Scott Revolutionised: What We Have Learned from Editing the Waverley Novels

Summary of the Talk:

This talk explores how the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels (EEWN) has transformed our understanding of Walter Scott as both writer and artist. Through twenty years of collaborative editorial work, the EEWN has challenged long-held assumptions about Scott’s carelessness and revealed the complex, deliberate nature of his craft.

The project involved extensive research into Scott’s manuscripts, correcting hundreds of misreadings, restoring omitted lines, and reversing distortions introduced by editors, printers, and copyists over the centuries. Far from being a hasty or careless author, Scott emerges as a thoughtful, meticulous reviser whose texts were often compromised by intermediaries in the publication process.

Hewitt argues that editing Scott has revealed him to be a much more intellectually rigorous and stylistically adventurous writer than previously understood. The EEWN not only restores his original texts but also reasserts the sophistication of his language, narrative structure, and historical vision.

Key Points and Insights

1. Scott was not careless.
Despite the common view, Scott revised heavily and carefully. What many believed to be stylistic flatness or inconsistency was often the result of compositorial or editorial interference.

2. Hundreds of corrections made.
Examples from The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Redgauntlet, and The Antiquary show major changes: restoring ‘savour’ instead of ‘favour’ (with biblical resonance), or ‘artisans’ instead of ‘citizens’, providing sharper social detail.

3. Extensive textual loss and distortion.
Entire phrases, lines, and words were regularly dropped during transcription or printing. These losses have altered characterisation, tone, and thematic depth across many novels.

4. Scott’s own image was misleading.
Though he sometimes presented himself as a rushed or lazy writer, this was a public pose. His private manuscripts and extensive proof corrections contradict this self-image.

5. Pressure to sanitise.
Scott’s publishers often bowdlerised or censored material. Examples include removing references to pregnancy, toning down language, or deleting implications about sexual relationships, especially in Saint Ronan’s Well and Count Robert of Paris.

6. Language innovation.
Scott was adventurous in his language, integrating Scots, reviving old terms, coining neologisms, and incorporating Americanisms. His use of dialect and linguistic variety was groundbreaking and often resisted by his editors.

7. Punctuation reflects interpretation.
Early printers imposed conventional punctuation which often flattened Scott’s expressive style. EEWN restores original dashes and rhythms found in his manuscripts, which better represent character speech and narrative tone.

8. Long planning periods.
While Scott wrote rapidly, his ideas were often developed years in advance. The Pirate, for instance, drew on a tour of the northern isles made seven years before its publication.

9. Depth of learning and reference.
Scott’s quotations—from Shakespeare to obscure chapbooks—are integral to his themes and characterisation. The EEWN’s annotations show how densely referential his work is, often embedding hidden meanings only apparent to learned readers.

10. Ivanhoe and the historical novel.
Despite historical liberties and anachronisms, Scott’s aim was not strict historical accuracy but moral and political reflection. Ivanhoe is viewed as the first major English novel on race relations and national identity.

11. Reassessing Scott's place in literature.
The EEWN has helped restore Scott’s status by showing his texts as layered, deliberate, and rich in intertextual complexity. This aligns with modern appreciation of metafiction and layered narrative voice.

12. Future of Scott studies.
The EEWN paves the way for a new edition of Scott’s poetry and expanded research into his influence on literature, culture, and nationalism. The upcoming catalogue of his chapbook collection at Abbotsford is expected to open further avenues of scholarship.