Cover of The Heart of Mid-Lothian

The Heart of Mid-Lothian

by Walter Scott · 1818

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Early in 1817 Scott received in an unsigned letter the seed of The Heart of Mid-Lothianand began immediately to shape from historical fact the story of Jeanie Deans, a dairymaid who, while refusing to lie to save her sister's life, journeys to London to beg for a reprieve. Set in the 1730s in a Scotland uneasily united with England, the novel dramatizes different kinds of justice: that meted out by the Edinburgh mob in the lynching of one Captain Porteous, and that encountered by a young girl on trial for infanticide.

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A bestseller from Philadelphia to St. Petersburg, an inspiration to succeeding novelists from Balzac to George Eliot, The Heart of Mid-Lothianis the seventh and finest of Scott's 'Waverley' novels. This edition, based on the first edition of 1818, incorporates many new corrections from the manuscript and from other sources. Tony Inglis provides a full introduction to the historical background, and to the novel's rich use of language and dialect, its themes and narrative modes.

Genre
Georgian and 18th centuryGeorgian and 18th centuryMore like thisLess of thishistorical fictionhistorical fictionMore like thisLess of thisadventureadventureMore like thisLess of thisromanceromanceMore like thisLess of thisliterary fictionliterary fictionMore like thisLess of this
Setting
18th century18th centuryMore like thisLess of this19th century19th centuryMore like thisLess of thisScotlandScotlandMore like thisLess of thisBritishBritishMore like thisLess of thisEnglandEnglandMore like thisLess of this
Subject
historyhistoryMore like thisLess of this
Audience
adult
Length
epic · 793 pages

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