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Fiction against History

Scott as Storyteller

James Kerr author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:1st Feb '07

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Fiction against History cover

An analysis of the Waverley novels by James Kerr, first published in 1989.

Walter Scott was acutely conscious of the fictionality of his historical novels. In this 1989 book, James Kerr reads the Waverley novels as a grand fictional project constructed around the relationship between the language of fiction and historical reality. We can see throughout Scott's novels a tension between the romancer, recasting the events of the past in accordance with recognizably literary logics, and the historian, presenting an accurate account of the past. This contradiction, reflected in Scott's generic mixture of romance and realism, remains unresolved, even in the most self-conscious of his works. It is in this interplay of fiction and history that Professor Kerr identifies the rich complexity of the Waverley novels.

'A complex and original interpretation of the novels … Kerr conducts some intense and scrupulous reading of Scott's texts, honoring their imaginative richness while exposing their unexpressed ideological commitments. He brings to bear on Scott a sound critical intelligence.' George Levine, Rutgers University

ISBN: 9780521033565

Dimensions: 215mm x 138mm x 10mm

Weight: 214g

156 pages