Book Description
Set during the Jacobite rising in Scotland in 1745, this novel springs from Scott's childhood recollections and his desire to preserve in writing the features of life in the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland. Waverley was first published anonymously in 1814 and was Scott's first
novel.
Customer Reviews:
WAVERLEY: THE FIRST HISTORICAL NOVEL, THE FIRST POLITICAL NOVEL.......2006-11-08
Sir Walter Scott began WAVERLEY, his first novel, in 1805. Years later, after his move to his dream home Abbotsford near the border with England, he found his manuscript while rummaging in a fishing tackle box. He then brought the world's first historical novel to a conclusion in 1814.
Abe Lincoln read Walter Scott. His children entertained their mother re-enacting scenes from the WAVERLEY series of novels. I wonder therefore if Lincoln's "Four score and seven years ago..." does not echo WAVERLEY's frequently repeated sub-title, " 'Tis Sixty Years Since." WAVERLEY is narrated as from 1805, the year it was begun, and for both it and the Gettysburg Address, a reader inevitably starts calculating backwards. What date are we talking about? Ah,1745 for young Edward Waverley. We know (as he does not) what turmoil he is letting himself in for when he rides into the Highlands -- the last hurrah of the legitimate Stuart dynasty. And 1776 for Abe Lincoln meant the Declaration of Independence. In 1745 "auld" Scotland almost disappeared in defeat. In 1776 Hanoverian Britain began its retreat from North America.
Scott tells us in i.1 (p. 5) that in 1745 our ancestors expressed their anger directly, by taking up arms. But in 1805/1814 his generation was more indirect, taking enemies to court.
This very great novel should be read for sheer entertainment, for its characters, for the omnipresent black bears of the Baron of Bradwardine and for its love story. But I suggest that we read it as well as history and geography. Are we up for the sounds of broad Scots language? For a smidgen of Highland Gaelic (which Scott barely knew)? To learn about doch and dorroch and the stirrup-cup? Through hundreds of details of what Scotsmen ate, how they dressed, how beautiful were their mountains and waters near Perth, Walter Scott brought Scotland to life in England and throughout Europe and in the USA.
WAVERLEY makes us take Scotland, the real Scotland of history, seriously. We see its educated Catholic Highlanders sending their children to study in France and Italy. Bonnie Prince Charlie lost only one battle of several, but it was enough to secure Hanoverians their throne. We sense that the transition, however awful, was inevitable from fiercely independent Scotland to an uncomfortable, demoted "North Britain" within a prospering, peaceful United Kingdom of middle-class shopkeepers. Walter Scott makes us ask what if any history has to teach us.
Not only is WAVERLEY the first historical novel. It is also the first political novel. We see dimly how a generally dismal set of rulers, the Stuart dynasty, could continue to win men's loyalty to a lost cause. In a later novel, also about Prince Charlie 20 years later, we read of a Scottish family named REDGAUNTLET whose fate was always to be on the losing side. What makes subjects or citizens alike glory in losing for political principle?
Mark Twain wrote as if all Walter Scott cared about were kings and dynasties, knights, beautiful high-born ladies and lost inheritances. But day after day in court in Edinburgh he heard argued cases of little people with religious and inherited passions and prejudices, not to mention superstitions. He remembered them all, along with the tales he heard as a boy and the ballads he researched for seven consecutive summers as a young adult. These little people live again in WAVERLEY and in Scott's 26 other novels as well.
-OOO-
Like Reading K2, But Worthwhile.......2005-09-21
The first 200 pages of "Waverley" represent an early zenith for novelists testing the patience of their readership.
After a lengthy introduction where author Sir Walter Scott mocks the romantic pretentiousness then abounding among novelists, he proceeds to introduce us to assorted personages we will never meet again before finally focusing on the opaque central character, whose name not only gives us the book's title but a sense of grating irresolution which comes to define him. The reader's feet start tapping.
