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

Legitimate Histories is an original and wideranging reading of Walter Scott's Waverley Novels in the context of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic. Bringing together two types of historical fiction which have traditionally been kept apart in surveys of the Romantic period, Fiona Robertson argues that it is impossible to judge the effectiveness of Scott's narratorial strategies if one continues to filter out the problems generic, cultural, and structural - which generated them. She draws attention to shared (and contested) historical and political preoccupations, to techniques of narrative deferral and fantasies of origin and originality, and to the crises of authority and authenticity which are concealed (and flaunted) by the masterful voice of the 'Author of Waverley'. She also focuses on the critical traditions by which Scott's fissured, questioning, and problematic novels have been stabilized for increasingly disenchanted generations of readers. Arguing for a new way of approaching Scott, the book takes in the whole range of Waverley Novels, including analyses of such neglected works as The Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, Woodstock, and Anne of Geierstein, as well as the more familiar 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 and the novel, and to current theoretical debates concerning historical fiction and historiographic authority.