Waverley Novels

The Waverley Novels are a long series of novels by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832). For nearly a century, they were among the most popular and widely read novels in all of Europe.

Illustration from The Graphic of Arthur Sullivan's operatic adaptation of Ivanhoe.

Because Scott did not publicly acknowledge authorship until 1827, the series takes its name from Waverley, the first novel of the series released in 1814. The later books bore the words "by the author of Waverley" on their title pages.

The Tales of my Landlord sub-series was not advertised as "by the author of Waverley" and thus is not always included as part of the Waverley Novels series.

Order of publication

Title	Published	Main setting	Period
Waverley, or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since	1814	Perthshire (Scotland)	1745–1746
Guy Mannering, or, The Astrologer	1815	Galloway (Scotland)	1760-5, 1781–2
The Antiquary	1816	North-East Scotland	1790s
Tales of My Landlord, 1st series:
The Black Dwarf	1816	Scottish Borders	1707
The Tale of Old Mortality	1816	Southern Scotland	1679–89
Rob Roy	1818	Northumberland (England), and the environs of Loch Lomond (Scotland)	1715–16
Tales of My Landlord, 2nd series:
The Heart of Midlothian	1818	Edinburgh and Richmond, London	1736
Tales of My Landlord, 3rd series:
The Bride of Lammermoor	1819	East Lothian (Scotland)	1709–11
A Legend of Montrose	1819	Scottish Highlands	1644-5
Ivanhoe	1819	Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire (England)	1194
The Monastery	1820	Scottish Borders	1547–57
The Abbot	1820	Various in Scotland	1567-8
Kenilworth	1821	Berkshire and Warwickshire (England)	1575
The Pirate	1822	Shetland and Orkney	1690s
The Fortunes of Nigel	1822	London and Greenwich (England)	1616–18
Peveril of the Peak	1822	Derbyshire, the Isle of Man, and London	1658–80
Quentin Durward	1823	Tours and Péronne (France) Liège (Wallonia/Belgium)	1468
St. Ronan's Well	1824	Southern Scotland	19th century
Redgauntlet	1824	Southern Scotland, and Cumberland (England)	1766
Tales of the Crusaders:
The Betrothed	1825	Wales, and Gloucester (England)	1187–92
The Talisman	1825	Syria	1191
Woodstock, or, The Cavalier	1826	Woodstock and Windsor (England) Brussels, in the Spanish Netherlands	1652
Chronicles of the Canongate, 2nd series:[1]
St Valentine's Day, or, The Fair Maid of Perth	1828	Perthshire (Scotland)	1396
Anne of Geierstein, or, The Maiden in the Mist	1829	Switzerland and Eastern France	1474–77
Tales of my Landlord, 4th series:[2]
Count Robert of Paris	1831	Constantinople and Scutari (now in Turkey)	1097
Castle Dangerous	1831	Lanarkshire (Scotland)	1307

Chronological order, by setting

• 1097: Count Robert of Paris
• 1187–94: The Betrothed, The Talisman, Ivanhoe (3)
• 1307: Castle Dangerous
• 1396: The Fair Maid of Perth
• 1468–77: Quentin Durward, Anne of Geierstein (2)
• 1547–75: The Monastery, The Abbot, Kenilworth, The Siege of Malta (4)
• 1616–18: The Fortunes of Nigel
• 1644–89: A Legend of Montrose, Woodstock, Peveril of the Peak, The Tale of Old Mortality, The Pirate (5)
• 1700–99: The Black Dwarf, The Bride of Lammermoor, Rob Roy, Heart of Midlothian, Waverley, Guy Mannering, Redgauntlet, The Antiquary (8)
• 19th century: St. Ronan's Well

Editions

Set of Scott's Waverley Novels

The novels were all originally printed by James Ballantyne on the Canongate in Edinburgh. James Ballantyne was the brother of one of Scott's close friends, John Ballantyne ("Printed by James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co., Edinburgh").

There are two definitive editions. One is the "Magnum Opus", a 48-volume set published between 1829 and 1833 by Robert Cadell, based on previous editions, with new introductions and notes by Scott. This was the basis of almost all subsequent editions until the appearance of the standard modern edition, the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels, a 30-volume set, based on early-edition texts emended mainly from the surviving manuscripts, published by Edinburgh University Press between 1993 and 2012.

Placenames

View from the Scott Monument of the Waverley Station roof, in Edinburgh, with Arthur's Seat in the background

In Scotland, Waverley Station and Waverley Bridge in Edinburgh were named after these novels.

In North America, the towns of Waverly, Colorado; Waverly, Nebraska; Waverly, Illinois; Waverly, South Dakota; Waverley, New York; Waverley, Nova Scotia; Waverly, Ohio; Waverly Hall, Georgia;[3] Waverly, Tennessee,[4], and Waverly, Iowa, take their names from these novels, as does Waverley School in Louisville, Kentucky, which later became the Waverly Hills Sanatorium.

The unincorporated community of Ellerslie, Georgia is believed to be named for a character in the novels, Captain Ellerslie. [5]

In Australia, the Melbourne suburbs of Glen Waverley and Mount Waverley and also Ivanhoe, were named after the novels as well.[6]

In New Zealand there is a suburb in Dunedin and a North Island town in the province of Taranaki called Waverley.

See also

• Tales of my Landlord
• Tales of the Crusaders
• Chronicles of the Canongate

Notes and references

1. The first series of Chronicles of the Canongate contained two short stories ('The Highland Widow' and 'The Two Drovers'), and a short novel The Surgeon's Daughter, set in the second half of the 18th century, partly in India.
2. A further novel, The Siege of Malta, set in the Mediterranean in 1565, and an incomplete novella Bizarro, set in Calabria in the first two decades of the 19th century, were first published in 2008.
3. "Harris County". Harris County.
4. "History of Humphreys County Tennessee". Humphreys County Chamber of Commerce. Archived from the original on May 16, 2007.
5. http://www.kenkrakow.com/gpn/e.pdf
6. Kendall, Ian (January 2011) [June 2004]. "Scottish Place Names in Melbourne, Australia". Retrieved 23 June 2018.

External links

• A typically enthusiastic essay on the Waverley Novels, published in 1912