1987/88

Our President in 1987-89 was:

Prof. David Hewitt

Professor David Hewitt proposed the Toast to Sir Walter at our 80th Annual Dinner on Friday 10th March 1989 in the Upper Library Hall, University of Edinburgh

Download the [transcript] or read the [bulletin]

Summary of the Speech:

Professor David Hewitt’s address, titled “Rediscovering Scott”, is a deeply reflective and scholarly meditation on the editorial treatment of Sir Walter Scott’s works, with a particular focus on the Waverley Novels. It marked a moment of both personal honour and broader literary significance.


Key Themes and Points:

1. Scott’s Magnum Opus and Its Legacy

  • Hewitt begins by acknowledging that many attendees own handsome Victorian sets of Scott’s novels—often the 48-volume Magnum Opus edition published between 1829–33.
  • He outlines how this edition was marketed as Scott’s “corrected and improved” version, often taken as definitive.
  • However, Hewitt challenges the authenticity of this claim, noting it was partly a commercial venture initiated after Scott’s financial crash of 1826 to pay off debts.
  • The Magnum Opus was portrayed as Scott’s final word, but in fact, it often relied on already corrupted texts and contained interventions by editors and printers.


2. Scott’s Editorial Myth

  • Scott’s public image as a “careless writer” was partly self-inflicted and partly perpetuated by others, including James Hogg and the Ballantynes.
  • Anecdotes, such as Ballantyne’s dismissal of Scott’s proofreading habits, reinforce this perception.
  • Hewitt suggests that this myth served the commercial purpose of promoting the Magnum as a rare moment of revision, while overlooking Scott’s deeper creative process.


3. The Edinburgh Edition’s Reappraisal

  • Hewitt makes the case that Scott was not careless but rather coherent and deliberate in his manuscripts.
  • The Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels seeks to correct over a century of misconceptions by returning to Scott’s original manuscripts, proofs, correspondence, and early printed texts.
  • Evidence shows Scott did not systematically revise his texts after publication—except during work on the Interleaved Set acquired by the National Library of Scotland in 1986.


4. Textual Challenges

  • Scott’s manuscripts were frequently miscopied by scribes and altered by typesetters to conform with 19th-century publishing norms (e.g. punctuation, spelling).
  • Errors and “corrections” introduced through this process—e.g. excessive commas, changed word order, omitted lines—led to texts that often diverged dramatically from Scott’s intentions.
  • Hewitt gives detailed examples from Kenilworth, Redgauntlet, and The Antiquary to show how meaning was altered by copyists’ ignorance or editorial ‘fussiness’.


5. Romantic Theory and Editorial Responsibility

  • The address touches on Scott’s own views of inspiration and originality—quoting from his Journal and his 1830 essay on ballad imitation.
  • Hewitt aligns Scott with Romantic ideals, seeing him as a writer who produced his best work in moments of creative flood rather than through meticulous polish.
  • The editorial task, then, is to preserve Scott’s imaginative drive rather than obscure it through imposed structure or correction.


6. Concluding Vision

  • Quoting Alexander Pope’s Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, Hewitt contrasts the scorned role of editors with the passion and discovery he and his colleagues experienced.
  • He invites the audience to rediscover Scott afresh, asserting that the new Edinburgh Edition—to be released from late 1990—will allow readers to reconnect with Scott’s original power and creativity.


Notable/Interesting Points:

  • Personal Honour: Hewitt expresses his humility at joining the ranks of presidents like Lord Tweedsmuir, Sir Herbert Grierson, and David Daiches.
  • Pioneering Scholarship: The lecture serves as an unofficial introduction to the philosophy behind the Edinburgh Edition, a landmark in modern Scott scholarship.
  • Editorial Philosophy: The address subtly redefines editing not as fixing errors, but as interpreting and preserving authorial intention.
  • Unique Access: Hewitt notes that only one major Scott manuscript (Rob Roy) remains inaccessible—the rest are held in Edinburgh, London, Canterbury, New York, New Jersey, and Moscow.

Download the [transcript] or read the [bulletin]

Subsidiary Toasts


After the Toast to the Queen had been honoured the President proposed ‘The City of Edinburgh’ which Councillor David Brown, representing the Lord Provost, acknowledged. 


The Toast to “The University of Edinburgh” was proposed by Professor David Daiches to which Alex M. Currie, Secretary to the University replied.


The toast to ‘the President’ was then made by Paul H. Scott, Chairman of Council.

David Hewitt (MA, PhD, FEA, FRSE) is Professor in Scottish Literature. He is editor-in-chief of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels, the first scholarly edition of Scott's fiction, which is published in thirty volumes by Edinburgh University Press and was completed in 2015. The Edition has revolutionised ideas of Scott and his achievement and has generated, and continues to generate, many exciting ideas and opportunities for postgraduate research.


Professor Hewitt heads with Dr Alison Lumsden the Walter Scott Research Centre, which exists to conduct and to promote research into Scott and his works, his intellectual context, and the ways in which his work was used by other writers, other arts, business, and politics, particularly in the nineteenth century. Its interests are interdisciplinary, and its scope is international.


Professor Hewitt has wide interests in Enlightenment, Romantic, and Scottish literature, and particularly in Burns, Scott, and Byron, as well as Scottish language, and in textual and bibliographical research. On completing the Edition, he will embark on an AHRC-supported project with Dr Barbara Fennell to investigate the political implications of the representation of dialect speech in Scotland and Ireland 1700-1900.

He has supervised many PhD theses on a range of authors including Jane Austen, James Beattie, Robert Burns, Oliver Goldsmith, James Hogg, J. G. Lockhart, and Walter Scott. He will welcome further enquiries.