First published in 1827, Chronicles of the Canongate consists of three novellas interwoven by “Chrystal Croftangry′s narrative” appearing four times. It follows Scott’s introduction and “The Highland Widow” in the first volume, which concludes with “The Two Drovers”. It opens and closes the second volume devoted to “The Surgeon’s Daughter”. These tales were, as Claire Lamont explains, “the first works of fiction undertaken by Scott after his financial crisis in 1826” (p. 289).
Claire Lamont’s edition consists of the text of Chronicles of the Canongate, an essay on the text, an emendation list, listing of end‐of‐line hyphens, detailed explanatory notes and a glossary. The acknowledgements indicate that “the manuscript of Chronicles of the Canongate is one of those repatriated from the Pforzheimer Library in New York to the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh in 1986” (p. ix). The essay on the text encompasses discussion of the genesis of the novel, its composition, remarks on the manuscript, the first edition, the proofs, and the novel’s early favourable reception. This is followed by information on the novel’s foreign and later editions including the 1827 Paris edition, and the first US edition of the same year.
The editor discusses at length her textual procedures including “Verbal emendations from the manuscript; punctuation and styling; proper names” (p. 289) and other textual matters. The explanatory notes, preceded by a helpful listing of books used for them, extend for more than 100 pages(pp. 378‐492). There is even a glossary which includes “all words in Scots, Gaelic and in foreign languages, and English words which might be difficult to the modern reader”(p. 493).
This fascinating volume is a more than worthy addition to the other superb individual volumes of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels. Firmly bound, typeset in Linotronic Ehrhardt with reasonable margins, they are excellent volumes. Claire Lamont’s edition of Scott’s Chronicles of the Canongate, unique in his oeuvre, as it contains shorter works, should be in all libraries maintaining collections of UK’s rich literary heritage.