Scott then throws up a detailed sequence of non-events. Young Waverley joins the British army, marches off to Scotland, and becomes the guest of every Highland warlord with a grudge against His Majesty. I may have left off a couple of incidents, but that's the sum total of the action for the first third or so of the book. "Shall this be a long or short chapter?" he teasingly asks at the beginning of his 24th chapter, nearly 200 pages in.
"Waverley" does eventually kick itself into a higher gear, not that it ever becomes a thrill-ride. But he imbues his mysterious Scottish landscape with an aura that swirls around the reader and, though hard to explain coherently, becomes not only quite charming but compelling, too.
Waverley, like David Copperfield and many other such heroes of 19th century fiction, finds himself torn between two women, and as his attempts at wooing one fell painfully short, I found myself cutting across the chasm of time and really identifying with the guy.
"The sensation of hope with which he had nursed his affection in absence of the beloved object seemed to vanish in her presence..."
Scott's remedy for such pining is also too good not to quote: "I knew a very accomplished and sensible young man cured of a violent passion for a pretty woman, whose talents were not equal to her face and figure, by being permitted to bear her company for a whole afternoon."
I wish I had the stomach to finish this book the first time I tried to read it, when I was a sophomore in high school. It might have saved me much misery.
The noteworthy thing about "Waverley," as others here comment, is that it plays off the romantic ideal of the day in a character whose inconstancy is a deliberate statement about how such all-or-nothing sentiments can be misleading, even injurious. Edward Waverley, introduced to us memorably (if at great length) in terms of the books he starts but doesn't finish, becomes a waterbug skittering across the waves of history, once a loyal supporter of the Hanoveran throne, then a rebel Jacobite, as his loyalties are played by people of varying moral hues.
"Well, after all, every thing has its fair as well as its seamy side," Waverley declares by the second half of the book, beginning to understand.
What makes "Waverley" a great book are the characters around Waverley more than the man himself, especially one rebel named Fergus who takes his measure of Waverley's indecisive character, and his station as the heir to a British title, in order to manipulate him. Scott does this so subtly we may feel ourselves as caught out as young Edward when he learns the score, but it works not only because it carries logical force within the ever-shifting narrative but doesn't turn Fergus into a villain so much as a man who does what he can with what he has.
For all the romantic stuff, well presented indeed, it's the relationship between Waverley and Fergus that carries the strongest resonant strain, since it isn't exactly a friendship or adversarial, but a bit of both with an undercurrent of tragedy that becomes more focused toward the end.
"Waverley" isn't a well-structured novel per se, given the sluggish opening and Waverley's pinball-like relationship to the politics around him. Readers of "Ivanhoe" will miss the firmer storyline of that work, not to mention comic relief in the form of pithy Wamba of that book rather than the windy, Latin-loving Baron, though the latter has his moments.
Everyone in "Waverley" has their moments, and they add up to a great book once the momentum gets going. It's a tough climb, but you'll be glad you made the effort when it's over.
The ultimate coming-of-age novel.......2003-10-24
Scott can be a ragged storyteller, by our contemporary standards (which are unfair to apply, since he showed the way to all future English novelists). Patches of WAVERLEY are ragged and rambling. Such humor as there is is not very funny, and sometimes when the action is meant to be sweeping, it is more nearly absurd.
None of this is without compensations. The English novel was still young and unformed, and Scott is alive to all its possibilities, with a freshness and boldness not available to later writers. He thinks nothing, for instance, of having his hero (here as in IVANHOE) sick or asleep while the action is conducted elsewhere by more vidid, nominally secondary characters.
But WAVERLEY is not just of historical interest. It accomplishes something unique in the Bildungsroman genre. In its time, and even now, it is thought of as a nonpareil romantic adventure, but the reputation is misleading, since it is mostly about the unraveling of Waverley's romantic notions. For a time we share them: how merry and noble the highlanders seem, how manly and swashbuckling their leader, Fergus; how accomplished and womanly his sister, the beautiful Flora. By the the end of the book, however, Waverley's cause has turned to ashes, the man he idolized is revealed as an unfeeling monomaniac, and the woman he thought he loved seems just a sour harpy.
