Descendants of Waverley

Descendants of Waverley examines contemporary novelists’ combination of historical authority and narrative art to create the “romance of history,” authentic and accessible depictions of the past. Rooted in histories of the novel beginning in the eighteenth century, but challenging conventional theories that the novel erased the romance, the work treats Walter Scott as an important influence on the genre and analyzes the strategies used to romance history in the varied subgenres constituting current historical fiction.