Waverley

Edward Waverley, a young English officer of romantic temperament, takes leave from his regiment and travels north into the Scottish Highlands, where he is drawn into the world of the clans and the Jacobite rising of 1745. Caught between his loyalty to the Hanoverian crown and his admiration for the exiled Stuart cause, he is swept up in rebellion, battle, and a divided heart. Walter Scott’s first novel, published anonymously in 1814, is widely regarded as the founding work of the historical novel in English. It set a pattern that shaped fiction across Europe, threading private lives through the sweep of real events, and its portrait of a vanishing Highland culture made it hugely popular. Free to read here as a PDF and EPUB download.