on Queen Mary’s escape from Loch Leven and final confrontation with Moray in The Abbot. In later novels, the quotations which head the chapters are not necessarily genuine (The Antiquary, for example, or the ‘Old Play’ headings of The Monastry, which seem far too apposite to be probable), and several novels, for example Rob Roy, include deliberate anachronisms, pointed out by the author in a footnote.
A Legend of Montrose is a good example of how far Scott is willing to play with history. It takes as its base the incident of Drummond’s head, and the slaying of Kilpont by Ardvoirlich. However, having given us to believe in Kilpont’s death, as in the original, Scott keeps him alive, and unlike the original Ardvorlich, who became a Covenanting soldier, Allan disappears, presumably murdered by the ‘children of the mist’. The two separate tales are thus woven into one, linked by Campbell’s missing child, Annot Lyle, giving a more orderly whole. Similarly, in Castle Dangerous, Sir John de Walton is kept alive in spite of the historical source (quoted at the start of the novel), to marry the Lady Augusta. In the English novels, far from being a new bride, the doomed Amy Robsart (Kenilworth) had been married to Leicester for ten years at the time of her death.
Writing in a time which was recent and known to his readers was as interesting to them as, for example, Monica Ali’s account (in Brick Lane) of the bombing of the World Trade Centre is to us. Scott’s account would be compared to the reader’s own memories or family tales. The setting was attractively remote, yet with a personal connection. It’s also evident in Waverley how Scott wishes to focus on the hero’s journey, rather than write a historical account of the ’45 campaign: for example he says,
‘It is not necessary to record in these pages the triumphant entrance of the Chevalier into Edinburgh after the decisive affair at Preston.’ (p358)
He then recounts the musket-ball incident. Similarly, only the results of the campaign after Waverley has left it are given; Scott expected his readers to know the general shape of the rebellion. In Old Mortality, The Black Dwarf (set just after the Union of the Crowns in 1707), Rob Roy (1715) and The Heart of Midlothian (which opens with the Porteous Riots) he does not expect this knowledge, and so goes more into the political situation and events of the time, but the '15, for example is covered in Rob Roy only by a recital of events affecting the hero and his family, and he assumes reasonable reader knowledge of the story of Mary, Queen of Scots in The Abbot: the death of Darnley, her first husband, the subsequent marriage with Bothwell, and her defeat at Carberry by her half-brother, Moray.
Scott’s realism compared to the Gothic novel, in plot and character; The Bride of Lammermoor and St Ronan’s Well:
Scott’s novels are as full of incident as any Gothic novel, and reality is at times stretched for a good story: the prolonged villainy of Donald Bean Lean which leads to the hero joining the rebels in Waverley, the kidnapping and return of Harry Bertram in Guy Mannering, the quite ridiculous plot against Eveline Neville in The Antiquary, the way nobody recognises Henry Morton when he returns at the end of Old Mortality (or, given the regularity with which this is used as a plot device, was it easier to forget a face in those pre-photograph days?), the excessive malevolence of Dwining, Ramorny’s apothecary in The Fair Maid of Perth, and Rashleigh Osbaldistone in Rob Roy, the mysterious behaviour of ‘Green Mantle’ in Redgauntle and, particularly, the interaction between humans and supernatural beings in Scott’s least well-received Scottish novel, The Monastry. With the exception of this last, and of Scott’s first Scottish tragedy, The Bride of Lammermoor, while there is often a supernatural frisson evoked by a night-time scene – for example when Jeanie Deans meets with her sister’s lover at night (The Heart of Midlothian, Chapter XV) – the main use of the supernatural is through his gipsy women, Meg Merrilees (Guy Mannering) and, particularly, the Shetland wise woman Norna (The Pirate), who seems able to command the elements. Here, however, the level-headed hero, Mordaunt Mertoun, argues that she reads the weather signs, reacts to them, and then persuades herself she has caused the storm, and by the end of the novel she has become a normal woman. Margaret Graeme (The Abbot) is also of this type. Fergus and Flora MacIvor (Waverley) and some other Highlanders, have an element of ‘the sight’ about them, particularly Allan (A Legend of Montrose), who forsees the death of Montrose, and his own attack on Monteith (p 60, p 67), but in general the characters who seem to have extra knowledge, like Edie the King’s Bedesman (The Antiquary), Elshie (The Black Dwarf), Rob Roy McGregor, Margaret Graeme’s hits regarding her grandson Roland’s future, or Meg Merrilees’ knowledge of Harry Bertram, have aquired it through natural means.
