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A scholarly edition of Lockhart's most intricate and sophisticated contribution to the Scottish historical novel The History of Matthew Wald (1824) is John Gibson Lockhart's fourth and final novel and perhaps his most focused, stylistically successful fiction. The title character tells his own story, which is set in the context of, and carefully interwoven with, the larger historical, social and political events and circumstances of Scotland in the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Matthew Wald exemplifies Lockhart's idea that the novel should portray the 'human mind under the influence of not one, but many of its passions--ambition--love--revenge--remorse' and should reflect the historical and social truth of the age. The critical apparatus in this volume includes: - A comprehensive introduction that addresses the composition of the novel, the novel's literary and historical contexts and critical reception. - Extensive explanatory notes that identify quotations within the novel, the novel's literary, historical, political, cultural and geographical references and other key expressions. - A glossary of Scots words, as well as other single words that might not be familiar to the reader. - Textual notes addressing Lockhart's revisions based on the extant manuscript proof, as well as other publications within Lockhart's lifetime. Thomas C. Richardson is Professor of English and Eudora Welty Chair at Mississippi University for Women.
About the author
Thomas C. Richardson is Professor of English and holds the Eudora Welty Chair at Mississippi University for Women. He is the editor of
Some Passages in the Life of Mr Adam Blair in the series
Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Works of John Gibson Lockhart, as well as the two-volume edition of James Hogg's
Contributions to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in the Stirling / South Carolina Research Edition of the Collected Works of James Hogg.
Summary
A scholarly edition of Lockhart's most intricate and sophisticated contribution to the Scottish historical novel
