Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Old Mortality
    Unavailable
    Old Mortality
    Unavailable
    Old Mortality
    Ebook671 pages10 hours

    Old Mortality

    By Walter Scott

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    "Old Mortality" is a historical novel by Walter Scott first published in 1816. Set in south west Scotland during the period 1679-89, it explores the political and religious climate of the time through the eyes of Henry Morton. "Old Mortality" is considered to be one of Scott's best novels, and is highly recommended for fans of English civil war fiction. Sir Walter Scott (1771 - 1832) was a seminal Scottish playwright, poet, and historical novelist whose novels were and remain to be widely read and enjoyed the world over. Other notables works by this author include: "Ivanhoe", "Rob Roy", "Old Mortality", "The Lady of the Lake", "Waverley", "The Heart of Midlothian", and "The Bride of Lammermoor". Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly rare and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWhite Press
    Release dateJun 8, 2016
    ISBN9781473362826
    Unavailable
    Old Mortality
    Author

    Walter Scott

    Sir Walter Scott was born in Scotland in 1771 and achieved international fame with his work. In 1813 he was offered the position of Poet Laureate, but turned it down. Scott mainly wrote poetry before trying his hand at novels. His first novel, Waverley, was published anonymously, as were many novels that he wrote later, despite the fact that his identity became widely known.

    Read more from Walter Scott

    Related to Old Mortality

    Related ebooks

    Historical Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Landscape Was His Mistress

      Feb 9, 2022

      IN 1802, John Constable wrote seven observations and resolutions about art. In them, among other things, he pledged to follow Nature, to make ‘unaffected’ pictures, and to avoid ‘common place people’. He also declared that ‘there is no easy way of be

      5 min read

    • Article

      Fairies, Folklore And Forteana

      Jun 15, 2023

      As noted in the last FT, I have recently been collecting accounts of the immortals among us. Folk who refuse to die and who keep turning up through the generations like a bad penny. These undying individuals come in various forms, but in Britain at l

      2 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Oct 28, 2021

      As an ex-amateur boxer, I was interested in the reference to black American world heavyweight champion Jack Johnson in Prejudice on the Pitch (October). My great uncle Alan fought Johnson in Portsmouth on 11 June 1908. Because of Home Office interfer

      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Sep 30, 2021

      Thank you for the recent feature on Sir Walter Scott (The Man Who Invented Scotland?, September). For many of us, the way into history has been through the door marked “literature”, and so we welcome the obvious connections between the two discipline

      4 min read

    • Article

      Crazy For Cider

      Aug 25, 2021

      JAMES CROWDEN is a poet, shepherd and total cider nut. In this, at least his third book on the subject, there is no other drink but that it suffers from his passion for cider, apple brandy and cider’s delicate, sweet sister, perry—and almost no momen

      5 min read

    • Article

      Great Scott!

      Aug 11, 2021

      Great Scott!
      5 min read

    • Article

      Writing The Risings

      Oct 10, 2020

      Writing The Risings
      4 min read

    • Article

      An Utterly Uncivil War

      May 18, 2022

      ( HOW lucky we are in these green and pleasant lands not to have had a savage constitutional crisis for the past 350 years. The spectre of violent constitutional turmoil does not haunt us (save perhaps in Northern Ireland), whereas almost every count

      5 min read

    • Article

      Inspiring Walter Scott

      Aug 14, 2021

      Inspiring Walter Scott
      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jun 9, 2022

      May’s Q&A mentioned Vere St Leger Goold, the loser of the 1879 Wimbledon final, who eventually died on Devil’s Island [a French penal colony]. It reminded me of the story of the man who beat him in that final: John Thorneycroft Hartley, whose “prepar

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Special Relationship

      Mar 20, 2024

      A Special Relationship
      5 min read

    • Article

      The King Of Westminster

      May 24, 2023

      The King Of Westminster
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Old Un’s Notes

      May 4, 2022

      * With the Platinum Jubilee upon us, it’s time to look forward to the 70th anniversary of the Young Elizabethan, too. Founded in 1948 as Collins Magazine for Boys & Girls, it was renamed the Young Elizabethan to celebrate the Queen’s Coronation. In 1

      6 min read

    • Article

      Complicated Men

      Aug 11, 2021

      HOW did a member of the minor gentry from Huntingdon become the head of state? It’s one of the great questions of British history, and Ronald Hutton, professor of history at Bristol University, comes as close as possible to answering it. Until the ea

      5 min read

    • Article

      Great Scott

      Aug 13, 2021

      Great Scott
      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Nov 25, 2021

      Letters
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Man Who Invented Scotland?