Generally, Scott’s narratives are plausible, with a bit of helpful leeway from being set in the past. He himself said (in a comment on Jane Austen) that he could do ‘the big bow-wow strain’ – the rollicking adventures, the chases by foot, on horse, in carriage, the battles, a breathless movement which keeps you reading. His large canvas goes from cottager to prince, and in novels like Waverley, Old Mortality, Rob Roy, The Fair Maid of Perth, The Abbot, A Legend of Montrose and Redgauntlet, the sovereignty of Scotland is at stake. His characters play for national issues, in contrast to the Gothic novel’s individual issues, and the tension is not lessened for the reader by knowledge of the broad outcome of Mary’s escape to England, Montrose’s campaign, Culloden or the declining fortunes of the Bonny Prince, because there are still the fates of the individual characters to be worked out against them – indeed, our anxiety is heightened by our awareness of the real tragic end.
Scott’s characters too are very far from the monochrome characters of the classic Gothic tales. Some, to be sure, are reminiscent of the Gothic: the malignant apothecary, Dwining (The Fair Maid of Perth), and the equally malicious Rashleigh Osbaldistone, who is the more determined to do Frank down because he has done him a favour; the obsessed Redgauntlet, the melancholy Earl of Glenallan in his mouldering grandeur (The Antiquary), the smuggler Dick Hatterick (Guy Mannering), the dwarf Elshie (The Black Dwarf), Allan McAulay’s visions, even the determined Covenanter John Balfour of Burley (Old Mortality) and the pantomime pedant Tullibardine (Waverley). Some of his women are rather sketchily drawn – for example, Mary Avenel of The Monastry, whose love of Halbert is only shared with the reader almost at the end of the book, or Annot Lyle of A Legend of Montrose. Most, however, are exaggerated versions of people we can believe in. Jeanie Deans’ sister Effie (The Heart of Midlothian), for example, grew up a lively young girl in a strict household, and fell for a glamorous aristocrat who had taken to robbery. When she was sentenced for child murder, her sister walked to London to plead to the Queen, but on her release, back with her simple family, Effie quickly became bored of the rural life, and ran back to her lover – and what could be more natural, in the character Scott has drawn? Jeanie herself is equally a product of her environment, the sturdy, barely literate Cameronian’s daughter who does her best to do the right thing as her simple creed understands it. Dominie Sampson (Guy Mannering), with his cry of ‘Prodigious!’, is a simpler version of Baron Tullibardine; we believe his erudition, but aren’t bored by constant Latin, and his recognition of Harry Bertram is one of the moving moments of the book. Dugald Dalgetty, the dogged, pragmatic soldier of fortune, is the anti-hero who holds A Legend of Montrose together.
Scott’s first Scottish tragedy, The Bride of Lammermoor, is the novel nearest to the Gothic mode. We have a dark, vengeful hero whose father has been ruined by a lawyer’s cleverness, and a simple, gentle heroine whose sanity has been undermined by her malevolent mother in league with an actual witch, Dame Gourlay, who 'was tried, condemned and burned on the top of Berwick Law' [p 300]. There is the ruined castle of Wolf’s Crag, where Lucy and her father spend the night. There are the dire warnings of Old Alice that their love is fated [p 190-5], the witch’s prophecy at Lucy’s wedding that ‘her winding-sheet is up as high as her throat already’ [p 319] and the family curse [p178] which is fulfilled with Ravenswood’s eventual disappearance. There is the spectre of Old Alice at the well [p236], and the portrait that appears at the wedding [p 322]. However, even among this high drama, Scott insists on the reality of the tale, among the Dalrymples of Stair in the 1660s, with an introduction detailing his sources at length, and even in this esentially domestic drama there is still a political dimension, with Ruthven’s relative, the Marquis of A______ in the ascendent in the new government, Sir William Ashton descending, and Craigengelt and Bucklaw Jacobites, and the place-jostling is mirrored in the ‘low’ characters, the Cooper family [p142ff] and the villagers. In a strict tragic sense, Ravenswood’s flaw is his pride: he feels he has set aside his own honour for Lucy, and lets that rule him in the betrothal confrontation with her mother [Chapter XXXIII] However there is reality in their characters, as they come to know each other: 'The lovers soon discovered that they differed on other and no less important topics ... Religion ... Lucy felt a secret awe of Ravenswood. His soul was of a higher, prouder character ... Ravenswood saw in Lucy a soft and flexible character, which ... seemed too susceptible of being moulded to any form by those with whom she lived. [p206-7] The gloom of The Bride of Lammermoor is also relieved by one of Scott’s finest comic characters, Caleb Balderstone, Ravenswood’s only remaining retainer, whose desperation to uphold the family honour in worldly things is a comic mirror of Ravenswood’s dark broodings.
