Provost

Tales of the West

by John Galt

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Scotland, Literature, Literary Fiction

156 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1822

About the author

John Galt was a Scottish novelist, entrepreneur, and political and social commentator. He was the first novelist to deal with issues of the Industrial Revolution and he has been called the first political novelist in the English language.

In 1820 Galt began to write for Blackwoods Magazine which published Annals of the Parish and The Ayrshire Legatees in 1821, The Provost and Sir Andrew Wylie in 1822, and The Entail in 1823. His novel Ringan Gilhaize (1823) offers a very different perspective on Scotland's Covenanting period to Walter Scott's The Tale of Old Mortality (1816).

Galt was instrumental in establishing the Canada Company, which was granted a charter in 1826 and bought almost 2.5 million acres of land from the British Government with a view to selling it on in individual plots to settlers. He founded the cities of Guelph and Goderich in Ontario. His novels Lawrie Tod (1830) and Bogle Corbet (1831) are concerned with the settlement of North America.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Provost" is a novel written in 1822 by John Galt. He was a Scottish novelist and he has been called the first "political" writer. I don't know if that's true or not, I've seen it said that he was decades before the political novels of Trollope. That may be true, but I like Trollope much better. Galt had been a political lobbyist in London, lobbying in the House of Commons, and he was fascinated by the workings of politics and political power. The action takes place in a small Scottish town, small enough that everyone's lives are mixed together with everyone else's lives, but the town is still large enough for political action.

The book begins with an introduction by an unnamed person who says "During a recent visit to the West Country, among other old friends WE paid our respects to Mrs Pawkie"... It takes me a little while to figure out who "we" is. After reading a few more lines however I find that the "we" are publishers. While they sit and visit with the widow Mrs. Pawkie she produces "a book in the handwriting of her deceased husband, the Provost, filled with a variety of most curious matter; in her opinion, of far more consequence to the world than any book that we had ever been concerned in putting out." It goes on to say that out of politeness they begin to read this handwritten book and are surprised to find that it far surpasses what they expected to find. So now they can't wait to be the ones to bring this wonderful book to the knowledge of mankind. Shortly after this the "real" story begins.

The rest of the book is being told by Provost Pawkie himself. Mr. Pawkie tells us his entire career from the days of his apprenticeship, to owning his own shop, eventually he is the principle property owner in "Gudetown", (like a "caterpillar" he slowly eats up the town). His entire political career is also told to us, from his first days on town council, to the office of Dean of Guild, then Bailie, and finally Provost, the supreme office which he is elected to three times. James Pawkie's career is indeed impressive, especially to himself. Mr. Pawkie tells us that during his political career he "deported myself in that honour and dignity, so much to the satisfaction of my superiors in the state and commonwealth of the land, to say little of the great respect in which I was held by the townsfolk, and far less of the terror that I was to evil-doers". He tells us how through his friendly and obliging demeanour towards everyone in the town he becomes the most popular man in town. At one point he gives the blessing at a funeral that was so good he could see it was making an impression. Between this guy constantly telling us how wonderful he is and all the talk of politics and councils and elections and such, it's no wonder I didn't find it to be a particular enjoyable read.

However, the thing that was most annoying for me was what other people seemed to like about the book. That is the Scottish dialect. I've read in reviews how the dialect "livens up the novel" and also how it makes the characters more real. For me it made the reading of the book twice as long because I had to keep looking up words or phrases to see what in the world they had just said. Some examples are:

"she had been, as she told us herself, 'beeking in the lown, o' the conquest which the gudeman had, wi sic an ettling o' plains and industry"....huh?

"But oh! he was a slee tod"

"helped by our brawest cleeding"

"she had a tavert look"

You get the idea. I spent as much time figuring out what the narrator was telling me than actually reading the story.

It is a short book, about 150 pages, and it is the story of a small town and the story of the peoples lives in the town, especially Mr. Pawkie's life story. There were all the small town events described, whether to repair the school house, to have a town newspaper, or the installation of street lamps, but there was also bigger events, such as a duel, a riot, a murder and a hanging. I didn't hate the book but for me it was just OK. I probably won't read it again. Happy reading.

[Jeffrey Cass · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having re-read Galt's novel about the thrice-elected mayor of Gudetown (in the 19th-century the main elected village official was called a provost) for a paper I recently gave at a Romanticism conference, I have to recommend this extremely funny, occasionally dark, novel. Pawkie, the narrator of his own story, such that the book reads like a non-chronological memoir, is adept at making money off every situation; in fact, my principal arguments regarding Galt's work is that he promotes an enthusiastic, capitalist perspective, not merely the "Improvement" regime common in the period. The problem is that Galt was a lousy capitalist, who had to keep writing to earn a living. It makes reading The Provost a lot of fun, and Pawkie has a way of switching from a kind of hi-falutin' style to Scots dialect (BTW, there is a Scottish dictionary available online to assist though some of the meanings have changed since Galt's day). There is some darkness, though, particularly when one considers the Highland clearances that were taking place in the period (the sheep lease seems benign but isn't) and the pressgangs, which Pawkie regrets but doesn't really do anything to stop.

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story about the town in which I was born, until recently recognisable in Galt’s novel, now defaced by new developments.
A gentle and affectionate social satire, like “Cranford”, which should be better remembered.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very early (written in 1822) political satire. Reading it you realize that the more things change the more they remain the same. Political corruption has gone on forever and will likely never go away. It was amusing(but very sad)reading Mr. Pawkie's (the main character) constant bragging of all his good works for the town and realizing that most was for his own betterment. The story took place in Scotland and there was heavy use of old Scottish dialect. This made the story more authentic feeling but was time consuming to understand.

[Vik · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very appealing