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