Set in England, Scotland and France during the fourteenth century, John Galt’s Rothelan (1824) engages with major historical contexts including the Black Plague pandemic, Anglo-Scottish warfare and the Hundred Years’ War. Remarkable in its time for its representation of an alternative Jewish history showing sympathy for Jewish communities and for taking women’s agency seriously, the novel tells a story of usurped inheritance while narrating major historical events from the reign of King Edward III. Present-day students of literature may appreciate the novel’s metafictional play, including a found text device and a chapter that jokingly mocks a Walter Scott novel. Presented for the first time in a modern, annotated edition, this authoritative text features an introduction and appendices with background information pertaining to the novel’s content and relevant contexts.
