130 Years
Reading Sir Walter:
The Heart of Mid-Lothian
(Chapter 38) When Jeanie meets Queen Caroline
Read by W. Fraser Elgin C.A.
This is the first Waverley Novel I read, at the age of 14, while at George Watson's College, Edinburgh. The passage that I quote made a great impression on me then and to this day is my favourite. The lead-up to the excerpt is as follows: Effie Deans, the sister of the heroine, Jeanie, has been condemned to death for child murder in 1736. Jeanie refuses to commit perjury, which might have saved her sister's life. Instead she walks from Edinburgh to London to seek pardon in person from Queen Caroline, wife of George II.
October 2009
The Interview of Jeanie Deans with the Queen an engraving made in 1832 by Charles Heath based on a drawing by C. R. Leslie of a scene from Scott's novel The Heart of Mid-Lothian.
Image used here with the permission of the [Walter Scott Digital Archive Image Collection].
