Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, first published in 1815, was Walter Scott's second novel. Guy Mannering only half-believes in his art, but does believe in the ability of his patriarchal power, wealth and social position to sort out social confusion. However he has to learn the limits of a nabob's authority in a society that (in the 1780s) is no longer a single hierarchy but has many subsets, each with its own laws, gypsies, smugglers, Edinburgh lawyers, the Border store farmer, the traditional landowner. Guy Mannering is set at the time of the American Revolution, and represents a Scotland...

Find Out What Scott Really WroteGoing back to the original manuscripts, a team of scholars has uncovered what Scott originally wrote and intended his public to read before errors, misreadings and expurgations crept in during production. The Fair Maid of Perth centres on the merchant classes of Perth in the fourteenth century, and their commitment to the pacific values of trade, in a bloody and brutal era in which no right to life is recognised, in which the Scottish nobles fight for control of the weak Scottish monarchy, and clans are prepared to extinguish each other to gain supremacy in the...