| E-book Category: Adventure, Classic
E-book Title: Rob Roy
Author: Walter Scott
Book Description: ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION
When the Editor of the following volumes published, about two
years since, the work called the ``Antiquary,'' he announced that he
was, for the last time, intruding upon the public in his present
capacity. He might shelter himself under the plea that every
anonymous writer is, like the celebrated Junius, only a phantom,
and that therefore, although an apparition, of a more benign, as well
as much meaner description, he cannot be bound to plead to a charge
of inconsistency. A better apology may be found in the imitating
the confession of honest Benedict, that, when he said he would die a
bachelor, he did not think he should live to be married. The best of
all would be, if, as has eminently happened in the case of some distinguished
contemporaries, the merit of the work should, in the
reader's estimation, form an excuse for the Author's breach of promise.
Without presuming to hope that this may prove the case, it is only
further necessary to mention, that his resolution, like that of Benedict,
fell a sacrifice, to temptation at least, if not to stratagem.
It is now about six months since the Author, through the medium
of his respectable Publishers, received a parcel of Papers, containing
the Outlines of this narrative, with a permission, or rather with a
request, couched in highly flattering terms, that they might be given
to the Public, with such alterations as should be found suitable.<*>
* As it maybe necessary, in the present Edition(1829), to speak upon the square,
* the Author thinks it proper to own, that the communication alluded to is entirely
* imaginary.
These were of course so numerous, that, besides the suppression of
names, and of incidents approaching too much to reality, the work
may in a great measure be, said to be new written. Several anachronisms
have probably crept in during the course of these changes;
and the mottoes for the Chapters have been selected without any
reference to the supposed date of the incidents. For these, of course,
the Editor is responsible. Some others occurred in the original
materials, but they are of little consequence. In point of minute
accuracy, it may be stated, that the bridge over the Forth, or rather
the Avondhu (or Black River), near the hamlet of Aberfoil, had not
an existence thirty years ago. It does not, however, become the
Editor to be the first to point out these errors; and he takes this
public opportunity to thank the unknown and nameless correspondent,
to whom the reader will owe the principal share of any amusement
which he may derive from the following pages.
1st December 1817.More... | |
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