Here is the granddaddy of popular historical fiction as a genre, Sir Walter Scott's 1815 novel that takes place sixty years earlier in Scotland. At that time 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' rose up to contest the Hanoverian succession to the English throne by George I, as a loyalist to his father James and his Stuart lineage. Scott inserts his own fictional hero into this drama: Edward Waverley, an English soldier with conflicting family loyalties who gets caught up in the turmoil. As the protagonist Edward has a fatal flaw in that he always goes where he is sent and does what he is advised to do. His passage is aided further by a fairy godmother in the person of Colonel Talbot who can clear away any troubles that arise. Scott writes in a stiffly formal style that is far more tell than show and given to needless authorial insertions, making him less friendly to read than his contemporary Jane Austen. I think I've had my fill of him, though his descriptions are rich with detail and he performed a fine, sympathetic service for Scotland by romanticizing its people and the land they occupy. This element is sure to be the novel's most lasting in my memory. ( )

The author takes way to long to set up the story which is all of Volume 1. The second half is where all the meat is. ( )

This first novel by Sir Walter Scott is often described as the first historical novel ever. While I have read and quite enjoyed three other Scott novels, Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, and Rob Roy, I could not get into this. It is over rich in cultural references and Scots dialect, almost like a brain dump, at the expense of any kind of plot. So I have given up around a quarter of the way through and I will not find out what happens to English officer Edward Waverley when he is posted north of the border at the time of the Young Pretender's uprising of 1745. No rating.

Here's what I wrote after reading in 1986: "Tale of a young Englishman involved in the 1745 Revolution of "The Pretender", Prince Charles Edward (Stuart). Excellent insights into Scottish ways and traditions of the time. Most memorable characters: Fergus Mac-Ivor, chieftan of a Highland clan." Interesting, today I have no memory of reading. ( )

This is my first Scott, and while I did not particularly care for the book/writing, I did like the story. I think my reading was somewhat enhanced by knowing the history of the Jacobite Rebellion and the Battle of Culloden. Had I not known something about the Highlanders and their rebellion(s), I would have been lost. I was not a fan of the romance part of the novel, it seemed obligatory or contrived. I started to read the introduction, but after 9 pages of self-absorbed drivel, I skipped it. 484 pages, just barely 3 stars. 3 stars for me is your average read--can be mediocre or enjoyable, this was not necessarily enjoyable and yet not mediocre. ( )