St Ronan’s Well, Scott’s other Scottish tragedy, written five years later, also has echoes of the Gothic. It’s his most modern novel, set in the early nineteenth century, and the surprising thing about it, given that most of the novel is taken up by the various comic characters who have gathered around the watering spa, is that it is a tragedy at all, when it would have been easy to have let Clara live, recover, and be happy. As in The Bride of Lammermoor, we have the half-mad heroine; there is a surprising amount of duelling for so late-set a work; we have half-brothers who resemble each other so much that one takes the other’s place at his wedding (not even twilight and the bride’s sensibilities will excuse her not noticing); we have a dastardly plot against the rightful heir; we have the strange will enjoining an unusual marriage. The ‘twinning’ of low and high is evident here too: Touchwood is a distortion of Etherington’s plotting against Clara, and the novel concludes that ‘He often talks of his disappointments, but can never be made to understand, or at least to admit, that they were in some measure precipitated by his own talent for intrigue and manoeuvring.’ Etherington himself, in his letters to his friend, is a direct descendent of Richardson’s Lovelace (Clarissa).
The romantic nature of Scott’s novels: scenery and emotions:
However, to my question: was it the romantic elements of his tales that made Scott the runaway best-seller of his day, or the essential stability underlying his nostalgia for the days of high romance? Let me start by asking what Scott and his readers understood by 'romantic'. For a start, the Lakes poets wrote about the beauty of unspoiled nature, and Scott mentions this in The Monastry, when he is describing Glendearg, that in the days of which he is writing, the people had not learned to consider this scenery romantic. His descriptions of the Scottish scenery emphasise this, making the countryside almost take part in the events: ‘... the road now suddenly emerged from the forset ground, and, winding close by the margin of the loch, afforded us a full view of its spacious mirror, which now, the breeze having totally subsided, reflected in its still magnificence the high dark heathy mountains, huge grey rocks, and shaggy banks, by which it is encircled. The hills now sunk on its margin so closely, and were so broken and precipitous, as to afford no passage except just upon the narrow line of the track which we occupied, and which was overhung
December 27, 2019
I’m torn. I loved some parts of this book, and really strongly disliked others. I think it’s a nice book if you really (really, really) love your classics. It’s a lovely story, but it could have been a lot shorter, which would have possibly made it better. I’m probably stepping on a view toes here, but this is one classic you can definitely skip without feeling bad. Still decided to give 3 start, because Scott’s writing is amazing. It was so good, that it constantly kept me wondering what would happen next, unfortunately, I kept thinking that until the very last page, with nothing really “happening” in the end.
[edit]
I am rereading this soon! I want to give it another shot because I can’t stop thinking about it!
[edit]
I am rereading this soon! I want to give it another shot because I can’t stop thinking about it!
January 30, 2008
From the get-go I wasn't a fan of the titular character. I found him to be quite insufferable and Scott to be a bit of a git when it comes to narration. He loves to hear himself talk (or narrate, as it were) and it it painfully obvious that this is so. The novel seemed to drag on and on, with such a seemingly abrupt neat-and-tidy ending that it's almost out of left-field. It may be one of the earliest Buildung-roman and historical novels, but I don't fancy I shall ever be able to hear the word "Waverley" and not compulsively cringe.
January 29, 2016
Pompous and unreadable. Do yourself a favor and read something else. Even twilight. Just. Anything.
October 9, 2020
5 stars. This is a beautiful and masterly book. Like all of Scott’s works, I loved it for the characters. Fergus is my favourite <33 then it’s Evan, Edward, and Callum. <3 There was less action in this book than in Scott’s other books—it was quieter in feeling, even if the circumstances were active. There was one long drinking scene, and after that several mentions of drinking/whiskey and some swearing (“good God/heavens” & “devil/deil” and the like, with one or two “d—d,” if I remember correctly). There was also a kiss or two mentioned. It was very humorous in places, but altogether it felt more like a quiet read than most of Scott’s novels. The characters, though, are marvellous. ^_^ Fergus—I love Fergus. And that ending was perfect.
*Due to circumstances, I put this book down at the 53% mark and picked it up again over a week later, so I may have forgotten some content. This review is subject to revision.*
A Favourite Quote: “[I have thrown] the force of my narrative upon the characters and passions of the actors;—those passions common to men in all stages of society, and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it throbbed under the steel corslet of the fifteenth century, the brocaded coat of the eighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of the present day.... It is from the great book of Nature, the same through a thousand editions, whether of black-letter, or wire-wove and hot-pressed, that I have venturously essayed to read a chapter to the public.”
A Favourite Humorous Quote: “[N]o one knew better than Fergus that there must be some decent pretext for a mortal duel. For instance, you may challenge a man for treading on your corn in a crowd, or for pushing you up to the wall, or for taking your seat in the theatre; but the modern code of honour will not permit you to found a quarrel upon your right of compelling a man to continue addresses to a female relative which the fair lady has already refused. So that Fergus was compelled to stomach this supposed affront[.]”