      Aug 5, 2021

      The Man Who Invented Scotland?
      8 min read

    • Article

      Finding Facts In Fiction

      Mar 12, 2021

      Finding Facts In Fiction
      10 min read

    • Article

      Letter Of The Month

      Sep 2, 2021

      I loved your feature about the legacy the French Revolution had in Britain (Shockwaves of Revolution, August). I have a degree in fashion journalism, so particularly enjoyed reading about how clothes inspired by the silhouettes worn by the ancient Gr

      4 min read

    • Article

      City Of A Scandal

      Jan 4, 2023

      City Of A Scandal
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Modest Man

      Oct 17, 2019

      The Modest Man
      5 min read

    • Article

      Late Summer Reads Guides, Biographies & Histories

      Aug 7, 2020

      By Chris Paton Did you know that the ‘first public lending library in the country [Scotland]’ was founded in 1680 at Innerpeff ray, near Crieff? Or have you heard the deliciously evocative Gaelic saying ‘cuimhnich air na daoine o’n d’ thàinig thu’ (‘

      5 min read

    • Article

      Home From Home

      Jun 23, 2021

      Home From Home
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Potter For Our Times

      Sep 1, 2021

      WHEN perusing this attractively packaged biography of ceramics impresario Josiah Wedgwood (1730–95), your reviewer was prompted to recall one of the few joyous moments of lockdown, Channel 4’s The Great Pottery Throw Down (GPTD): a show that reveals

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Old Mortality

    3.5/5

    44 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      better than any other Scott novel I know of, except perhaps _Ivanhoe_. I am always amazed at how dextrously Scott gives his characters, and especially his heroes, lines which fit so exactly the character and the situation -- as if they could not have said anything else. (Like the phrases in a Mozart melofy.)
    • 4/5
      Old Mortality is not as well known nor is it as popular as Rob Roy, Ivanhoe or Kenilworth, all of which followed it in the five years subsequent to its publication in 1816. It also precedes The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor, both of which were part of Scott's series of novels "Tales of My Landlord". But Old Mortality is considered one of Scott's best novels.Under the reign of the last Stewarts, there was an anxious wish on the part of government to counteract, by every means in their power, the strict or puritanical spirit which had been the chief characteristic of the republican government. The novel takes its title from the nickname of Robert Paterson, a Scotsman of the 18th century who late in life decided to travel around Scotland re-engraving the tombs of 17th century Covenanter martyrs. The first chapter of the novel describes a meeting between him and the novel's fictitious narrator.The novel tells the story of Henry Morton, who shelters John Balfour of Burley, one of the assassins of Archbishop James Sharp. As a consequence Morton joins Burley in an uprising of Covenanters (who wanted the re-establishment of Presbyterianism in Scotland) which was eventually defeated at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge in 1679, by forces led by the Duke of Monmouth and John Graham of Claverhouse. The bulk of the novel describes the progress of the rebellion from its initial success at the Battle of Drumclog, and the growth of factionalism which hastened its defeat. Henry's involvement in the rebellion causes a conflict of loyalties for him, since he is in love with Edith Bellenden who belongs to a family who oppose the uprising. Henry's beliefs are not as extreme as those of Burley and many other rebel leaders, which leads to his involvement in the factional disputes. The novel also shows their oppressors, led by Claverhouse, to be extreme in their beliefs and methods. Comic relief is provided by Cuddie Headrigg, a peasant who reluctantly joins the rebellion because of his personal loyalty to Morton, as well as his own fanatical mother.This novel is both interesting and exciting in its historical detail. More importantly it addresses the questions of the relative merits of 'enthusiasm' and moderation, of extremism and consensus, when the nation is swept by rebellion and violent change.
    • 4/5
      The situation Scott sets out in Old Mortality lends itself to facile parallels with the modern world: a small but vocal religious minority have resorted to assassination and terrorist action to try to overturn a secular, foreign-sponsored puppet administration and establish a government based on their own religious principles; the army is perpetrating human rights abuses in trying to put down the insurgency and maintain public order with the help of foreign troops; decent, ordinary people are caught in the middle between the two sides. Obviously, there are ways in which all religiously-motivated civil wars are much the same wherever and whenever they take place, but we shouldn't get too carried away...The real problem Scott had to deal with in putting his case for moderation was the classic one of constructing a story with a good, moral hero at its centre without making it dull. In this particular case it was exacerbated by the need to give the hero, Henry Morton, ideas about religious tolerance, human rights, and the rule of law that aren't really plausible for someone living 30 years before the birth of David Hume. This anachronism is probably more obvious to a modern reader than it would have been to Scott's contemporaries, and it rather undermines the credibility of the rest of the story. Probably because of this, I found it much more difficult to identify with the moral arguments than in The Heart of Mid-Lothian, where Scott found a clever way to rearrange the conventional romantic structure of the narrative to keep the "hero" offstage and put a much less obvious character at the centre of the story. It also doesn't help that we have to fight our way through several levels of narrators before we get to the start of the actual story.On the other hand, there's a huge amount to enjoy in Old Mortality. Scott dealt very creatively with the problem of language. The Covenanters' Old Testament rant and the Scots dialect of the working-class characters probably aren't really any more authentic a representation of 17th century dialogue than the standard English of the gentry, but they give the characters who use them an intelligible but very individual voice, and add greatly to the pleasure of reading the story. For most readers, the really memorable characters are going to be Cuddie Headrigg and his mother Mause; Poundtext, MacBriar, and the other preachers; and of course Lady Margaret Bellenden and her memories of Charles II taking his disjune at Tillietuddlem Castle.
    • 2/5
      Sorry, the narrative is 90% in period dialect and idiom, which I had to give up trying to follow after 5 chapters. I loved Waverly and Guy Mannering.