Guy Mannering

Born and educated in Edinburgh, Walter Scott (1771-1832) is credited with establishing the form of the historical novel.

Claire Lamont is Professor of English Romantic Literature at University of Newcastle and series editor for Walter Scott in Penguin Classics.

P. D. Garside (editor) is Reader in English at University of Wales, Cardiff.

Jane Millgate is Professor of English at Victoria College, University of Toronto, Canada. She is the author of Walter Scott: The Making of the Novelist.

Guy Mannering is an astrologer who only half-believes in his art. Instead he places his faith in patriarchal power, wealth and social position.

But the Scotland of this novel is a nation in which the old hierarchies are breaking down and Guy must learn the limits of the nabob's authority in a society in which each social group - from gypsies and smugglers, to Edinburgh lawyers, landowners and Border store farmers - lives by its own laws.