The cold slap of reality is an experience common enough in life, the painful accompaniment of growing up, but you'll have to look far and wide to find it so cannily presented in fiction as here.
A Geste of Waverly.......2003-08-18
Mark Twain stated that Scott's writings had a "debilitating influence;" in fact drove the antebellum South "mad" with medieval notions of chivalry into the War Between the States. It's true, the popularity of Sir Walter at the time was unparalleled. Waverley, published in 1814, has the distinction of being the first historical novel; that is, where a heroic fictional character is set within an actual event in history. Waverley also stands out as a splendid example of the romantic trend in literature, where imagination is considered primary to understanding. Waverley is the first in a series of popular "historical romances" by Scott. The key event to Waverley is the colorful Jacobite rebellion of 1745, where Bonnie Prince Charlie, the last of the Stuarts, landed on Scottish shores to reclaim the English throne from King George II. 75,000 ex-Jacobites later immigrated to South Carolina following Prince Charlie's failure, no doubt giving King George III much to contend with, during the American Revolution. Over a hundred years later, South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, by the Scott "crazed" generation. So, Twain's witty observation could have a basis in fact.
Scott published Waverley anonymously, giving the novel a thrilling mystique of historical authenticity; a romantic strategy ? for imaginative distancing or "negative capability" discussed by contemporary poet, John Keats. The hero, Edward Waverley, is born into a house of divided loyalties, between the treasonable Stuart cause and loyal ties to the Hanoverian crown. Although himself a Captain in the King's forces, Edward begins an adventure of self-discovery at the Scottish manor of Bradwardine; learns the ways of the Highlanders from Fergus McIvor and his sister, Flora; joins forces with "the Chief," and fights the battle of Preston. We are treated to riveting characterizations of famous historical persons and events, told in evocative poetic prose, with haunting images, dramatic set pieces, and convincingly real dialogue. I agree with A.N. Wilson, who more recently described Sir Walter Scott as "a genius of extraordinary range, depth and intelligence."
So, in reply to the ever gallant and wry wit of Mr. Twain, it's my belief that the creative genius, as evidenced by Waverley, promotes rather than detracts from cultural growth. The self-defeating principles which destroyed the Old South are endemic to all societies (including our own), as Toynbee could have said, and these causes lay deep within the collective unconscious (Jung).
Interesting critique of romantic tendencies.......2003-02-26
Waverley, Walter Scott's first successful novel, concerns Edward Waverley, the scion of a noble, landed family in England. He's a Romantic young man, in the formal sense of belonging to the Romantic movement and in temperament--the relative ease of his life and his passionate dilettantishness land him, eventually, in the service of the Jacobites during the rebellion of 1745. He discovers the wild landscapes of the Scottish Highlands, the curious manners of the Highland folk, and learns that life and war are not exactly like all those romantic books about adventure and glory he loves to read.
Scott's book can be interpreted as a critique of the Romantic temperament, and I think the book succeeds best when it contrasts reality with the puffed-up imaginings of Edward Waverley's literature-addled perception. He is not quite Don Quixote, according to Scott, but he suffers from a milder version of the same disease; the most amusing parts of the book center around Waverley's naivete toward battle, ceremony, and love. He is feckless, to be sure, and abysmally undisciplined--but he is a decent fellow in the end, and learns from his mistakes. The people that populate Scott's novel are generally civilized, noble, and upright people, even the fierce rebels; while Scott doesn't approve of rebellion, the rebels are portrayed as misguided at worst, and of equal nobility to the English at best. Scott's purpose was to peer into the world "sixty years since" his own time, and helped give birth to the historical novel. It has confusing and near-unreadable parts (especially when the pedantic Baron shows up), but as a historical novel, it certainly sets the template for all other books of its type to come.
Average customer rating:
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Waverley Or 'Tis Sixty Years Since
Walter Scott
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Contemporary
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ASIN: 0548304459 |
Book Description
This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.
Average customer rating:
- For the collector
- This is a great little book!