*Due to circumstances, I put this book down at the 53% mark and picked it up again over a week later, so I may have forgotten some content. This review is subject to revision.*
A Favourite Quote: “[I have thrown] the force of my narrative upon the characters and passions of the actors;—those passions common to men in all stages of society, and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it throbbed under the steel corslet of the fifteenth century, the brocaded coat of the eighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of the present day.... It is from the great book of Nature, the same through a thousand editions, whether of black-letter, or wire-wove and hot-pressed, that I have venturously essayed to read a chapter to the public.”
A Favourite Humorous Quote: “[N]o one knew better than Fergus that there must be some decent pretext for a mortal duel. For instance, you may challenge a man for treading on your corn in a crowd, or for pushing you up to the wall, or for taking your seat in the theatre; but the modern code of honour will not permit you to found a quarrel upon your right of compelling a man to continue addresses to a female relative which the fair lady has already refused. So that Fergus was compelled to stomach this supposed affront[.]”
May 7, 2021
This is the first in the Waverley series by Sir Walter Scott. This book was a bit of a review of history for me, but I really enjoyed being planted in Scotland before Culloden. It starts just before the events of 1745, and after it, completely skipping the actual events of the Battle of Culloden, and afterwards hearing it from the Scottish accounts. The book is told from the perspective of another Sassesnach (English). It was a rather action packed story of the characters that made up the Scottish highlands at that time, and it was fun to read. I did listen as I read along with the book, and that helped out quite a bit with the accents, and I didn't get bogged down with them and was able to keep going and grasp what was being said much better than reading it on my own.
The events and the life stories of the people were very similar to what occurs in the Outlander series by Gabaldon. My first journey to this time and place. I can't help suppose that she had read these prior to writing the Outlander books, there is quite a bit of similarity, if not then she is spot on with the atmosphere of the time. Also, Charlotte Mason is said to have read these every night before bed. I can see why. I can also see aspects of what her philosophy within these books and it makes this book sweeter to me. I am looking forward to continuing in the series.
The events and the life stories of the people were very similar to what occurs in the Outlander series by Gabaldon. My first journey to this time and place. I can't help suppose that she had read these prior to writing the Outlander books, there is quite a bit of similarity, if not then she is spot on with the atmosphere of the time. Also, Charlotte Mason is said to have read these every night before bed. I can see why. I can also see aspects of what her philosophy within these books and it makes this book sweeter to me. I am looking forward to continuing in the series.
September 29, 2015
Charlie is my darling...
Young Edward Waverley has been brought up mainly by his uncle, Sir Everard Waverley, an English Tory and supporter of the Jacobite cause in the failed 1715 rebellion. When Edward reaches manhood, his absent father, a Whig and supporter of the Hanoverian government, arranges a commission for him in the Army. While Sir Everard is not keen on Edward having to swear allegiance to King George II (since in Sir Everard's eyes the true King is James III, in exile in France), he reluctantly agrees. Edward joins his regiment and is promptly posted to Dundee. After serving in a half-hearted way for a few months, Edward takes some leave and goes off to visit an old friend of his uncle, Baron Bradwardine, a staunch Jacobite. Through him, Edward becomes friends with Fergus Mac-Ivor, chieftain of the Highland Clan Mac-Ivor, and falls in love with his beautiful sister Flora. So when the 1745 rebellion begins, Edward finds himself caught between two loyalties – to the Hanoverians through his officership in the Army, and to the Jacobites through his friendships and the influence of his upbringing. The story tells the tale of the '45 Jacobite Rebellion and Edward's part in it.
The subtitle 'Tis Sixty Years Since refers to the ostensible time of writing, 1805, sixty years after the 1745 rebellion, although the book was not published until 1814. This book is often hailed as the first historical novel in the English language. It's also often claimed as one of the most important books in English literature, which doesn't half annoy us Scots, since it's written by a Scot about Scotland. I'm willing to compromise and say it's an important book in English-language literature. This isn't as insignificant a point as it may seem – Scott was one of the earliest Scots to write fiction in English, accepting that the Scottish language and culture was being subsumed into the dominant English culture of the time. However, in this, as in many of his books, his purpose was partly to explain Scottish culture and traditions to his English readership and do away with some of their misconceptions of the Scots, especially Highlanders, as a half-savage society. Along the way, he created some romanticised misconceptions of his own that gradually became part of the prevailing view of Scotland that lasted well into the 20th century. The cultural importance of Scott in his native country is memorialised not just by the massive monument to him in Princes Street in Edinburgh, the capital city, but also in the name of that city's main railway station – Waverley Station.
