- Paperback: 528 pages
- Publisher: OUP Oxford (21 Mar 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0192831879
- ISBN-13: 978-0192831873
- Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 13 x 2.5 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 924,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
'It was early in a fine summer's day, near the end of the eighteenth century, when a young man, of genteel appearance, having occasion to go towards the north-east of Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those public carriages which travel between Edinburgh and the Queensferry...' So begins Scott's personal favourite among his novels, in characteristically wry and urbane style, as a mysterious young man calling himself 'Lovel' travels idly but fatefully toward the Scottish seaside town of Fairport. Here he is befriended by the antiquary Jonathan Oldbuck, who has taken refuge from his own personal disappointments in the obsessive study of miscellaneous history. Their slow unravelling of Lovel's true identity will unearth and redeem the secrets and lies which have devastated the guilt-haunted Earl of Glenallan, and will reinstate the tottering fortunes of Sir Arthur Wardour and his daughter Isabella. First published in 1816 in the aftermath of Waterloo, The Antiquary deals with the problem of how to understand the past so as to enable the future. Set in the tense times of the wars with revolutionary France, it displays Scott's matchless skill at painting the social panorama and in creating vivid characters, from the earthy beggar Edie Ochiltree to the loqacious and shrewdly humorous Antiquary himself. The text is based on Scott's own final, authorized version, the 'Magnum Opus' edition of 1829.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
THE present Work completes a series of fictitious narratives, intended to illustrate the manners of Scotland at three different periods. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
THE present Work completes a series of fictitious narratives, intended to illustrate the manners of Scotland at three different periods. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
44 of 47 people found the following review helpful
A very funny novel, beautifully presented at last
21 April 2002
Format:Paperback
Before OUP World's Classics published this handsome, attractive new edition, you could only get this novel in paperback through Penguin. The Penguin edition, sadly, gives the book in a tinkered-with text that Scott never saw, and supplies it with a baffling and unhelpful introduction by some academic called Punter that he wouldn't have understood a word of. This was a crying shame, as The Antiquary is Scott's funniest, most mature book and amply deserves the loving treatment OUP have now given it. The introduction and notes to this new amazingly inexpensive paperback are clear, intelligent & actually intended to help someone enjoy a very subtle and profound piece of storytelling - well done to this N Watson (a good Scots name, promisingly!). The book itself, as I say, is hilarious and surprisingly moving, as good on personal emotion and behaviour as Austen but with the gift for big-scale action and comedy of Dickens or Thackeray -- the bit with the fight with the seal just goes on getting funnier.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Unco Guid!
9 Feb 2007
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is rare fun indeed!--Aside from the rather pat basic plot---But what do you expect when you open one of Sir Walter's Romances? ---the Oxford edition, supplied with Scott's own glossary of unco Scottish terms and the ever helpful Oxford notes offers enjoyment and delight at every turn. I say a Romance, and that IS the basic plot structure here, but it's the Comedy that will catch most readers, I trow: Particularly, the comedy in the learned dissertations and piquant observations of the eponymous antiquary, Mr. Oldbuck, but perhaps even more so in the canny phrasings of the itinerant "Bedesman" or "gaberlunzie" Edie Ochiltree.
The most wonderful character though is the Scottish dialect itself. I find myself, after reading this book that Scott loved above all his others, thinking and almost talking in the musical cadences and turns of phrase interlarded throughout the book
Perhaps, as the academics say, this is a book that deals with "the problem of how to understand the past so as to enable the future." - Enable the future? - In any event, don't miss out on these truly lovely narrative annals of times lang syne.
And beware the "phoca"!
The most wonderful character though is the Scottish dialect itself. I find myself, after reading this book that Scott loved above all his others, thinking and almost talking in the musical cadences and turns of phrase interlarded throughout the book
Perhaps, as the academics say, this is a book that deals with "the problem of how to understand the past so as to enable the future." - Enable the future? - In any event, don't miss out on these truly lovely narrative annals of times lang syne.
And beware the "phoca"!
Book Review by a Scots/American
6 Jan 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Readers;
It is good to see Sir W.Scott back amoung the shelves. The creator of modern Scots culture and literature, is at last seen in America.
This is a good book to start you first reading of this writer of the highest order.
Happy Reading, buy a copy, and then some others
It is good to see Sir W.Scott back amoung the shelves. The creator of modern Scots culture and literature, is at last seen in America.
This is a good book to start you first reading of this writer of the highest order.
Happy Reading, buy a copy, and then some others
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
