GBS_insertPreviewButtonPopup ISBN 9780748605774 Find Out What Scott Really WroteGoing back to the original manuscripts a team of scholars has uncovered what Scott originally wrote and intended his public to read before errors misreadings and expurgations crept in during production The Edinburgh Edition offers you A clean corrected textTextual historiesExplanatory notesVerbal changes from the first edition textFull glossariesTitle DescriptionSet at the end of the reign of James VI and I The Fortunes of Nigel sits among Walter Scott s richest creations in political insight range of characterisation and linguistic virtuosity Well versed in the political literature of the period Scott drew a detailed picture of London in the early 17th century while charting the effects of Scottish influx into the English capital the ambitions and fears of the incomers and the suspicion they aroused The complex web of political and sexual intrigue and especially of all important financial dealings and double dealings is traced with a master s hand No Scott novel has a more memorable cast of characters King James heads them with his childish irresponsibility and elusive character a would be Solomon and father of his country theological disputant prurient bisexual But not far behind are jeweller George Heriot clockmaker Davie Ramsay courtier Sir Mungo Malagrowther servant Richie Moniplies and many vivid minor characters Steeped in Jacobean drama this tale shows Scott revelling in the linguistic riches of the age Previous editions have obscured his virtuosity as seen in a dazzlingly proto Joycean monologue by a Greenwich barber but painstaking examination of the manuscript and proofs for this new edition allows the full vigour of Scott s achievement to be savoured for the first time