Kenilworth. A Romance is a historical romance novel by Sir Walter Scott, one of the Waverley novels, first published on 13 January 1821. Set in 1575, it leads up to the elaborate reception of Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle by the Earl of Leicester, who is complicit in the murder of his wife Amy Robsart at Cumnor. Composition and sources In January 1820 Archibald Constable and John Ballantyne concluded an agreement to act as joint publishers of Kenilworth, but Scott had still to complete The Monastery and write its sequel The Abbot which kept him occupied until August, so that Kenilworth had to wait until September. Writing then progressed steadily, and the new novel was completed on 27 December. Scott was deeply acquainted with the literature and historical documents of the Elizabethan period, partly because of his editorial labours. In 1808 he produced Memoirs of Robert Cary, Earl of Monmouth … and Fragmenta Regalia … by Sir Robert Naunton, which were to stand him in good stead for his portrayal of Queen Elizabeth in the novel, and in 1810 he revised Robert Dodsley's The Ancient British Drama which contributed much to the linguistic texture of the novel. For the public activities at Kenilworth he used two documents reprinted in The Progresses and Public Processions … of Queen Elizabeth by John Nichols (1788): A Letter by Robert Langham or Laneham and The Princely Pleasures at the Courte at Kenelwoorth by George Gascoigne. For Amy Robsart and Cumnor he relied on Antiquities of Berkshire by Elias Ashmole which in turn drew on the anonymous and hostile Secret Memoirs of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester or Leicester's Commonwealth. Editions Kenilworth was published in three volumes by Constable and Ballantyne in Edinburgh on 13 January 1821, and by Hurst, Robinson, and Co. in London on the 20th. As with all the Waverley novels before 1827 publication was anonymous. The print run was 10,000, with a further 2000 in a second edition which followed two months later, and the price was one and a half guineas (£1 11s 6d or £1.57½). It is unlikely that Scott was involved with the novel again until April and May 1830, when he revised the text and provided an introduction and notes for the 'Magnum' edition in which it appeared as Volumes 22 and 23 in March and April 1831. The standard modern edition, by J. H. Alexander, was