Ivanhoe

Jousts, kidnappings, duels to the death, a mysterious Black Knight and the gallant outlaw Robin of Locksley all add zest to this timeless tale of medieval romance and adventure.

When Sir Walter Scott, a solicitor by trade, produced Ivanhoe in 1791, he invented the historical novel. This great romantic tale of peril and rescue, chivalry and pageantry created a genre

It's brilliantly written, the most tremendous story, a fantastic adventure, and it's also got this wonderful love story

[Ivanhoe] entranced people all over Europe, with Goethe declaring that Scott had invented 'a wholly new art'

The central place of Sir Walter Scott and all his works is so deeply ingrained in the Scottish consciousness that there is scarcely an article written about Scotland or Scottishness that does not mention his name

Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh on 15 August 1777. He was educated in Edinburgh and called to the bar in 1792, succeeding his father as Writer to the Signet, then Clerk of Session. He published anonymous translations of German Romantic poetry from 1797, in which year he also married. In 1805 he published his first major work, a romantic poem called The Lay of the Last Minstrel, became a partner in a printing business, and several other long poems followed, including Marmion (1808) and The Lady of the Lake (1810). These poems found acclaim and great popularity, but from 1814 and the publication of Waverley, Scott turned almost exclusively to novel-writing, albeit anonymously. A hugely prolific period of writing produced over twenty-five novels, including Rob Roy (1817), The Heart of Midlothian (1818), The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), Kenilworth (1821) and Redgauntlet (1824). Already sheriff-depute of Selkirkshire, Scott was created a baronet in 1820. The printing business in which Scott was a partner ran into financial difficulties in 1826, and Scott devoted his energies to work in order to repay the firm’s creditors, publishing many more novels, dramatic works, histories and a life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Sir Walter Scott died on 21 September 1832 at Abbotsford, the home he had built on the Scottish Borders.

**One of the BBC’s 100 Novels That Shaped Our World** 
 
Read this timeless tale of medieval romance and adventure. 
 
It is the dark days of King Richard the Lion Heart’'s reign, when the beloved king is fighting in far-off lands, leaving his corrupt brother John in charge of his kingdom. Tensions between Saxon and Norman lords erupt in bouts of bloodshed or foul play; good men are banished, forced to turn outlaw and serve the true king in secrecy and disguise. 
 
In this dangerous world, the brave Wilfred of Ivanhoe must grapple with the claims of family, crown, truth and justice if he is ever to win the hand of his true love, the beautiful Lady Rowena.

Waverley

Read the first historical novel - this tale of romance and adventure during the 1745 Jacobite rebellion will stir the blood and warm the heart.

Waverley is the first great historical novel and should be ranked alongside Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma or Tolstoy's War and Peace, both of which are bathed in the blaze of Scott's molten genius

No author - not even Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith or JK Rowling - has ever been as critically acclaimed and commercially successful as Scott

Scott was one of the most influential of all writers with a profound effect on all the literatures of Europe and North America. He invented the historical novel and greatly enlarged the scope of the novel as a literary form. Only Shakespeare can equal him as a creator of characters

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. – It is not fair. He has Fame and Profit enough as a Poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths.– I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it – but fear I must

With 22 novels, six poetical marathons and 11 more prose works under his belt, the most celebrated Scotsman of his day was the first author ever to be a best seller in all three genres. What other writer, dead for 170 years, still has fishing boats and a football team named in his honour?

Read the first historical novel - this tale of romance and adventure during the 1745 Jacobite rebellion will stir the blood and warm the heart. 
 
 King George is on the throne, but there are those in Scotland who swear loyalty to the Stuart heir, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and are prepared to stake his claim in conflict and bloodshed. Young Edward Waverley is caught in the middle: son of a Hanoverian yet nephew and heir to a Jacobite, a captain in the King's army yet drawn to the brave Highlanders and their romantic history. Edward must choose where his loyalties lie, even as his heart is torn between gentle Rose Brawardine, and the passionate, principled Flora Mac-Ivor. 
 
 ‘Waverley is the first great historical novel and should be ranked alongside Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma or Tolstoy's War and Peace’ Independent

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One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' 
 
The Penguin English Library Edition of Ivanhoe by Walter Scott 
 
'Fight on, brave knights! Man dies, but glory lives!' 
 