How I wish, therefore, that I could unreservedly wax lyrical about the wonders of the book! Sadly, taken purely in terms of reading pleasure, it's not the greatest piece of literature in the world, for all its cultural significance. A major reason for this is simply that tastes change over time, as does language. Although Scotland was one of the most literate societies in the world at the time Scott was writing, nevertheless authors tended to be addressing their work to others like themselves who had had a classical education (pretty much the only kind available), so this is liberally sprinkled with Latin and French and allusions to classical mythology which many modern readers (including this one) will find problematic at best and incomprehensible at worst. Even the English language is in a style that reads as pretty out-dated now and of course, there is some Scottish dialect too, not to mention the odd little bit of Gaelic. I read it in a version without footnotes, but would suggest it's one that probably needs them more than most. Not that any of this makes the plot hard to follow, but it does very much break the reading flow.
But these things probably wouldn't have bothered me had the book gripped me more. Overall, it's reasonably interesting, but very over-padded, especially the early part. For a long period there is no discernible plot, just lengthy character studies of the various people who will play a part when the story finally gets under way. Scott himself said that this was his way of allowing the characters to reveal themselves rather than simply being described, but to suit modern tastes most readers would probably want to get into the story a good deal sooner. And personally I could have happily lived without the lengthy and mediocre poetry that Scott stuffs in every so often – again a technique that would have been much more usual in his time than in ours, I think - which he uses as a way to illustrate Scottish culture and the oral storytelling tradition.
Then there are his assumptions about the pre-knowledge of his readers, probably correct at the time but not necessarily so now. He assumes that everyone knows the background to the Jacobite rebellion, the politics, the main players and the progress of the campaign. Well, yes, as it happens, I do, but I would think this could cause some problems for people who don't. What bothered me about it was that this assumption meant he left out all the bits that are exciting! We're not there when Bonnie Prince Charlie raises his standard at Glenfinnan, we don't get to fight at Culloden and we don't follow Charlie on his last romantic retreat over the sea to Skye! That anyone can make the '45 dull amazes me – it's one of the great romantic tragedies of all time!
Instead, Scott concentrates on showing the lifestyle and manners of both Highland and Lowland Scots of the period, and this he does very successfully, though with what I suspect is a decreasing degree of realism the further north he heads. There's some humour in it, and a lot – a lot! - of romance, as Edward swithers over the beautiful and fanatical Highland Flora and the sensible and adoring Lowland Rose. And his swithering between the Hanoverians and the Jacobites allows Scott to show both sides of the conflict, which he does without demonising either, in fact painting a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart. But all this swithering makes Edward a hero who inspired me with a desire to bash him over the head with a metaphorical brick while screaming “Make up your mind, for goodness sake, man!” Honestly, he makes Hamlet seem decisive!
So overall I'm afraid I was a little disappointed. I've read other Scott books in the past which I've enjoyed much more than this one, and am rather sorry it's the one that people are always recommended to read, purely because of its significance rather than its intrinsic enjoyability. I can't give more than three stars for the story and writing, with an extra one for its position of importance in both English-language and Scottish literature. I shall go into hiding now in case the last of the Jacobites come after me...
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Young Edward Waverley has been brought up mainly by his uncle, Sir Everard Waverley, an English Tory and supporter of the Jacobite cause in the failed 1715 rebellion. When Edward reaches manhood, his absent father, a Whig and supporter of the Hanoverian government, arranges a commission for him in the Army. While Sir Everard is not keen on Edward having to swear allegiance to King George II (since in Sir Everard's eyes the true King is James III, in exile in France), he reluctantly agrees. Edward joins his regiment and is promptly posted to Dundee. After serving in a half-hearted way for a few months, Edward takes some leave and goes off to visit an old friend of his uncle, Baron Bradwardine, a staunch Jacobite. Through him, Edward becomes friends with Fergus Mac-Ivor, chieftain of the Highland Clan Mac-Ivor, and falls in love with his beautiful sister Flora. So when the 1745 rebellion begins, Edward finds himself caught between two loyalties – to the Hanoverians through his officership in the Army, and to the Jacobites through his friendships and the influence of his upbringing. The story tells the tale of the '45 Jacobite Rebellion and Edward's part in it.
