Walter Scott : The Making of the Novelist

Between 1814 and 1819 Walter Scott published a remarkable sequence of eight historical and regional novels, beginning with Waverley and culminating in The Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of Montrose. In the process he made the Author of Waverley into the most successful and famous novelist in the world; by chooseing to remain anonymous, however, Scott deliberately separated this new achievemtn from the fame he had already gained as editor and poet. This study of the first and major phase of Scott's career as a novelist reconsiders his act of secession from his own literary past and examines the interconnections between Scott the antiquarian and editor, Scott the romantic poet, and Scott the novelist. Between 1814 and 1819 Walter Scott published a remarkable sequence of eight historical and regional novels, beginning with Waverley and culminating in The Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of Montrose. In the process he made the Author of Waverley into the most successful and famous novelist in the world; by chooseing to remain anonymous, however, Scott deliberately separated this new achievemtn from the fame he had already gained as editor and poet. This study of the first and major phase of Scott's career as a novelist reconsiders his act of secession from his own literary past and examines the interconnections between Scott the antiquarian and editor, Scott the romantic poet, and Scott the novelist Contents 5 Preface 7 Textual Note 13 1. Editorial Strategies: The Minstrelsy and the Lay 15 2. Variations on a Method: Marmion to Rokeby 33 3. Waverley: Romance as Education 49 4. Guy Mannering: A Tale of Private Life 73 5. The Antiquary: Reading the Text of the Past 99 6. The Black Dwarf and Old Mortality: Ending Right 121 7. Rob Roy: The Limits of Frankness 145 8. The Heart of Midlothian: The Pattern Reversed 165 9. The Bride ofLammermoor and A Legend ofMontrose: The End of the Beginning 183 Notes 207 Index 233