Lawrie Todd
Regular price
€107.99
A former revolutionary Scotsman achieves prosperity in New York through hard work and social networking
Scholarly edition that distinguishes the 1832 text from the 1830 texts and presents it with a glossary of Scottish terms and historical notes
Introduction that examines Galt's techniques for combining fiction with lived experience and that provides contextual information about emigration from Scotland, political reform in Britain, and socio-economic conditions and aspirations in New York at the beginning of the nineteenth century
Maps that enable readers to put together the novel's imaginary and actual locations
In Lawrie Todd (1830; rev. ed. 1832), John Galt paints an optimistic portrait of Scottish emigration to North America. Designed as a fictional autobiography, the novel charts the fortunes of its protagonist from his departure from Scotland to avoid being tried for treason over his French Revolutionary sympathies to his rise to prosperity as a shopkeeper in New York City and imaginary towns near Rochester. This edition of the novel provides a contextual introduction, explanatory notes and maps that connect Todd's life story with boom times in New York and with Galt's own efforts at social entrepreneurship in Canada as well as with debates over emigration and political reforms in Britain. It sheds light on Galt's methods of characterisation, including his use of Scots and Yankee" speech habits and adaptation of real-life models, and on his popularity with readers in his own time.
"
John Galt was a Scottish novelist, entrepreneur, and political and social commentator. Regina Hewitt is Professor of English at the University of South Florida. Her most recent publications include Commemorating Peterloo: Violence, Resilience and Claim-Making during the Romantic Era, co-edited with Michael Demson (2019), and an edition of Lawrie Todd for the Edinburgh Edition of the Works of John Galt (2023). Formerly Co-Editor of the European Romantic Review, she now serves as a Consulting Editor for that journal.