Legitimate Histories. Scott, Gothic, and the Authorities of Fiction

Legitimate Histories is an innovative reading of Walter Scott's Waverley Novels in the context of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Gothic. The book includes analyses of such neglected works as The Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, and Woodstock, as well as the more frequently studied Rob Roy, The Heart of Midlothian, and Redgauntlet. Offering fresh insight into the variety and complexity of Scott's novels, and into the traditions of criticism which have so often obscured them, Legitimate Histories makes an important contribution to the study of Romanticism, the novel, and to current theoretical debates concerning historical fiction and historiographic authority.