Sir Walter Scott's "Waverley"

I was worried about how to approach the immense canon of Sir Walter Scott. He's an intimidating, towering literary figure, especially to those of us who don't know beans about Scotland. But before his novels became popular, practically no one outside of Scotland knew beans about Scotland. So, much like the worldwide audience that first encountered his work two hundred years ago, I would learn of the lore and customs of his native land as I explored his body of work. Unlike those readers of 1814, I have access to incredible amounts of information to aid my understanding.

My first exposure to Scott came when I was a just a kid via this very funny Monty Python sketch:



  Sir Walter Scott has an unjust reputation for turgid and inscrutable prose. While its true that his syntax and sentence structure lends a different rhythm to his writing that is most definitely of its time, a willing reader can acclimate to Scott's style without too much trouble. The Scotch dialect in the mouths of his characters can take a little getting used to and may indeed blow a stiff breeze up your kilt, but Scott provides some gentle contextual clues that help readers get the hang of it fairly quickly.

These days, his work is long out of fashion among academics and the public. Ivanhoe and Rob Roy are still famous works, but other than that, the Scott section of your local library is likely covered in dust and strewn with plaid-colored cobwebs. It's a shame, because with a little effort, the average reader might find out firsthand how wonderful his books are.

Enjoying an historical novel hinges upon the fact that you know a few things about history in order to appreciate one. That tends to put people off, reinforcing an unfortunate stereotype about the inaccessibility of great literature to modern readers. This perception is precisely what this blog was intended to dispel. One can understand a novel in historical context easily enough if one is even moderately motivated. So I'll let you in on a little secret: When encountering a work with an unfamiliar historical context, I turn to Wikipedia.

There. Now you know. I feel better for telling you. Wikipedia is far from perfect, but it's a great place to start. Want to know about the Jacobite rebellions in the 18th century? Want to dabble in the feudal clan culture of the Highlands? Want to understand the socioeconomic concerns of the Lowland peasantry? I did. I wanted to unlock some of the secrets of Scott. And I followed the sources of the Wiki articles to find even more fascinating reading that I will never have time enough to read if I hope to continue to work and buy food. But you can wade through just enough background information to help enhance your understanding of an older text in maybe twenty minutes or so, whereas taking on research just to enjoy a new book used to mean a trip to the library with a lot of people in thick glasses shushing at each other. Now, not only do you have access to great works of literature in the form of eBooks for free from places like Project Gutenberg, but you don't have to work very hard to get the most out of a good book.


Waverley (1814)

What you need to know: The seeds of conflict date back to a royal succession dispute in 1688 which ended the reign of the House of Stuart as the ruling family.  In 1745, The Jacobites, who supported Bonnie Prince Charlie of the House of Stuart as the legitimate heir to the British throne, attempted an armed rebellion against the sitting monarch, George II of the House of Hanover. Their march across the Scottish border into England to retake the crown was ill conceived, as they were massively outnumbered by the king's forces and quickly defeated.

The title character of Scott's first novel is a young, privileged English gentleman of romantic disposition. His uncle, despite being a Jacobite sympathizer and recognizing a need for the young man to find direction in life, encourages him to join the army under the reigning king, George II. Waverley becomes a captain and is stationed in Aberdeen. Before leaving, his uncle gives him a letter of introduction to Baron Bradwardine, an old friend in the lowlands with whom he fought in the Jacobite uprising of 1715. Waverley, upon obtaining an extended leave of absence from his command, spends several weeks on the Baron's estate where he is introduced to many key instigators in the upcoming rebellion. As his ties to his new friends deepen, a series of events (no spoilers) forces young Waverley to resign his commission and join their ill-fated cause.

As young Waverley's eyes are opened to the beauty and mystery of Scotland, its customs and its people, as his imagination is sparked by romantic tales and visions of gallantry, so is the reader transported to an impossibly beautiful place where the very breeze whispers ancient rhymes and the rugged landscape reflects the toil and character of a proud people. It's all pretty intoxicating. But the reality of Waverley's situation encroaches on this fantasy soon enough as a series of intrigues and misfortunes force the young soldier to make crucial decisions about his allegiances.

Scott had me from the very start with a trifecta of good writing: fluent prose, ingenious plotting and truly rich and engaging characters. This novel is a not-so-subtle plea for tolerance that still resonates two hundred years later. Waverley isn't the only one whose view of the world is significantly colored by his own ideals. The people he befriends see their relationship to the world and to each other through a veil of their own convictions and prejudices, and their subjectivity has dire consequences. Waverley emerges from his trials as a man transformed by his shattered illusions with a firmer grasp of himself and the world around him.

Great novels like this are accessible to us if we are adventurous enough to put aside our own prejudices about them. By making an effort to dispel our own preconceptions about the world, we can begin to see and understand it better, much in the same way Waverley does. And this is why I love literature so much. It parallels life. We are open to understand only if we are willing to do so, and what we gain by our efforts is immeasurable. Adventurous reading can enrich our understanding of ourselves. That is the transformative power of literature and that is why I share these books with you.

A note about this edition: For this eBook, Project Gutenberg used a very fancy deluxe edition from 1893 that is a reprint of the definitive 1829 edition. It has tons of introductory material, including a preface by the author and several examples of the author's false starts that he produced while trying to write his first novel, printed in full. Interesting stuff, but skip all of it until you've read the book. The actual novel begins at 15%. Oh, and the illustrations are wonderful.

Download Waverley from Project Gutenberg