Concept

Waverley (novel)

Overview

Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since is a historical novel by Walter Scott (1771–1832). Scott was already famous as a poet, and chose to publish Waverley anonymously in 1814 as his first venture into prose fiction. It is often regarded as one of the first historical novels in the Western tradition.

Edward Waverley, a young English gentleman, is commissioned into a Scottish regiment shortly before the Jacobite rising of 1745. He goes on leave to visit a family friend, the Baron of Bradwardine, and is shocked to find that Bradwardine and his followers are supporters of Charles Edward Stuart, the exiled Jacobite prince. Waverley is forced to choose between his loyalty to the Crown and his admiration for the Jacobites' romantic cause. His gentlemanly actions gain him friends in this precarious situation, on both sides of the rising, who stand him in good stead when the Jacobites are eventually defeated.

Scott chose to publish his later novels as being "by the author of Waverley". In a letter shortly after publication, Scott writes: "I shall not own Waverley; my chief reason is that it would prevent me of the pleasure of writing again." His series of works on similar themes written during the same period have become collectively known as the "Waverley Novels". The novel was well received by contemporary critics, and well-liked by those who purchased novels in the early 19th century. It has continued in favour with later critics.

In 1818 Scott was granted a baronetcy, becoming Sir Walter Scott. It was an open secret that he was "the author of Waverley", and he admitted this at a public dinner in 1827.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Waverley (novel) is discussed.

That is, in a right analysis of the above proposition, "the author of Waverley" must disappear. This is effected when the above proposition is analysed as meaning: "Some one wrote Waverley and no one else did, and that some one also wrote Marmion and no one else did." This may be more simply expressed by saying that the propositional function "_x_ wrote Waverley and Marmion, and no one else did" is capable of truth…
Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
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A nation, when it is real and not artificial, is founded upon a faint degree of instinctive liking for compatriots and a common instinctive aversion from foreigners. When an Englishman returns to Dover or Folkestone after being on the Continent, he feels something friendly in the familiar ways: the casual porters, the shouting paper boys, the women serving bad tea, all warm his heart, and seem more “natural,” more…
Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight
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The gentry of the neighborhood, who were all indebted to the Jews, ran to the cathedral, where their bonds were kept, and made a solemn bonfire of the papers before the altar. The compiler of the Annals of Waverley, in relating these events, blesses the Almighty for thus delivering over this impious race to destruction. The ancient situation of England, when the people possessed little riches and the public no…
David Hume, The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part A.
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Well, a public no less large keeps and transmits from generation to generation the traditions and practices of the occult; but academic science cares as little for its beliefs and opinions as you, gentle reader, care for those of the readers of the Waverley and the Fireside Companion. To no one type of mind is it given to discern the totality of truth. Something escapes the best of us,--not accidentally, but…
William James, The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
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At this period the family removed to Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton. Some time before, however, he had made his first attempt in poetry. It was a song addressed to a rural beauty, about his own age, and though possessing no great merit as a whole, it contains some lines and ideas which would have done honor to him at any age.
Thomas Carlyle, Life of Robert Burns
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Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Analytic philosophy.

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