Waverley (Penguin English Library) [Mass Market Paperback]

Walter Scott (Author), Andrew Hook (Author)

Book Description

Series: Penguin English Library | Publication Date: November 30, 2004

Set against the backdrop of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, Waverley depicts the story of Edward Waverley, an idealistic daydreamer whose loyalty to his regiment is threatened when they are sent to the Scottish Highlands. When he finds himself drawn to the charismatic chieftain Fergus Mac-Ivor and his beautiful sister Flora, their ardent loyalty to Prince Charles Edward Stuart appeals to Waverley's romantic nature and he allies himself with their cause - a move that proves highly dangerous for the young officer. Scott's first novel was a huge success when it was published in 1814 and marked the start of his extraordinary literary success. With its vivid depiction of the wild Highland landscapes and patriotic clansmen, Waverley is a brilliant evocation of the old Scotland - a world Scott believed was swiftly disappearing in the face of a new, modern era.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh in 1771, educated there and called to the bar in 1792. Having developed an early interest in BOrder tales and ballads he spent much of his free time exploring the Border country, and in 1796 published his first work - a translation of Burger's 'Lenore' - anonymously. He began to publish wroks under his own name in 1802 while holiday well-respected offices such as Sheriff of Selkirkshire. Having refused the laureateship in 1813, and being eclipsed by Byron as a poet, Scott began to write novels - again anonymously to start with. He died in 1832. Andrew Hook is Bradley Professor of English literature at the University of Glasgow. He has also edited (with Judith Hook) Charlotte Bronte's Shirley for Penguin Classics.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (November 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140430717
• ISBN-13: 978-0140430714
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #163,796 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars In this time, a curiousity., November 1, 2002

By 

Angry Mofo "angrymofo" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Waverley (Penguin English Library) (Mass Market Paperback)

Just about every work of historical fiction ever written owes its existence to Walter Scott and to Waverley, his first novel. At the time, it was a new way to write novels - indeed, combining historical fact with entertainment was a brilliant idea. By creating a fictional character and inserting him into the middle of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, Walter Scott was able to bring the culture and traditions of Scotland to life in the most staid bourgeois imagination. As a result, he achieved unprecedented popularity for his time, singlehandedly started a tourist industry in Scotland, and kicked off a new genre of fiction, which was then studiously adopted by countless authors, of whom Dumas and Fenimore Cooper are canonical examples.

Sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century, however, Scott's popularity took a nosedive, and has never recovered since. Unfortunately, after all the years and all the imitators, and after this kind of novel turned into an established genre, much of Waverley's charm has been lost, and the book no longer seems particularly impressive. Its length is sure to turn off many, especially given that for all the historical romance, there's relatively little action here. However, what still makes it worth your time is Scott's delightful and quintessentially British humour, which he applies through odd digressions and liberal use of comic anticlimax to alleviate tension. One also can't help but be impressed by his vocabulary; there are many passages in Waverley that are more or less devoid of content, but which are so elaborately constructed as to be a pleasure to read.

The story itself is no less worth one's attention than before, as far as its "educational value" goes, but the modern reader will not enjoy wading through the obfuscatory prose. I confess that I had a hard time getting through the first few chapters; after that, though, I got used to it and actually enjoyed the rest of the book. I can't however, claim that it was a particularly mindblowing read. I'm not alone; Scott has often been criticized for being a daft romantic entertainer and not a serious artist. This isn't quite true since he was rather conservative (not romantic); he writes about romantic things, but with a rather tongue-in-cheek approach that isn't visible in the works of, say, Dumas. What is true, however, is that this is primarily a tale of manners, and thus by necessity somewhat stuck in its time. Dumas's colourful, loyal, wine-loving Musketeers can thrill the mind even to this day; Scott's characters seem rather bland in comparison, and it looks like he is doomed to fall even further into disfavour as time passes and readers' frames of reference change even further.

I do recommend Waverley, but more for the author than the book - unable to extract any great effect from the latter, I found myself more and more captivated by the former, who lets the reader in on his jokes and invites him to regard the events of the book with the same attitude of respect and fascination lightened by bemused wit. That doesn't make for any life-altering enlightenment, but it is enjoyable.

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sir Walter Scott's redemption--if he needed one., December 15, 2000

By 

Michel Aaij (Montgomery, AL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Waverley: or 'Tis Sixty Years Since (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

Sir Walter Scott, I think, needs to be redeemed only in the eyes of people who don't know him. He has a bad rep in most English Departments--because most people (including English professors) haven't read him. Typically, the process goes like this: a professor will tell you that Cooper got the "historical novel format" from Scott, and then you read "The Last of the Mohicans," and you're cured forever. But really, Scott himself is the antidote to this hasty conclusion.

"Waverley" is a great novel. It takes some work though: you'll have to get over the sometimes convoluted language, the artificial dialogue, the idealized descriptions of character and setting. But once you do that, this novel is a blast. The hero may look like a sissy for most of the book, but after the Jacobites' retreat back to Scotland, Scott will show you that Waverley is a "real" character after all. The happy ending, after adventuring incognito through England back to London, may seem too romantic for a student in an English Department, but Scott never loses sight of the pain and bloodshed that are the inevitable result of civil war.

