Guy Mannering

by Walter Scott

Paperback, 1974

Status

Available

Call number

823.7

Collection

Publication

Everyman's Library, Dutton/Dent (1974), Paperback, 440 pages

Description

Guy Mannering believes in the ability of patriarchal power and social position to sort out social confusion, but has to learn the limits of authority in a society that is no longer a single hierarchy. Scott's second novel, it was first published in 1815.

User reviews

LibraryThing member messpots
The setting is the latter 18th century (post- '45). Mannering, an Oxford student, arrives in Scotland. He has been expertly tutored in astrology, a subject in which he only half believes. He is given hospitality at an old family seat, now in decline, and has the opportunity to predict events
Show More
affecting the heir who is born on the day of his arrival. The book recounts those events.

The story is very engaging and I was sorry to finish it. It is not as moving as Heart of Midlothian or as historically charged as most of Scott's Scottish novels, but it has some of Scott's best characters: Paulus Pleydell, an advocate who is introduced to us in a tavern engaged in a drinking game ('Such, O Themis, were anciently the sports of thy Scottish children!'); Dandie Dinmont; who breeds terriers, all of whom are named either Pepper or Mustard; Dominie Sampson, an eccentric tutor (the reunion with his charge is not to be missed); and my personal favourite, Sir Robert Hazlewood, a pompous landowner who speaks in heavy, legal redundancies.

Scott's talent and resources as a writer are bottomless: that's the impression I took from this book.
Show Less
LibraryThing member thorold
Like The Bride of Lammermoor, this is a novel worth reading in spite of a totally preposterous storyline, simply because of the quality of Scott's writing. Just let all that business of astrologers, missing heirs and mysterious gypsy women drift by you and enjoy the magnificent detailing, the
Show More
Galloway scenery, the incomparable Border farmer Dandie Dinmont, and a brilliant thumbnail sketch of Enlightenment Edinburgh.

(I read this a few years ago, but forgot to catalogue it at the time)
Show Less
LibraryThing member ritaer
Not the adventuresome type of novel one usually associates with Scott, the era of castles and pitched battles is long past and the hero is bedeviled by smugglers and gypsies rather than religious fanatics or enemy knights. I enjoyed it.
LibraryThing member P_S_Patrick
This is the second novel written by Walter Scott, and arguably better than his first one Waverley.
Set mainly in the rural Galloway region of Scotland in the late 1700s, Guy Mannering tells us a story of Gipsies, smugglers, kidnap, lost identity, love interests, a dispossed Laird and his lost
Show More
heir. The cast of characters is one of the best in any novel. For example the Gipsy woman Meg Merrilies carries such a strong personality and image that she has achieved immortality beyond these pages in the popular imagination – far beyond the readership of Scott. Keats also wrote a poem based on her. Likewise, the smuggler Dirk Hatteraick is archetypal in role of desparate incorrigible rogue. Scott even manages to make memorable characters out of the eccentric and socially awkward chaplain, and the lawyer.
Though the plot is somewhat predictable in its overall arch, it is still a tense tale in its scenes and happenings, with enough clever interweavings and twists that it doesn't get boring. As a romantic tale of picturesque quality, it would be a great introduction to Scott's novels.
Show Less
LibraryThing member mbmackay
The second published novel of Walter Scott. Apparently written in 6 weeks when Scott needed to raise funds urgently when in a financial crisis, the book holds together remarkably well.
The plot is of its era, and slightly unrealistic - the heir, kidnapped as a child, returns as a man, not knowing
Show More
his heritage, and rights the wrongs. But there are a couple of interesting features: although the book is subtitled "The Astrologer", astrology is not given much credence; and the "Gypsy queen" is given a generous treatment in the plot.
A rollickingly good yarn, more complex and nuanced that expected from a rushed production.
Show Less
LibraryThing member lschiff
A fun easy read, typical of its genre.

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1815

Physical description

440 p.

ISBN

0460011332 / 9780460011334

Similar in this library

Page: 0.8223 seconds