The Antiquary (1816), the third of the Waverley novels by Walter Scott, centres on the character of an antiquary: an amateur historian, archaeologist and collector of items of dubious antiquity. He is the eponymous character and for all practical purposes the hero, though the characters of Lovel and Isabella Wardour provide the conventional love interest. The Antiquary was Scott's own favourite of his novels, and is one of his most critically well-regarded works; H. J. C. Grierson, for example, wrote that "Not many, apart from Shakespeare, could write scenes in which truth and poetry, realism and romance, are more wonderfully presented." Scott wrote in an advertisement to the novel that his purpose in writing it, similar to that of his novels Waverley and Guy Mannering, was to document Scottish life of a certain period, in this case the last decade of the 18th century. The action can be located in July and August 1794. It is, in short, a novel of manners, and its theme is the influence of the past on the present. In tone it is predominantly comic, though the humour is offset with episodes of melodrama and pathos. Scott included a glossary of Scottish terms as an appendix to the novel. Composition Scott contracted to write The Antiquary in January 1815 with a publication date of 4 June, but a substantial part of the year was taken up with other commitments, social and literary, the most substantial being his expedition to Belgium and France which resulted in the poems The Field of Waterloo and 'The Dance of Death' and Paul's Letters to His Kinsfolk. Composition seems to have begun at the end of the year and was complete, apart from the glossary, by mid-April 1816. Editions The Antiquary appeared in three volumes in Edinburgh on 4 May 1816, published by Archibald Constable and Co., and in London on 8 May, published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown. As with all the Waverley novels before 1827 publication was anonymous. The price was £1 4s (£1.20). This first edition of 6000 copies was followed by a revised second edition some three months later. There is no clear evidence for authorial involvement in this, or in any of the novel's subsequent appearances except for the 18mo Novels and Tales (1823) and the 'Magnum' edition. Some of the small changes to the text in 1823 are attributable to Scott, but