J. H. Alexander – författare

The Uncommercial Traveller is a remarkable display of creative journalism from Dickens's final decade, balancing Sketches by Boz at the beginning of his career. The 37 short papers, which first appeared in his weekly journal All The Year Round, offer sensitive and penetrating perspectives on London, Britain, and France in the 1860s. In the company of the Traveller, readers undertake a series of journeys. We visit the scene of a disastrous shipwreck on Anglesey, the docklands at Liverpool, and the Chatham dockyard. We accompany the Traveller as he returns to the scene of his early childhood in 'Dullborough'. We cross the Channel in atrocious conditions, and we explore 'the French-Flemish country'. Twice, we join the local crowds for the gruesome entertainment offered by the Paris morgue. Nearer to Dickens's Covent Garden base we attend a popular theatre for a performance and a Sunday sermon. We visit a children's hospital, a lead factory, and a naval school. We tramp the city by night. We have repeated problems with restaurants. We hear weird stories, meet odd characters, and much more.Full of humour, sentiment, quirkiness; supremely assured in their command of style; astonishingly varied: these papers take a worthy place alongside the Dickens's late fictional masterpieces Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend. This is the first fully critical edition of The Uncommercial Traveller, based on detailed study of the surviving densely worked manuscripts and the early printed texts. The edition includes a full analytical essay, textual notes, and detailed explanatory notes, as well as a glossary of unusual terms and words used in senses likely to be unfamiliar to modern readers.

In his ever-popular romance of Tudor England, Scott brilliantly recreates all the passion, brutality, verve and vitality of the Elizabethan world. Only two of his novels end tragically - Kenilworth ends with the death of Amy Robsart, who unwisely loved Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, the Earl of Leicester.

The most haunting and Shakespearean of Scott’s novels, The Bride of Lammermoor is a fast-paced tragedy set on the eve of the 1707 Union. The proud young Master of Ravenswood sees his estate pass to the astute Sir William Ashton. When Ravenswood falls in love with Ashton’s daughter, her diabolical mother takes extreme measures to thwart the match - with tragic results. A story of immense gloomy power, infused by the unforgiving spirit of the North Sea."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."Times Literary Supplement

Against the background of Montrose’s campaign of 1644-5, this spirited novel centres on one of Scott’s most memorable creations - Sir Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket. This hard-headed Aberdonian contrasts tellingly with the weird and passionate Highland feud in which he becomes perilously entangled, as the narrative moves from Dalgetty’s unflinching encounter with the Duke of Argyll, to his dramatic escape from Inveraray Castle, to the battle of Inverlochy."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."Times Literary Supplement

Quentin Durward is a young Scotsman seeking fame and fortune in the France of Louis XI in the fifteenth century. He knows little and understands less, but Scott represents his ignorance and naiveté as useful to ‘the most sagacious prince in Europe’ who needs servants motivated solely by the desire for coin and credit and lacking any interest in France which would interfere with the execution of his political aims. In Quentin Durward Scott studies the first modern state in the process of destroying the European feudal system.By far the most important of Scott's sources for Quentin Durward is the splendid Memoirs of Philippe de Comines. Comines, who has more than a walk-on role in the novel itself, was trusted councillor of Charles the Bold of Burgundy until 1472, when Louis XI persuaded him to enter his service. Scott's contrasting portraits of Louis and Charles, crafty king and fiery duke, essentially derives from Comines, whose memoirs are generally regarded as the first example of modern analytical history rather than chronicle. But it is as story that Quentin Durward succeeds, and it is one of Scott’s most absorbing tales.

Set at the time of the Third Crusade (1189 - 92), The Betrothed is the first of Scott’s Tales of the Crusaders. The betrothed is Eveline, daughter of a Norman noble, who is a victim of the Crusade in that her intended husband is required by the Church to fulfil his vow to join the war and departs for three years. The full horror of an arranged marriage, and of being a possible prize as men seek to gain possession of her is vividly realised—the heroine is never free; her fate is always determined by the agency of men. And being set on the Marches of Wales, it is not just men but differing cultures that strive for mastery over her.The Betrothed is a problem novel: as Scott was writing he himself was arranging the marriage of his elder son. It is a problem novel too in that it was deeply disliked by Scott’s printer and publisher who forced significant changes. What Scott was required to do to meet their objections has been confronted for the first time in this, the first critical edition of the novel.

The second of Tales of the Crusaders, The Talisman is set in Palestine during the Third Crusade (1189 - 92). Scott constructs a story of chivalric action, apparently adopting a medieval romance view of the similarities in the values of both sides. But disguise is the leading theme of the tale: it is not just that characters frequently wear clothing that conceals their identity, but that professions and cultures hide their true nature. In this novel the Christian leaders are divided by a factious criminality, and are contrasted to the magnanimity and decisiveness of Saladin, the leader of the Moslem armies. In a period when the west was fascinated with the exotic east, Scott represents the Moslem other as more humane than the Christian west.The Talisman is one of Scott’s great novels. It is a superb tale. It is also a bold departure as, for the first time, Scott explores not cultural conflict within a country or society but in the opposition of two world religions.

Woodstock opens in farce, yet it is one of Scott's darkest novels. It deals with revolution, to Scott the most disturbing of all subjects: 'it appears that every step we made towards liberty, has but brought us in view of more terrific perils'. Written during the financial crisis which led to his insolvency in January 1826, the novel, Scott feared, 'would not stand the test'. Yet it does: it is set in England in 1651 as Parliamentary forces hunt the fugitive Charles Stewart who days previously had been defeated at Worcester. In the superb portrait of Cromwell we see a self-torturing despot who attempts to be in full control in the name of religion; in the rakish Charles we see a man without self-reflection whose own libertarianism after his restoration to the English throne in 1660 permitted a great burgeoning in scientific enquiry and the arts.This edition of Woodstock is based on the first, but emended in the light of readings in the manuscript and proofs that were misread, and at times deliberately suppressed, as Scott's own hand-written words were turned into a printed book.

