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1 of 253523 objects
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
The Waverley Novels . Volume 4, Guy Mannering II/ by Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 1865
RCIN 1110103
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Starting it almost as soon as he had finished his historical poem, The Lord of the Isles (1815) in late 1814, Walter Scott reportedly finished the follow up to his hugely popular novel Waverley in less than two months, publishing the book on 24 February 1815. Titled Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Scott had initially planned for the book to be a supernatural tale but decided to turn it into one of a lost inheritance regained set in the wild Galloway countryside of the 1760s and 1770s. The novel, published anonymously ‘by the author of Waverley’, sold out on the first day of sale. It featured a lively cast of secondary characters that quickly entered the public imagination, including the farmer Dandie Dinmont and the 'gypsy' matriarch Meg Merrilees and made much use of Scots dialect to bring the story to life. Such was the public demand, that two further editions were published before June and an opera written by Daniel Terry opened at Covent Garden in March 1816. However, critical reception was mixed, with reviewers criticising the use of Scots language words and viewing parts of the plot as weak or unecessary.
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Creator(s)
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