The subtitle 'Tis Sixty Years Since refers to the ostensible time of writing, 1805, sixty years after the 1745 rebellion, although the book was not published until 1814. This book is often hailed as the first historical novel in the English language. It's also often claimed as one of the most important books in English literature, which doesn't half annoy us Scots, since it's written by a Scot about Scotland. I'm willing to compromise and say it's an important book in English-language literature. This isn't as insignificant a point as it may seem – Scott was one of the earliest Scots to write fiction in English, accepting that the Scottish language and culture was being subsumed into the dominant English culture of the time. However, in this, as in many of his books, his purpose was partly to explain Scottish culture and traditions to his English readership and do away with some of their misconceptions of the Scots, especially Highlanders, as a half-savage society. Along the way, he created some romanticised misconceptions of his own that gradually became part of the prevailing view of Scotland that lasted well into the 20th century. The cultural importance of Scott in his native country is memorialised not just by the massive monument to him in Princes Street in Edinburgh, the capital city, but also in the name of that city's main railway station – Waverley Station.
How I wish, therefore, that I could unreservedly wax lyrical about the wonders of the book! Sadly, taken purely in terms of reading pleasure, it's not the greatest piece of literature in the world, for all its cultural significance. A major reason for this is simply that tastes change over time, as does language. Although Scotland was one of the most literate societies in the world at the time Scott was writing, nevertheless authors tended to be addressing their work to others like themselves who had had a classical education (pretty much the only kind available), so this is liberally sprinkled with Latin and French and allusions to classical mythology which many modern readers (including this one) will find problematic at best and incomprehensible at worst. Even the English language is in a style that reads as pretty out-dated now and of course, there is some Scottish dialect too, not to mention the odd little bit of Gaelic. I read it in a version without footnotes, but would suggest it's one that probably needs them more than most. Not that any of this makes the plot hard to follow, but it does very much break the reading flow.
But these things probably wouldn't have bothered me had the book gripped me more. Overall, it's reasonably interesting, but very over-padded, especially the early part. For a long period there is no discernible plot, just lengthy character studies of the various people who will play a part when the story finally gets under way. Scott himself said that this was his way of allowing the characters to reveal themselves rather than simply being described, but to suit modern tastes most readers would probably want to get into the story a good deal sooner. And personally I could have happily lived without the lengthy and mediocre poetry that Scott stuffs in every so often – again a technique that would have been much more usual in his time than in ours, I think - which he uses as a way to illustrate Scottish culture and the oral storytelling tradition.
Then there are his assumptions about the pre-knowledge of his readers, probably correct at the time but not necessarily so now. He assumes that everyone knows the background to the Jacobite rebellion, the politics, the main players and the progress of the campaign. Well, yes, as it happens, I do, but I would think this could cause some problems for people who don't. What bothered me about it was that this assumption meant he left out all the bits that are exciting! We're not there when Bonnie Prince Charlie raises his standard at Glenfinnan, we don't get to fight at Culloden and we don't follow Charlie on his last romantic retreat over the sea to Skye! That anyone can make the '45 dull amazes me – it's one of the great romantic tragedies of all time!
Instead, Scott concentrates on showing the lifestyle and manners of both Highland and Lowland Scots of the period, and this he does very successfully, though with what I suspect is a decreasing degree of realism the further north he heads. There's some humour in it, and a lot – a lot! - of romance, as Edward swithers over the beautiful and fanatical Highland Flora and the sensible and adoring Lowland Rose. And his swithering between the Hanoverians and the Jacobites allows Scott to show both sides of the conflict, which he does without demonising either, in fact painting a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart. But all this swithering makes Edward a hero who inspired me with a desire to bash him over the head with a metaphorical brick while screaming “Make up your mind, for goodness sake, man!” Honestly, he makes Hamlet seem decisive!
So overall I'm afraid I was a little disappointed. I've read other Scott books in the past which I've enjoyed much more than this one, and am rather sorry it's the one that people are always recommended to read, purely because of its significance rather than its intrinsic enjoyability. I can't give more than three stars for the story and writing, with an extra one for its position of importance in both English-language and Scottish literature. I shall go into hiding now in case the last of the Jacobites come after me...
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
August 31, 2023
Took a long old while to get going with some fairly impenetrable Scottish dialect for added difficulty, but a cracking second half to the novel with plenty of historical interest too. And at least Scott is self-aware, even admitting that he tells his story "with all the brevity that my natural style of composition, partaking of what scholars call the periphrastic and ambagitory, and the vulgar the circumbendibus, will permit me".
July 14, 2016
When I first tried reading 'Waverley' at the age of 10 or 12, I hated it. The Scottish English was incomprehensible, the politics too confusing, the plot too slow. Now that I am 24, I love it. I finished reading it today. I think it exquisite. It is rare to find a novel so well-written and well-plotted, with such incredibly vivid imagery. There are scenes and sentences that later novelists would plunder- Thackeray's description of the death of George Osborne owes much (consciously or unconsciously) to Scott's description of the death of the Laird of Balmawhapple. Much of the historical novels of Sienkiewicz are a debt to Walter Scott.
