Sir Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian : Newly Adapted for the Modern Reader by David Purdie

If a sister asks a sister's life on her bended knees, they will pardon her; and they will win a thousand hearts by it. Edinburgh, 1736: Captain John Porteous is charged with murder and locked up in Edinburgh's Tolbooth prison, also known as the Heart of Midlothian. When news comes that he has been pardoned, a baying mob breaks into the jail, liberating its inmates and bringing Porteous to their own form of justice. But one prisoner, Effie Deans, chooses not to take the opportunity to flee. Wrongly convicted of murder, Effie has been sentenced to death. Jeanie, her older sister, sets about walking to London to beg for her pardon from the queen. A gripping tale of religious piety and filial devotion, this new edition of The Heart of Midlothian has been expertly reworked for modern readers by David Purdie. "The Heart of Mid-Lothian is precisely focused on the trials for murder of John Porteous and of Effie Deans in 1736 and 1737. Yet it is a chronicle - Scott's only chronicle - which spans the eighty years of the life of David Deans, whose death takes place in 1751. It is the most complex of all Scott's narratives. It is also the most challenging in that it raises in an acute fashion the problem of a judicial system that does not produce justice. Scott places this fundamental issue in its immediate political context, in history as represented by the life of Deans, and alongside the justice of Providence as perceived by his daughter Jeanie, the greatest of Scott's heroines." "This edition of The Heart of Mid-Lothian provides a new text established in accordance with the tried policies and practices of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels, and in its annotation treats comprehensively the novel's historical, legal, religious and cultural sources."--Jacket. HISTORICAL FICTION. Edinburgh, 1736: an indignant crowd has gathered in the Grassmarket to watch the execution of a smuggler. Opening with the start of the Porteous Riots, The Heart of Midlothian is one of Walter Scott's most famous historical novels, featuring murder, madness and seduction. Following his brutal suppression of the spectators, John Porteous, Captain of the Guard, is charged with murder and locked up in Edinburgh's Tolbooth prison, also known as the Heart of Midlothian. When news comes that he has been pardoned, an angry mob breaks into the jail, liberating its inmates and bringing Porteous to its own form of justice. But one prisoner who fails to take this opportunity to flee is Effie Deans, who, wrongly convicted of infanticide, has been sentenced to death. Jeanie, her older sister, sets off to London on foot to beg for her pardon from the queen New and controversial abridged edition of Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian, set in Edinburgh in the mid-eighteenth century, featuring one of Scott's most well-loved heroines, Jeanie Deans.