Heart of Mid-Lothian
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The Heart of Mid-Lothian is precisely focused on the trials for murder of John Porteous and of Effie Deans in 1736 and 1737. Yet it is a chronicle—Scott’s only chronicle—which spans the eighty years of the life of David Deans, whose death takes place in 1751. It is the most complex of all Scott’s narratives. It is also the most challenging in that it raises in an acute fashion the problem of a judicial system that does not produce justice. Scott places this fundamental issue in its immediate political context, in history as represented by the life of Deans, and alongside the justice of Providence as perceived by his daughter Jeanie, the greatest of Scott’s heroines.This edition of The Heart of Mid-Lothian provides a new text established in accordance with the tried policies and practices of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels, and in its annotation treats comprehensively the novel’s historical, legal, religious and cultural sources.
Sir Walter Scott, was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet. Many of his works remain classics and include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor. Alison Lumsden is a senior lecturer in the School of Language & Literature at the University of Aberdeen and co-director of the Walter Scott Research Centre. She was for many years research fellow and then General Editor for the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels and has published on several Scottish authors including Robert Louis Stevenson, Nan Shepherd and Louis Grassic Gibbon. She is about to begin work on a scholarly edition of Scott's poetry. David Hewitt was formerly Regius Professor of English at the University of Aberdeen. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels, for which he edited Rob Roy (EUP, 2008), The Heart of Mid-Lothian (with Alison Lumsden; EUP, 2004), Redgauntlet (with G. A. M. Wood; EUP, 1997) and The Antiquary (EUP, 1995).