Waverely's wavering between England and the Highlands between the sweet Rose and the romantic Flora forms the structural axis of the book. Yet although Wavery is ostensibly the hero of the novel, he is not the force that drives the events that surround him. He is more of a pawn who is driven by circumstance than an active hero. It is only in reading this novel that I understood why Georg Lukacs admired Walter Scott's historical methods so much (my notes on Georg Lukacs's 'Historical novel are somewhere tucked away in my notes from my undergrad. Yet no-one thought to tell me to read Walter Scott first!)
My praise so far has been literary- but my reactions have been almost too emotional. I had to put the book down several times to stop myself from reacting too strongly- and I am still mourning the death of one of the characters. Scott's words have been like strokes of a painter- drawing incredibly vivid images in my head- not for a while have I had such a visceral reaction to a novel. If you love 19th century literature read it. If you love stories of Highland Scotland, read it. If you love both-you've probably already read it- so re-read it again and again. I am sure I will.
July 30, 2012
Often regarded as the English language's first historical novel; and that's the only reason to read it. If you're the sort of person who loves firsts for their own sake, if you get all nostalgic and teary over the original Apple computer or "the first instance of a post-modern epic poem by a Jewish Native American" then by all means, go right ahead. Personally, I like to give new concepts some time to get perfected. In other words, early bicycles = not for me. Early motion pictures...nah, I'll hold out for the invention of Technicolor and The Wizard of Oz. New software...I'll wait for it to come out of beta.
Waverley reads like a novel in beta. It's full of bugs, flaws, and problems--this in addition to the fact that it's all-but-incomprehensible to modern readers who don't have the same historical or geographical or cultural reference points as Waverley's first readers (most of whom, it seems loved the book. The only quibble Jane Austen had, apparently, was that it was too good.) To be absolutely honest, I didn't exactly finish. Unlike Waverley himself (The novel is named for its protagonist.), I really tried to roll with the punches and hang in there. But I gave up shortly after Waverley proposes to (the woman he feels to be) his ladylove, gets rejected, and then cries. Immediately. In her presence. Now I'm all for men not being afraid to show their emotions...but honestly (this is so weird to be saying about a book written in the early 1800's, the era of Napoleon and Horatio Hornblower): there is a time and a place.
Maybe I would have found more to like in the novel if I'd continued reading. Maybe some readers won't find Waverley as off-putting a character as I did. Maybe I'll still read Ivanhoe. Maybe.
Waverley reads like a novel in beta. It's full of bugs, flaws, and problems--this in addition to the fact that it's all-but-incomprehensible to modern readers who don't have the same historical or geographical or cultural reference points as Waverley's first readers (most of whom, it seems loved the book. The only quibble Jane Austen had, apparently, was that it was too good.) To be absolutely honest, I didn't exactly finish. Unlike Waverley himself (The novel is named for its protagonist.), I really tried to roll with the punches and hang in there. But I gave up shortly after Waverley proposes to (the woman he feels to be) his ladylove, gets rejected, and then cries. Immediately. In her presence. Now I'm all for men not being afraid to show their emotions...but honestly (this is so weird to be saying about a book written in the early 1800's, the era of Napoleon and Horatio Hornblower): there is a time and a place.
Maybe I would have found more to like in the novel if I'd continued reading. Maybe some readers won't find Waverley as off-putting a character as I did. Maybe I'll still read Ivanhoe. Maybe.
March 6, 2014
Re-visit is via David Tennant:
BBC Blurb: Waverley by Walter Scott Adapted by Mike Harris
A gripping tale of love, war and divided loyalties with Scotland in open rebellion against the Union with England.
It's 1745 and 21year old Edward Waverley, a newly commissioned red-coat officer, is posted to Scotland on the eve of Bonnie Prince Charlie's violent bid for power. His father is a rising minister in the ruling Hanoverian state, but the beloved Uncle who brought him up is an old Jacobite, loyal to the exiled Stewart dynasty.
Waverley falls in love with two very different Scottish girls - the cautious, loyalist, lowlander Rose Bradwardine, and the fiery highland rebel Flora. He goes AWOL for Flora just as her brother Fergus is rallying their clan to fight for Charlie.
When Waverley is accused by his Commanding Officer of a treasonable flirtation with the enemy, he joins the uprising in a fit of pique and helps defeat an English army at the battle of Prestonpans.
When he finds out that he has caused the arrest of Uncle, he returns to London to try to clear his name.
The music is composed and performed by Ross Hughes and Esben Tjalve.
Producer: Clive Brill A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.
Listen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/...
