Walter Scott, página 4 de 25

When the Editor of the following volumes published, about two years since, the work called the "Antiquary," he announced that he was, for the last time, intruding upon the public in his present capacity. He might shelter himself under the plea that every anonymous writer is, like the celebrated Junius, only a phantom, and that therefore, although an apparition, of a more benign, as well as much meaner description, he cannot be bound to plead to a charge of inconsistency. A better apology may be found in the imitating the confession of honest Benedict, that, when he said he would die a bachelor, he did not think he should live to be married. The best of all would be, if, as has eminently happened in the case of some distinguished contemporaries, the merit of the work should, in the readers estimation, form an excuse for the Authors breach of promise. Without presuming to hope that this may prove the case, it is only further necessary to mention, that his resolution, like that of Benedict, fell a sacrifice, to temptation at least, if not to stratagem.It is now about six months since the Author, through the medium of his respectable Publishers, received a parcel of Papers, containing the Outlines of this narrative, with a permission, or rather with a request, couched in highly flattering terms, that they might be given to the Public, with such alterations as should be found suitable.** As it maybe necessary, in the present Edition(1829), to speak upon the square, the Author thinks it proper to own, that the communication alluded to is entirely imaginary.These were of course so numerous, that, besides the suppression of names, and of incidents approaching too much to reality, the work may in a great measure be, said to be new written. Several anachronisms have probably crept in during the course of these changes; and the mottoes for the Chapters have been selected without any reference to the supposed date of the incidents.

The present work completes a series of fictitious narratives, intended to illustrate the manners of Scotland at three different periods. Waverley embraced the age of our fathers, Guy Mannering that of our own youth, and the Antiquary refers to the last ten years of the eighteenth century. I have, in the two last narratives especially, sought my principal personages in the class of society who are the last to feel the influence of that general polish which assimilates to each other the manners of different nations. Among the same class I have placed some of the scenes in which I have endeavoured to illustrate the operation of the higher and more violent passions; both because the lower orders are less restrained by the habit of suppressing their feelings, and because I agree, with my friend Wordsworth, that they seldom fail to express them in the strongest and most powerful language. This is, I think, peculiarly the case with the peasantry of my own country, a class with whom I have long been familiar. The antique force and simplicity of their language, often tinctured with the Oriental eloquence of Scripture, in the mouths of those of an elevated understanding, give pathos to their grief, and dignity to their resentment.I have been more solicitous to describe manners minutely than to arrange in any case an artificial and combined narrative, and have but to regret that I felt myself unable to unite these two requisites of a good Novel.The knavery of the adept in the following sheets may appear forced and improbable; but we have had very late instances of the force of superstitious credulity to a much greater extent, and the reader may be assured, that this part of the narrative is founded on a fact of actual occurrence.

So I told them these storiesand othersto lure them to the printed book, much as carrots are dangled before the nose of the reluctant donkey. They are four average intelligent children enough, but they hold severely modern views upon storybooks. Waverley, in especial, they could not away with. They found themselves stuck upon the very threshold.Now, since the first telling of these Red Cap Tales, the Scott shelf in the library has been taken by storm and escalade. It is permanently gap-toothed all along the line. Also there are nightly skirmishes, even to the laying on of hands, as to who shall sleep with Waverley under his pillow.It struck me that there must be many oldsters in the world who, for the sake of their own youth, would like the various Sweethearts who now [vi]inhabit their nurseries, to read Sir Walter with the same breathless eagerness as they used to dohow many years agone? It is chiefly for their sakes that I have added several interludes, telling how Sweetheart, Hugh John, Sir Toady Lion, and Maid Margaret received my petty larcenies from the full chest of the Wizard.At any rate, Red Cap succeeded in one casewhy should he not in another? I claim no merit in the telling of the tales, save that, like medicines well sugar-coated, the patients mistook them for candies andasked for more.The books are open. Any one can tell Scotts stories over again in his own way. This is mine.S. R. CROCKETT.

The title of this work has not been chosen without the grave and solid deliberation, which matters of importance demand from the prudent. Even its first, or general denomination, was the result of no common research or selection, although, according to the example of my predecessors, I had only to seize upon the most sounding and euphonic surname that English history or topography affords, and elect it at once as the title of my work, and the name of my hero. But, alas! what could my readers have expected from the chivalrous epithets of Howard, Mordaunt, Mortimer, or Stanley, or from the softer and more sentimental sounds of Belmour, Belville, Belfield, and Belgrave, but pages of inanity, similar to those which have been so christened for half a century past? I must modestly admit I am too diffident of my own merit to place it in unnecessary opposition to preconceived associations; I have, therefore, like a maiden knight with his white shield, assumed for my hero, WAVERLEY, an uncontaminated name, bearing with its sound little of good or evil, excepting what the reader shall hereafter be pleased to affix to it. But my second or supplemental title was a matter of much more difficult election, since that, short as it is, may be held as pledging the author to some special mode of laying his scene, drawing his characters, and managing his adventures...

Un nativo de Edimburgo, caballero y pícaro, noble y rufián, de nombre Chrystal Croftangry, cuenta a un público que él siente cercano -como si estuviera en una taberna escocesa una noche de invierno alrededor de un fuego- una serie de historias que acontecen en su ciudad y en su país. El libro se va tejiendo como al modo de unas 1001 noches escocesas. De las historias que se nos cuentan, todas bastante amenas, destacan por su patetismo y fondo trágico "La viuda de las tierras altas" y "Los dos pastores". Quizás el verdadero protagonista del libro, además de los hombres y mujeres de Escocia, sea el arte de contar historias interesantes, historias que parten de la anécdota local para llegar a tipos y verdades universales.

(Note: Vols. III & IV of Tales of the Crusaders)

Contents: / Amboyna / The state of Innocence / Aureng-Zebe / All for Love / (Note: 1808 edn.)

Kenilworth is apparently set in 1575, and centers on the secret marriage of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and Amy Robsart, daughter of Sir Hugh Robsart. The tragic series of events begins when Amy flees her father and her betrothed, Tressilian, to marry the Earl. Amy passionately loves her husband, and the Earl loves her in return, but he is driven by ambition. He is courting the favour of Queen Elizabeth I, and only by keeping his marriage to Amy secret can he hope to rise to the height of power that he desires. At the end of the book, the queen finally discovers the truth, to the shame of the Earl. But the disclosure has come too late, for Amy has been murdered by the Earls even more ambitious steward, Varney.

Having, in the tale of the Heart of Mid-Lothian, succeeded in some degree in awakening an interest in behalf of one devoid of those accomplishments which belong to a heroine almost by right, I was next tempted to choose a hero upon the same unpromising plan; and as worth of character, goodness of heart, and rectitude of principle, were necessary to one who laid no claim to high birth, romantic sensibility, or any of the usual accomplishments of those who strut through the pages of this sort of composition, I made free with the name of a person who has left the most magnificent proofs of his benevolence and charity that the capital of Scotland has to display...