Anne of Geierstein (1829) is set in Central Europe in the fifteenth century, but it is a remarkably modern novel, for the central issues are the political instability and violence that arise from the mix of peoples and the fluidity of European boundaries. With Anne of Geierstein Scott concludes the unfinished historical business of Quentin Durward, working on a larger canvas with broader brush-strokes and generally with more sombre colours. The novel illustrates the darkening of Scott's historical vision in the final part of his career. It is also a remarkable manifestation of the way in which the scope of his imaginative vision continued to expand even as his physical powers declined. This new edition is based upon the first edition but is corrected by recovering from the manuscript about 2000 readings lost in some cases by misreadings of what Scott had written, but in many others from the assumption that those who processed Scott's text knew better than he did. This is the first modern critical edition of what was in its day a remarkably successful novel.

Count Robert of Paris, condemned by Scott’s printer as ‘altogether a failure’, was later prepared for publication by his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart , and his publisher Robert Cadell. What appeared was a bowdlerised, tamed and tidied version of what Scott had written and dictated. This edition, the first to have returned to the manuscript and to the many surviving proofs, realises Scott’s original intentions. Scott’s last full novel has many roughnesses, but it also challenges the susceptibilities of his readers more directly than any other and in that lay its fault in the eyes of the lesser men who condemned it.

Castle Dangerous is the realisation of a thirty-year old project of Scott’s to retell a story found in Barbour’s Brus. Set in the early fourteenth century during the Scottish Wars of Independence, an English knight for a love wager commits himself to defend Douglas Castle against Scottish attempts to retake it. The ballad-like story embraces intriguing elements including national rivalry, and the idealisation and betrayal of love. The Douglas area, seen as an almost surrealist landscape of ravines, trenches, and tombs, and in abysmal weather, forms an appropriate setting for an impressively bleak narrative.

Between 1829 and 1833 the first complete edition of Scott's fiction appeared, in 48 volumes issued one a month, each illustrated with two engravings, and with introductions and notes by Scott himself. The Magnum Opus, as it was familiarly called, was a project which aimed to reduce the enormous debt of over £126,000 which landed on Scott during the financial crisis of 1825-26, but it was much more than an exercise in book-making. Scott's introductions are semi-autobiographical essays in which he muses on his own art and the circumstances which gave rise to each of his works of fiction. His notes illustrate his text, sometimes with simple glosses, sometimes by quotations from historical sources, but most strikingly with further narratives which parallel rather than explain incidents and situations in the fiction.These volumes constitute the first systematic representation of Scott's contributions to his last great edition, the edition which defined the final shape of Scott's fiction for the nineteenth century. They conclude the publication of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels, and as they include addenda and corrigenda covering the whole 28 volumes of Scott's fiction in the EEWN, they are an indispensable conclusion to the set. But above all they illustrate the parabolic imagination of the man who made the historical novel an intellectual force.

Between 1829 and 1833 the first complete edition of Scott's fiction appeared, in 48 volumes issued one a month, each illustrated with two engravings, and with introductions and notes by Scott himself. The Magnum Opus, as it was familiarly called, was a project which aimed to reduce the enormous debt of over £126,000 which landed on Scott during the financial crisis of 1825-26, but it was much more than an exercise in book-making. Scott's introductions are semi-autobiographical essays in which he muses on his own art and the circumstances which gave rise to each of his works of fiction. His notes illustrate his text, sometimes with simple glosses, sometimes by quotations from historical sources, but most strikingly with further narratives which parallel rather than explain incidents and situations in the fiction.These volumes constitute the first systematic representation of Scott's contributions to his last great edition, the edition which defined the final shape of Scott's fiction for the nineteenth century. They conclude the publication of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels, and as they include addenda and corrigenda covering the whole 28 volumes of Scott's fiction in the EEWN, they are an indispensable conclusion to the set. But above all they illustrate the parabolic imagination of the man who made the historical novel an intellectual force.

The Siege of Malta is one of Scott's most moving works. The story of the Siege itself is remarkable, with its combination of individual defeat and group survival against overwhelming odds. It had been part of Scott's mental furniture from his early days, and it acquires a new and powerful resonance when remembered alongside his then-failing health. To read it is an enlarging experience, which anyone at all interested in Scott should share. The incomplete narrative of Bizarro is also a fascinating document from the end of Scott's life. In it he returns to the figure of the bandit/outlaw which had intrigued him all his life and had played such an important part in two of his greatest novels, in the persons of Rob Roy himself in Rob Roy and Robin Hood in Ivanhoe. * The only available editions of these two works by Scott* Provides reading texts that remain broadly faithful to the manuscripts, but tidying them up in the way that the original intermediaries might have been expected to do* Diplomatic transcriptions, which involves attempting to reproduce the manuscripts as faithfully as possible in type, using appropriate conventions to indicate deletions and doubtful readings* Access to a digital reproduction of the manuscripts on an accompanying CD* An Essay on the Text that outlines its genesis and composition, describing the manuscripts, and presenting and illustrating the procedures involved in preparing the reading text* A Historical Note and set of Explanatory Notes along with a combined Glossary* Accompanying CD-rom containing digital photographs of the manuscripts.