- If you like the Endless (and have a sense of humor)
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The Little Endless Storybook
Jill Thompson
Manufacturer: Vertigo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Customer Reviews:
For the collector.......2006-06-27
Got a friend that thinks Sandman is too dark? Or maybe someone who likes the darkness but will appreciate the tongue in cheek cuteness of this little gem? The little endless, in the fine tradition of Muppet Babies and Alvin and the Chipmunks, creates a nice little children's story involving the Endless. Destiny, Dream, Delirium (nee Delight), Death, Desire, Despair and Destruction are all represented here. It's cute and it's good.
This is a great little book!.......2005-08-02
Much to the surprise of friends who were more heavily into this sort of thing than I was, I really liked the Sandman comics. I was never a completist or anything, but I bought a number of the comics and grahphic novels, and even went to a Halloween party as Sandman one year. Something about The Endless always appealed to me. However, I was not enough of a fan that I was familiar with the "Little Endless" until I stumbled across this delightful book. If there was every a book made for me, this is it. I have always loved the "super-deformed" artwork style used in manga and anime, and the the author uses it in a way that is truly inspired.
The book tells the story of Barnabas, a little dog who is charged with the care of Delirium, lest she wander off. (This apparently is a common occurrence.) Sure enough, she disappears one day, and Barnabas goes off to find her, asking each of her siblings in turn if they have seen her. The book reaches a charming and satisfying conclusion, although you know poor Barnabas will always have his work cut out for him.
The "Little Endless," as these versions of the characters are known, are apparently in high demand by fans of the author's artwork, and I can see why. The book is well-written and superbly illustrated. Jill Thompson has managed to stay true to the feeling of the world of the Sandman comics, but at the same time produce a warm, cute fairy tale. I might hesitate to recommend this book to small children - there is just enough of the Sandman darkness here to elicit some uncomfortable questions from very young readers - but mature kids of perhaps 10 or older will do just fine. As for older readers, fans of the Sandman comics, manga, graphic novels, and fantasy in general will not be disappointed.
If you like the Endless (and have a sense of humor).......2005-02-23
This was a refreshing little goblet of Endless
sorbet - a palate cleanser between courses,
one might say.
I wouldn't read it to my son as a bedtime story -
well, not just yet. Why does the naked fat woman
have rats in her hair? Hmmmm. . . . good question.
The characters are mostly in character, and the artwork
is a constant delight. Destruction is just a hoot!
I'm still a little Morpheocentric in my approach to
Endless stories, and this is an ensemble piece - so
if I can enjoy it, well. If you're a Deliriophile,
this will rock your candy-colored inside-out boat made
of popsickle sticks and that funny feeling you get inside
your head when you can't remember the name of the color
you think of when you taste the same kind of fruit soda
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Get it, read it, share it, love it. Spoiler -
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Customer Reviews:
Great follow up to Starhammer.......2006-02-21
The Vang: The Military is the sequel to Starhammer, and it succeeds at being a great book for many reasons.
First, it has the same feel as the first. You almost immediately feel familiar with the book, even though it's totally different than Starhammer.
Second, as I just stated, it's totally different from Starhammer. You never feel like you're reading something that should be called "Starhammer 2," which is a good thing. Starhammer was a great book, but if I wanted to read it again, I would.
Third, after the book got started, I was on the edge of my seat for most of the remainder of the book! I had to keep reading to see what happened next, and it rarely let up.
Finally, like Starhammer, it didn't feel very dated, despite its age. My main fear when reading old sci-fi books is that it will feel old, due to the nature of the topic. These books didn't leave me with that feeling, which only added to the enjoyment of reading them!
Brilliant Carnage - A Masterpiece!.......2006-01-10
Bloody and graphic with ideas far in advance of anything previously imagined, The Vang is a race of "Omni-Parasite" capable of taking over any human host much like 'The Invisibles' in the old Outer Limits show - but more than that, reproducing other forms rapidly from victims and retaining all the intelligence needed to use advanced weapons. Also speeds up the metabolism and nervous system to a peak, re-engineering the host body to suit whatever is needed (soldier/attack form, leader form, ect.)
