This is perhaps the most celebrated novel by an author who was a huge best-seller in his time and respected by Jane Austen, George Eliot and Charles Dickens among others.
It belongs to the now-outdated 'gadzooks' style of historical fiction with lots of 'thous', 'haths' and 'yes' etc. I suppose that created verisimilitude in those days but it sounds forced and inauthentic to my ears. Modern historical novelists, such as Ken Follett, in The Pillars of the Earth, avoid this. But you can say for Scott, who was one of the pioneers of historical fiction, that he did it better than some of his later imitators, such as Charles Kingsley in Hereward the Wake.
It is told in the 3rd person omniscient style, past tense, and framed as a story, allowing scope for the author to interject, for example: “His furred cloak and high cap, seen by the wiry and broken light, would have afforded a study for Rembrandt, had that celebrated painter existed at the period.” (Ch 22) He also bids for verisimilitude by citing his sources. For example, in chapter 24 he mentions both the Anglo-Saxon chronicle and the Wardour manuscript as sources. The latter, however, is fictional, Wardour being a character in The Antiquary, published 4 years before Ivanhoe).
He has clearly done a significant amount of historical research. This is displayed as early as chapter one, when Wamba points out that Saxons talk of swine and oxen because they farm the animals, while the Normans use the words pork and beef when they eat the meat. Given how early this was written, I was impressed with how accurate Scott seemed to be, although there are some discrepancies and inconsistencies, in particular with dynastic relationships, where, for example, great uncles and prescribed and grandfathers and grandfathers as fathers.
In terms of the plot, it is a cracking yarn, a classic adventure story. It includes a jousting and melee tournament with not one, but two, incognito knights who, naturally, defeat all comers. It includes outlaws waylaying travellers in the forest, an attempt at torture in a castle dungeon, the siege of that castle and an ordeal by combat to save the life of one of the heroines who is threatened with being burned as a witch. Robin Hood, Richard the Lionheart, and bad King John make an appearance.
On the other hand, the characters are very one-dimensional. In the main, heroes are goody-goody superheroes and villains are horrid. There are exceptions. The Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert is initially no more than a rapist but, impressed by Rebecca's spirit, woos her for a mistress and, in the showdown, when selected as champion for the Templars against Rebecca, asks her to elope with him. Similarly, Maurice de Bracy is in two minds about Rowena.
Is it anti-Semitic? Isaac the Jew, a moneylender, is a major character and is stereotyped as both cowardly and covetous. However, Scott spends considerable length pointing out how the Jews in this period in England were persecuted and terrorised and in this way condemning anti-Semitism. Rebecca, Isaac's daughter, is the principal heroine; she is strong-minded and virtuous.
Is it sexist? Comments such as, “Women are but the toys which amuse our lighter hours.” (Ch 36) make it seem so, although that is spoken by a villain. Again, Scott is keen to create strong heroines. But there is nevertheless a feeling that he is making stereotypical assumptions. Perhaps the best that can be said is that he was enlightened for his time.
Is it racist? There are very few characters of colour and they are in subordinate positions. There are some unpleasant racial epithets.
So what did Jane Austen see in Scott? (She once said she would read no novels other than those by herself, Maria Edgeworth, who wrote Castle Rackrent, and Walter Scott.) Scott reviewed Emma favourably so the respect was mutual. Fundamentally, they wrote in very different genres. Scott compared Austen's style to that of Dutch interior painting: controlled and utterly realistic. He was writing melodrama and deliberately using exaggeration and extravagance to create drama and to excite the reader: very baroque.
Selected quotes:
- “It is comfort to think that we leave behind us on earth those who shall be wretched as ourselves.” (Ch 24)
- “This damsel has wept enough to extinguish a beacon light. Never was such wringing of hands and such overflowing of eyes ... A water-fiend hath possessed the fair Saxon." (Ch 25)
- “Glory ... is the rusted mail which hangs as a hatchment over the champion's dim and mouldering tomb.” (Ch 30)
- “Even in our own days, when morals are better understood, an execution, a bruising-march, a riot, or a meeting of radical reformers, collects, at considerable hazard to themselves, immense crowds of spectators.” (Ch 43)
It's an entertaining story but somewhat long-winded for modern tastes (every character must be introduced with a long paragraph of description) which I found wearisome.
June 2026; 519 pages
First published in 1819 by Archibald Constable
My paperback edition was issued by Penguin Popular Classics in 1994
Scott wrote a series of historical novels which were hugely influential at the time. They are known as the Waverley novels after the title of the first (later novels were often published anonymously as 'by the author of Waverley).
- Waverley (1814) set during the 1745 Jacobite rebellion
- Guy Mannering (1815) set in Scotland
- The Antiquary (1816) set in Scotland
- The Black Dwarf (1816) set in Scotland
- Old Mortality (1816) set in Scotland
- Rob Roy (1818) about a Scottish bandit
- The Heart of Midlothian (1818) set in Scotland after which the Edinburgh football team was named
- The Bride of Lammermoor (1819) set in Scotland which inspired the opera Lucia di Lammermoor by Donnizetti
- A Legend of Montrose (1819) set in Scotland
- Ivanhoe (1819) set in mediaeval England, complete with Robin Hood
- The Monastery (1820) set in Scotland
- The Abbot (1820) set in Scotland
- Kenilworth (1821) set in Tudor England
- The Pirate (1822) set in Shetland and Orkney
- The Fortunes of Nigel (1822) set in Jacobean London
- Peveril of the Peak (1822) set in England
- Quentin Durward (1823) set in mediaeval France and Belgium
- St Ronan's Well (1824) set in Scotland
- Redgauntlet (1824) set in Scotland and northern England
- The Betrothed (1825) set in Wales
- The Talisman (1825) set in Palestine at the time of the Crusades
- Woodstock (1826) set in England and Brussels during the English civil war
- The Fair Maid of Perth (1828) set in Scotland
- Anne of Geierstein set in Switzerland
- Count Robert of Paris (1831) set in Constantinople in 1097
- Castle Dangerous (1831) set in Scotland
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