Banished from England for seeking to marry against his father's wishes, Ivanhoe joins Richard the Lion Heart on a crusade in the Holy Land. On his return, his passionate desire is to be reunited with the beautiful but forbidden lady Rowena, but he soon finds himself playing a more dangerous game as he is drawn into a bitter power struggle between the noble King Richard and his evil and scheming brother John. The first of Scott's novels to address a purely English subject, Ivanhoe is set in a highly romanticized medieval world of tournaments and sieges, chivalry and adventure where dispossessed Saxons are pitted against their Norman overlords, and where the historical and fictional seamlessly merge. 
 
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Born in Edinburgh in 1771, Walter Scott was educated there and called to the Scottish Bar in 1792. He was involved with the printing and publishing industries as a secret investor, but also held such prominent public offices as Sheriff of Selkirkshire and a principal clerk to the Court of Session in Edinburgh. His writing career started principally with poetry, including an anonymous translation of Burger's 'Lenore', but he refused the poet laureateship in order to concentrate on fiction. He is now widely credited with establishing the historical novel, with such famous fictional works as Ivanhoe and Waverley. He died in 1832.

Walter Scott (1771-1832) was born and educated in Edinburgh. His most famous novels include Waverley, Ivanhoe and Guy Mannering, but he first made his name as a poet. Scott was one of the best-selling novelists of the nineteenth century and is credited with establishing the historical novel. 
 
Claire Lamont is Professor of English Romantic Literature at University of Newcastle and series editor for Walter Scott in Penguin Classics. 
 
Peter Garside is a Professorial Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. 
 
Ian Duncan is Professor of English at Berkeley. His most recent book is Scott's Shadow: The Novel in Romantic Edinburgh.

The first romantic historical novel and international bestseller, Waverley (1814) tells the story of Edward Waverley, a naïve, sensitive young man who is posted to Scotland with his regiment, and becomes caught between the clans of the Jacobite Rising and the forces of the Hanoverian regime. He must decide whether he will follow the civilization he has always known, or be drawn into an older world of honour and loyalty - and must also choose between the quiet, constant Rose, and the passionate, principled Flora.

The Heart of Mid-Lothian

In his introduction Tony Inglis discusses Scott's rich use of language and dialect and the novel's historical background, themes and narrative mode.

Edited with an introduction and notes by Tony Inglis

Jeanie Deans, a dairymaid, decides she must walk to London to gain an audience with the Queen. Her sister is to be executed for infanticide and, while refusing to lie to help her case, Jeanie is desperate for a reprieve. Set in the 1730s in a Scotland uneasily united with England, The Heart of Mid-Lothian dramatizes different kinds of justice - that meted out by the Edinburgh mob in the lynching of Captain Porteous, and that encountered by a terrified young girl suspected of killing her baby. Based on an anonymous letter Scot received in 1817, this is the seventh and finest of Scott's 'Waverley' novels. It was an international bestseller and inspired succeeding novelists from Balzac to George Eliot.

Kenilworth

Part of the series of Waverley Novels published by Penguin based on the acclaimed scholarship of the Edinburgh Editions.

Walter Scott (1771-1832) was an extremely influential novelist, establishing the form of the historical novel and the short story. He wrote both dramas and novels, including The Antiquary and The Tale of Old Mortality. 
J. H. Alexander is currently Reader in English at the Unversity of Aberdeen and has published critical studies of Walter Scott's poetry. For the Edinburgh edition of the Waverley novels he has also edited The Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of the Wars of Montrose.

In the court of Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, is favoured above all the noblemen of England. It is rumoured that the Queen may chose him for her husband, but Leicester has secretly married the beautiful Amy Robsart. Fearing ruin if this were known, he keeps his lovely young wife a virtual prisoner in an old country house. Meanwhile Leicester's manservant Varney has sinister designs on Amy, and enlists an alchemist to help him further his evil ambitions. Brilliantly recreating the splendour and pageantry of Elizabethan England, with Shakespeare, Walter Ralegh and Elizabeth herself among its characters, Kenilworth (1821) is a compelling depiction of intrigue, power struggles and superstition in a bygone age.

Walter Scott

Paul O'Keeffe

On the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo discover a fascinating primary source: Walter Scott's accounts of his journey to the battlefield 
 
In the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo tourists flocked from Britain to witness the scene of the most important conflict of their generation. Walter Scott was among them, and with a commission from his publisher for a travel book and a long poem. These prose and verse accounts bring to vivid life the carnage, spectacle and excitement of a fascinating period of European history. 
 
 Brilliantly introduced and annotated by Paul O'Keeffe, this edition elucidates and contextualises Scott's first-hand account of his travels, his dashing epic, ‘The Field of Waterloo’ and the eerily chilling 'Dance of Death'.

Walter Scott

Scott on Waterloo

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