The Vang's ability to conquer (and exterminate) is equaled only by its unequaled vileness. Death would be far preferable to capture if facing the Vang. Not for the squeamish.
This is the best example of a civilized planet under attack by an alien abomination EVER WRITTEN. Simply Superb (what a movie this would make!)
Hauntingly Beautiful.......2004-10-14
I first read this book many years ago and have read the entire novel 3 times, which is very rare in my reading habits. I am a fan of horror scifi and military scifi, and The Vang delivers on both.
It has been at least 10 years since I last read it, but images and ideas from the book still remain, and I often wonder why I can't seem to find more recently published works that measure up to this one.
star hammer trilogy.......2003-12-21
A gritty hard hitting fantsy novel set in the distant future. It makes no excuses and pulles no punches, a well written book.
read the first books, star hammer, and the vang to see how this series progresses.
The past awakens.......2003-09-22
The Vang are dead, or at least so the universe hopes. The old enemy, a parasite that regards other life forms as raw material. It's faster smarter, totally lethal and one of them just woke up !
Think Alien on steroids, think frightening in concept and you get some idea as to what this book delivers, find a copy you will not be disapointed.
Book Description
In this exquisite and sensitive book, author Stephanie Paulsell draws on resources from the Christian tradition to show how we can learn to celebrate the body's pleasures, protect the body's vulnerabilities, and develop the practices that will ultimately transform our troubled relationship with our bodies to one of honor and joy. A practical resource, Honoring the Body weaves together scripture, history, and lively stories that can help us recover and sustain an appreciation for ourselves as physical beings.
Customer Reviews:
Beautiful.......2006-03-20
Paulsell's book is comforting and liberating at the same time. A must read for any Christian. Highly recommended!
THIS IS TRULY A LIFE CHANGING BOOK!.......2002-04-12
Everyone with a body should read this book. After reading Paulsell's book "Honoring the Body" you will never bathe or dress, eat or drink, run or walk, rest or make love in the same way. You will look with care into yourself as embodied and find the sacredness that God put into you and your body from the moment of your birth. Armed with this new experience of God as intimately with you in your embodied life, you without a doubt will experience sacredness in the everyday tasks of living an embodied life. The intimate journey through embodied life Paulsell's invites you to take I guarantee will change you to the point that you will revisit this book often because the truth of which it speaks is remarkable and as I have said life changing.
A beautiful book!.......2002-03-28
Paulsell's down-to-earth language and vivid imagery make it immediately accessible. And her way of talking about everyday bodily activities draws you right in as a reader and makes you feel wiser, as if you've just had a wonderful conversation with a close friend. I recently used this book in leading a retreat for college students. They connected deeply with every chapter we explored, from "Clothing the Body" to "Honoring the Sexual Body." I've given a copy of this book to my 80-year-old mother and plan to give my 14-year-old son a copy as well. "Honoring the body" is a full-orbed practice that offers young and old people alike so much more than well-intended slogans such as "Just Say No" or "Practice Safe Sex"!
Book Description
This study guide is the companion to Stephanie Paulsell's Honoring the Body— the exquisite, sensitive book that reveals how we can learn to celebrate the body's pleasures, protect the body's vulnerabilities, and develop the practices that will ultimately transform our troubled relationship with our bodies to one of honor and joy. This guide is a practical resource for those who want to explore more fully the lessons and practices outlined in Stephanie Paulsell's insightful and instructive book.
Books:
- Welcome to Higby
- Wet Places At Noon
- White Jacket, or The World in a Man-of-War: Volume Five (Melville)
- Who I Was Supposed to Be: Short Stories
- With Child: Wisdom and Traditions for Pregnancy, Birth, and Motherhood
- You Are Not a Stranger Here
- A Garden of Sand (Thompson, Earl)
- A Mapmaker's Dream: The Meditations of Fra Mauro, Cartographer to the Court of Venice
- All the Trouble You Need : A Novel
- All We Know of Heaven: A Novel
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