title: Prefacing the Waverley Prefaces: A Reading of Sir Walter Scott Prefaces to the Waverley Novels (American University Studies)
author: Patricia S. Gaston
description: ...there is some very interesting material and a welcome attention to a wide range of Scott's novels. It is particularly useful to have the importance of the frame-narrative of 'Tales of the Crusaders' so emphatically secured. (Fiona Robertson, Scottish Literary Journal)<br />
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
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  # Waverley, or 'Tis Sixty Years Since
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Walter Scott
  
  
  
  
  
  
      Under which King, Bezonian?  speak, or die!  Henry IV, Part II.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### INTRODUCTION--(1829)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The plan of this Edition leads me to insert in this place some
  
  
  account of the incidents on which the Novel of WAVERLEY is
  
  
  founded. They have been already given to the public, by my late
  
  
  lamented friend, William Erskine, Esq. (afterwards Lord
  
  
  Kinneder), when reviewing the 'Tales of My Landlord' for the
  
  
  QUARTERLY REVIEW, in 1817. The particulars were derived by the
  
  
  Critic from the Author's information. Afterwards they were
  
  
  published in the Preface to the CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.
  
  
  They are now inserted in their proper place.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The mutual protection afforded by Waverley and Talbot to each
  
  
  other, upon which the whole plot depends, is founded upon one of
  
  
  those anecdotes which soften the features even of