On the auspicious night that Guy Mannering is shown to the house of the Bertrams of Ellengowan, the Bertrams' heir is born, and Mannering, a skeptical astrologer, predicts the child's future. Five years later the prophecy is fulfilled, and the heir, Harry Bertram, becomes the center of a plot to rob the boy of his inheritance. Harry's subsequent struggles are set against a backdrop of chaos and upheaval in a socially fragmented Scotland where everyone, from landowners to gypsies, is searching for their rightful place.
Author Biography: Walter Scott (1771-1832) was born and educated in Edinburgh and is the foremost Romantic novelist in the English language. Also a poet, he is credited with establishing the form of the historical novel. Peter Garside is a reader in English Literature at the University of Wales, Cardiff. Jane Millgate is a professor of English at Victoria College, University of Toronto, Canada. She is the author of
Walter Scott: The Making of a Novelist
.