BBC Blurb: Waverley by Walter Scott Adapted by Mike Harris
A gripping tale of love, war and divided loyalties with Scotland in open rebellion against the Union with England.
It's 1745 and 21year old Edward Waverley, a newly commissioned red-coat officer, is posted to Scotland on the eve of Bonnie Prince Charlie's violent bid for power. His father is a rising minister in the ruling Hanoverian state, but the beloved Uncle who brought him up is an old Jacobite, loyal to the exiled Stewart dynasty.
Waverley falls in love with two very different Scottish girls - the cautious, loyalist, lowlander Rose Bradwardine, and the fiery highland rebel Flora. He goes AWOL for Flora just as her brother Fergus is rallying their clan to fight for Charlie.
When Waverley is accused by his Commanding Officer of a treasonable flirtation with the enemy, he joins the uprising in a fit of pique and helps defeat an English army at the battle of Prestonpans.
When he finds out that he has caused the arrest of Uncle, he returns to London to try to clear his name.
The music is composed and performed by Ross Hughes and Esben Tjalve.
Producer: Clive Brill A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.
Listen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 7, 2017
The first chapter was amusing and well written, where Scott humorously explains why he named the book as he did. However once he begins to tell the story, yee gads, everything becomes bogged down: "But the wealthy country gentlemen of England, a rank which retained, with much of ancient manners and primitive integrity, a great proportion of obstinate and unyielding prejudice, stood aloof in haughty and sullen opposition, and cast many a look of mingled regret and hope to Bois le Duc, Avignon, and Italy."
So dry, so dull, so overblown. Not my cup of tea.
So dry, so dull, so overblown. Not my cup of tea.
April 5, 2012
Just arrived from Israel through BM.
The plot of this book tells the story of Edward Waverley and how he became involved in the famous Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.
This book is considered the first true historical novel which inspired many authors, such as Dickens, Trackeray, Stevenson, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Balzac, Gogol and Tolstoy.
A classical masterpiece written by this Scottish author.
The plot of this book tells the story of Edward Waverley and how he became involved in the famous Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.
This book is considered the first true historical novel which inspired many authors, such as Dickens, Trackeray, Stevenson, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Balzac, Gogol and Tolstoy.
A classical masterpiece written by this Scottish author.
December 10, 2019
Foi com esta obra que surgiu o romance histórico. Waverley é o D. Quixote inglês buscando ser um cavaleiro igual a das historias românticas. Novamente é revolução Jacobita o tema central da obra. Fergus e sua irmã Flora são dois patriotas que desejam ver o príncipe Charles Edward no poder. Waverley vê-se envolvida neste luta pela independência. Mas a sua mente apenas pensa nas lendas e no folclore escocês.
Walter Scott descreve com infinita beleza o ambiente campestre da Escócia e as suas clãs. Li pela primeira vez no original o que tornou a leitura ainda mais especial.
Walter Scott descreve com infinita beleza o ambiente campestre da Escócia e as suas clãs. Li pela primeira vez no original o que tornou a leitura ainda mais especial.
November 29, 2021
This was very nearly 4 stars. I’m so glad I’ve finally read a novel by Sir Walter Scott, after reading him cited by in so many classics I’ve read this year (including works by George Eliot, Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf). I was fascinated by the idea of such a greatly respected and well-known author, who has completely fallen out of favour with modern audiences.
And I easily found out why that is. This is not an easy read, not in the slightest. I can’t put my finger on what the problem is. The language is not archaic or particularly reliant on the Scots dialect (which is used very marginally considering the circumstances), but nevertheless it feels heavy. The plot almost gets lost a little bit, but it’s not like nothing is happening. In fact, I was really engaged with the events and intrigue, as I generally have an inclination towards Scots history and was eager to find out more + I really enjoy historical fiction (which this book is the first example of).
I also enjoyed the characters, especially Fergus and Flora. It’s easy to connect to their cause, even though I do think that the motivations of the conflicts are not flashed out very well. But I’m still a sucker for adventure and chivalry, so I would say 3.5 stars is the fairest score I can give it.
And I easily found out why that is. This is not an easy read, not in the slightest. I can’t put my finger on what the problem is. The language is not archaic or particularly reliant on the Scots dialect (which is used very marginally considering the circumstances), but nevertheless it feels heavy. The plot almost gets lost a little bit, but it’s not like nothing is happening. In fact, I was really engaged with the events and intrigue, as I generally have an inclination towards Scots history and was eager to find out more + I really enjoy historical fiction (which this book is the first example of).
I also enjoyed the characters, especially Fergus and Flora. It’s easy to connect to their cause, even though I do think that the motivations of the conflicts are not flashed out very well. But I’m still a sucker for adventure and chivalry, so I would say 3.5 stars is the fairest score I can give it.
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