Rob Roy, one of Walter Scott’s Most Popular Novels

A Day with Scott - May Byron - Hodder & Stoughton Ltd Publishers London

As morning slowly lightened above the flow of the river Tweed, running broad and luminous over its pearl-white pebbles, Walter Scott, arrayed in a rough shooting-jacket, might have been seen lightning his library fire and seating himself at his desk. Never later than six a.m. he was well at work, – his papers neatly arranged before him, his books of reference set orderly beside him on the floor, – every tool and detail of his craft to hand, as befits a sound and scrupulous workman. (…)

(A Day with Scott by May Byron – Hodder & Stoughton – LTD., Publishers London)

So, back to the “Magician of the North”.

I can’t help thinking with emotion to our great authors writing themselves to death up to their last breath, like Walter Scott in Scotland, or Balzac in France, to mention only two names among the most emblematic authors,  and who have contributed to give the world a deep, contrasted, enchanting and multi-voiced identity. Let’s hope that their lights will go on shining forever like stars in the darkness and that their voices will go on making us learn, dream, laugh and weep forever in a society which is growing more and more materialistic everyday. Let us read and re-read their masterpieces, encouraging young generations to read them and following for that matter the example of Scotland which, among many other initiatives, launched its great reading campaign of “One Book – One Edinburgh” on 21 February 2008.

Connoisseur Edition Boston Estes And Lauriat 1893

Janice and I will begin our reading of Rob Roy on Scotiana soon and I’m quite eager to read my part  in French. Walter Scott was so popular in France, during his life, that hardly his novels had been published in English that they were translated into French. His first French translator was Auguste Jean-Baptiste Defauconpret (1767-1843), a very learned anglicist who had settled in London and who, with the help of his son, did translate about 400 English books into French among which were the complete works of  Walter Scott. Given the hard task it is to translate a book and the time it takes to achieve it I’m very impressed!  M. Defauconpret must have been a great admirer of the Scottish author. Indeed, he happened to have the rare privilege of being invited to dinner with his wife by Sir Walter, and even to spend the night at Abbotsford.

The invitation begins : We will have great pleasure in receiving Madame Fauconpret and you at Abbotsford to dinner at half past four o’clock …

Walter Scott facsimile letter of invitation to French translator Defauconpret

Above is the fac-simile of Walter Scott’s invitation to M. Defauconpret I’ve found at the beginning of an old French edition of Waverley. I can hardly read it…I leave it to you if you can. What a task it must have been for Walter Scott’s publishers to decipher such a writing !

Editions de Fallois Paris1993

New translations of the Waverley novels have been published recently in the prestigious French Edition de la Pléiade. I was offered the first one which contains Waverley and Le coeur du Mid-Lothian. In the second one there is Ivanhoe and Quentin Durward the action of which takes place in France, at the time of Louis XI. One of the translators is Henri Suhamy, a great admirer of Walter Scott but also an expert. His very lively and well-documented biography of Sir Walter is a beautiful homage to the Scottish writer.

Editions Robert Laffont Collection Bouquins 1981

I did read Rob Roy some time ago, in French, in Robert Laffont edition. I liked it very much. It’s a voluminous book. In the two-volumes edition I’ve found on Gutenberg and which dates from 1893, there are seventeen chapters in the first volume and twenty two in the second plus a great number of notes, introductions, letters, commentaries, bibliographies, as well as a number of illustrations.

Walter Scott Rob Roy Connoisseur edition 1893 Loch Lomond Charles Laurie illustration

First Meeting of Frank and Diana Original Etching by: R. W. Macbeth
Cattle Lifting Original Etching by: R. W. Macbeth
Frank at Judge Inglewood’s Original Etching by: Georg Cruikshank
Die Vernon at Judge Inglewood’s Original Etching by: R. W. Macbeth
Frank and Andrew Fairservice Original Etching by: R. W. Macbeth
Die Vernon and Frank in Library Original Etching by: R. W. Macbeth
Helen MacGregor Original Etching by: R. W. Macbeth
Rob Roy in Prison Original Etching by: R. W. Macbeth
Rob Roy Parting the Duelists Original Etching by: J. Moyr Smith
Fray at Jeannie MacAlpine’s Original Etching by: George Cruikshank
Escape of Rob Roy at the Ford Sam Bough C. de Billy
Parting of Die and Frank on the Moor Original Etching by: R. W. Macbeth
Loch Lomond Original Etching by: Charles Laurie
The Death of Rashleigh Original Etching by: R. W. Macbeth

True golden mine for those who want to go further than the mere reading of the novel.

Edinburgh University Press 2008

Of course I can’t end this post without mentioning the new Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley novels. It’s not a cheap one but I think we can hardly find a better one. I’ve included these books in my wishing list to Father Christmas. 🙂

The Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels is the first critical edition of Scott’s fiction. It employs the first edition of Scott’s novels as the base-text but incorporates manuscript readings lost through accident, error, misunderstanding, or a misguided attempt to improve, as printers struggled to set and print novels at high speed in often difficult circumstances. Each volume contains an essay on the work’s genesis, composition, and editorial history, an historical note, a list of emendations, explanatory notes, and a glossary. This edition of Scott’s 1820 novel The Abbot also draws on the evidence of early American editions based on an uncorrected second proof copy of Scott’s text. The ‘Historical note’ seeks to produce the first coherent account of the family relationships in the novel.

The historical note argues that Rob Roy is less concerned with the Jacobite Rising than with the economic and political conditions which brought it about, and the remarkable entrepreneurial spirit of the new Hanoverian capitalists which resisted it. It celebrates the freebooting daring of the hero’s father in the City of London and, in the figure of the Glasgow merchant Nicol Jarvie, the robust balancing of generosity and selfish calculation which is required in successful enterprise.

Rob Roy, ed. David Hewitt (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008) xvi, 596 p. The Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels, vol. 5. ISBN: 9780748605699

http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/publications/editions.html#abbot

Last but not least, for the devoted admirers of Walter Scott, try and find Sir Walter Scott A Bibliographical History 1796-1832,  this opus magnus also compiled by people who were great admirers of the author.

Oak Knoll Press 1998

Bonne lecture et à bientôt.

Mairiuna.