Waverley Synopsis
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.
About This Edition
Sir Walter Scott Press Reviews
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 - Independent
No author - not even Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith or JK Rowling - has ever been as critically acclaimed and commercially successful as Scott - Scotland on Sunday
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 - Daily Mail
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 -- Jane Austen
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? - Independent on Sunday
