“There are some writers who have entirely ceased to influence others, whose fame is for that reason both serene and cloudless, are enjoyed or neglected rather than criticised and read. Among them is Scott. Yet there are no books perhaps upon which at this moment more thousands of readers are brooding and feasting in a rapture of silent satisfaction. The Antiquary, The Bride of Lammermoor, Redgauntlet, Waverley, Guy Mannering, Rob Roy, The Heart of Midlothian — what can one do when one has finished the last but wait a decent interval and then begin again upon the first…” This was the opening of an essay by Virginia Woolf on The Antiquary, in The New Republic in December 1924, a century after the publication of Redgauntlet, Walter Scott’s last indisputably great novel. It is now almost two centuries since the first of his novels, Waverley, was published in 1814. Sadly, it’s probable that the claim made in the third sentence no longer holds good. Woolf’s “common reader” has, it seems, deserted the first master of the historical novel, ironically at a time when the genre is more fashionable than it has been for more than 100 years. All six of last year’s Man Booker shortlist were set in the past, with the winner, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall as far back as the 16th century.
more from Allan Massie at The Standpoint here.