Waverley (novel)

Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since is a historical novel by Walter Scott (1771–1832). Scott was already famous as a poet, and chose to publish Waverley anonymously in 1814 as his first venture into prose fiction. It is often regarded as one of the first historical novels in the Western tradition.

Edward Waverley, a young English gentleman, is commissioned into a Scottish regiment shortly before the Jacobite rising of 1745. He goes on leave to visit a family friend, the Baron of Bradwardine, and is shocked to find that Bradwardine and his followers are supporters of Charles Edward Stuart, the exiled Jacobite prince. Waverley is forced to choose between his loyalty to the Crown and his admiration for the Jacobites' romantic cause. His gentlemanly actions gain him friends in this precarious situation, on both sides of the rising, who stand him in good stead when the Jacobites are eventually defeated.

Scott chose to publish his later novels as being "by the author of Waverley". In a letter shortly after publication, Scott writes: "I shall not own Waverley; my chief reason is that it would prevent me of the pleasure of writing again." His series of works on similar themes written during the same period have become collectively known as the "Waverley novels". The novel was well received by contemporary critics, and well liked by those who purchased novels in the early 19th century.