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, and 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 central Highlands. It is a remarkable novel, in part because late in his career Scott has a new subject, and in part because he employs a spare narrative style that is without parallel in the rest of his oeuvre. Far too many critics, from his son-in-law J.G. Lockhart to the present day, have written off late Scott, and seen his last works as evidence of failing powers. The readers of this edition of The Fair Maid of Perth will see that these critics are mistaken, for in it we witness a luminous creative intelligence working at high pressure to produce a tightly organised and deeply moving novel.
Industry Reviews
The volumes have been carefully and critically edited from the original manuscripts and now the texts, which in each case capture large numbers of readings never before printed and clear away elements of corruption in existing editions, are as close to what Scott originally wrote as the skills of the editorial team can make them. The Edinburgh Edition respects Scott the artist by 'restoring' versions of the novels that are not quite what his first readers saw. Indeed, it returns to manuscripts that the printers never handled, as Scott's fiction before 1827 was transcribed before it reached the printshop. Each volume of the Edinburgh edition presents an uncluttered text of one work, followed by an Essay on the Text by the editor of the work, a list of the emendations that have been made to the first edition, explanatory notes and a glossary ! The editorial essays are histories of the respective texts. Some of them are almost 100 pages long; when they are put together they constitute a fascinating and lucid account of Scott's methods of compostion and his financial manoeuvres. This edition is for anyone who takes Scott seriously. The Edinburgh Edition is essential to any Scott scholar ... [the student] will turn first to the superbly specific textual essays that follow the readings. The latest additions to the monumental Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels ... all three editors maintain consistently high quality in preparing what will surely be the standard edition of Scott's complete novels ... as might be expected, the Essays on the Text are of central importance in the editions, because of the minutely detailed yet lucid accounts of the textual choices made. The volumes have been carefully and critically edited from the original manuscripts and now the texts, which in each case capture large numbers of readings never before printed and clear away elements of corruption in existing editions, are as close to what Scott originally wrote as the skills of the editorial team can make them. The Edinburgh Edition respects Scott the artist by 'restoring' versions of the novels that are not quite what his first readers saw. Indeed, it returns to manuscripts that the printers never handled, as Scott's fiction before 1827 was transcribed before it reached the printshop. Each volume of the Edinburgh edition presents an uncluttered text of one work, followed by an Essay on the Text by the editor of the work, a list of the emendations that have been made to the first edition, explanatory notes and a glossary ! The editorial essays are histories of the respective texts. Some of them are almost 100 pages long; when they are put together they constitute a fascinating and lucid account of Scott's methods of compostion and his financial manoeuvres. This edition is for anyone who takes Scott seriously. The Edinburgh Edition is essential to any Scott scholar ... [the student] will turn first to the superbly specific textual essays that follow the readings. The latest additions to the monumental Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels ... all three editors maintain consistently high quality in preparing what will surely be the standard edition of Scott's complete novels ... as might be expected, the Essays on the Text are of central importance in the editions, because of the minutely detailed yet lucid accounts of the textual choices made.
