Guy Mannering

Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, first published in 1815, was Walter Scott's second novel. Guy Mannering only half-believes in his art, but does believe in the ability of his patriarchal power, wealth and social position to sort out social confusion. However he has to learn the limits of a nabob's authority in a society that (in the 1780s) is no longer a single hierarchy but has many subsets, each with its own laws - gypsies, smugglers, Edinburgh lawyers, the Border store farmer, the traditional landowner. Guy Mannering is set at the time of the American Revolution, and represents a Scotland at once backward and advanced, patriarchal and commercial, traditional and modern, a country in very varied stages of progression. This is the first modern edition of one of Scott's finest works. It is based on the first edition, but is corrected from the manuscript, and restores around two thousand readings lost through error or misunderstanding. For the first time it includes Scott's extended portraits of the Edinburgh literati which were unaccountably omitted from the printed version.

Sir Walter Scott, was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet. Many of his works remain classics and include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor.

Peter Garside was educated at Cambridge and Harvard Universities and taught English Literature for more than thirty years at Cardiff University, where he became Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Editorial and Intertextual Research. Subsequently he was appointed Professor of Bibliography and Textual Studies at the University of Edinburgh, where he is now a Professorial Fellow. He was one of the general editors of the bibliographical survey The English Novel 1770-1829 (2000) and has since co-edited the critical collection English and British Fiction 1750-1820 (2015). More recent work includes editions of Walter Scott’s Shorter Poems (2020) and J. G. Lockhart’s Peter’s Letters to His Kinsfolk (2 volumes, 2022).