Romantically speaking, it's up to you. Rose or Flora? I always think it's sad that Scott has Waverley marry Rose instead of providing us with a super-happy ending, but perhaps this goes to show you--Scott is not that romantic after all. Romantically speaking, you got to love the couleur locale of the Highlands, the dirks and claymores, the unwavering loyalty of Evan Dhu, Flora's waterfall... Don't forget, all you professors and Ph.D.'s and M.A.'s, we also read to enjoy, and I enjoy the heck out of this novel!

This particular edition, like all the others by OUP, is very competent. The introduction by Clare Lemont could have done with a healthy dose of Marxist criticism (see the OUP edition of "Rob Roy"--in my opinion, by the way, a much less exciting novel), but the apparatus, which includes extensive notes by the editor and Scott's introductions and notes to the Magnum Opus-edition, is great.

So there you have it: this is a very good edition of a wonderful novel by a wonderful storyteller. Go get you a copy and read it with glasses colored by whatever critical theory you subscribe to--but read it first, and read it for enjoyment also.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stick With It...., July 12, 2001

By 

Jonathan B. Sims - See all my reviews

This review is from: Waverley (Penguin English Library) (Mass Market Paperback)

Oh, is this a difficult read!

If you're fluent in Old Scotts, French and Latin, and familiar with hundreds of historical/literary allusions (some of which Scott purposefully distorts in the mouths of his characters), then you should be OK. Otherwise, I see only two ways for the reader to make it through "Waverly" -- Sir Walter Scott's first historical novel and progenitor of an entire literary genre. Either keep a thumb on the page you're reading and leave the other digits free to mark the glossary, appendices and notes. Or, may I suggest you plow through the text fortified with your favorite beverage and merely pretend to understand what is being said?

Here's an example from the pedantic and quarrelsome, Baron Bradwardine, who has just dismounted his war-horse:

"I seldom ban, sir, but if you play any of your hound's-foot tricks, and leave puir Berwick before he's sorted, to rin after spuilzie, deil be wi' me if I do not give your craig a thraw."

You'll forgive my very loose, vulgar translation, but here goes:

"I seldom swear, sir, but if I catch you running around, leaving my poor horse, Berwick, unattended (all hot and lathered) so you can whore after the spoils of war, it will be the devil with me if I don't wring your bloody neck with my own hands."

Mercifully, the narration is written in modern English. The trick is to get through the first 125 pages, which is all narrative, no dialogue, and not a modicum of action. Something is not quite right here. Either Scott's erudition is too much for a Post- World War II baby boomer weaned on television; or, he was still cutting his literary teeth on "Waverly" and had not yet mastered a narrative technique that served him so well later on. My problem is I'm not quite sure which it is?

Ultimately, the text and narration may be easier to deal with than the young hero protagonist, Edward Waverly -- the last remaining branch of a venerable, ancient English family, whose only familial blemish is empathy for Scottish independence. By no means is Edward Waverly a bad fellow -- I don't think he has a mean bone in his body. He is, indeed, a gentleman at a time when that term actually stood for something. He also possesses a certain adventuresome spirit, and to use a modern day expression he has wonderful survival skills.

The problem with Edward Waverly is that Scott has rendered a central character that inspires something like indifference in the reader, and at the risk of sounding too harsh I'm not sure I really care what happens to him. It's hard to. This is how he describes himself: "I am the very child of caprice." And here is the brave, ambitious Highland Chieftain, Fergus Mac-Ivor, telling Edward, "...you are not celebrated for knowing your own mind very pointedly." That's putting it mildly! At times his behavior is overly mannered, wooden and seemingly imbecilic. At other times, he appears to aimlessly drift from one allegiance to another.

Perhaps this is the way Scott wanted to portray an overly romantic young man, struggling to find his place in the world and trying rather desperately to answer the age-old question: "Who am I?" Or, maybe, it was Sir Walter Scott struggling with himself? After all, he was blazing a new literary genre with "Waverly," and his primary goal was to recapture a bygone era (which he does so magnificently.) My sense is Scott created Edward Waverly to transport his reader back in time, and along the way Scott may have lost touch with his own young protagonist.

Half a century later, Robert Louis Stevenson recreated Edward Waverly as David Balfour in "Kidnapped", who is also a young man coming of age in war-torn Scotland. The difference is that David Balfour does not have the advantages of wealth and education, nor is he overly romantic and foolish enough -- as is Edward Waverly -- to willingly stick his head into the jaws of a real historic event, the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion. Perhaps the best that can be said for Edward Waverly is that many of the novel's heroic figures love him and want to protect him....mostly from himself. And to his credit, by the end of this long tale, Edward Waverly manfully handles the loss of so many dear friends.

So, why have I given "Waverly" four stars? Well, on the authority of others, it did create an entirely new literary genre -- the historical novel. But I loved this book because Sir Walter Scott created a precious time-bank of 18th Century Scottish culture. This is a treasure trove of language and customs, and the reader is treated to a national ethos of Scotland, including marshal ardor, hospitality, thrift and a certain fondness for overly intricate legal matters. And, if you can make it through, say, four-fifths of the book, Scott delivers a heartfelt, masterful ending that blends pathos with celebration and renewal.