The Fair Maid of Perth by Sir. Walter Scott, Bart (LP200)

Circa 1890: Hardcover / Very Good Condition

Original maroon cloth with gilt titles on the cover and spine. 366 very clean and bright pages, last free page missing. Covers slightly rubbed and faded with time and bumped on the corners consistent with age. (LP200)

Postage €6.95 including any additional books ordered.
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“Among all the provinces in Scotland, if an intelligent stranger were asked to describe the most varied and the most beautiful, it is probable he would name the county of Perth.”

So begins one of Sir Walter Scott’s most popular novels, published in 1828 and entitled ‘The Fair Maid of Perth’. The story, which is set in the late 14th century, tells how a bitter rivalry springs up between the suitors of Catharine Glover, the eponymous ‘Fair Maid’ who is famed for her beauty and piety. Encouraged by her devout father, Catharine spurns the advances of notable warriors, who eventually resort to violence and murder. Only at the end of the story, when a lot of blood has been shed, does Catharine choose to accept the hand of one of them in marriage. It is a dark tale, and perfectly suited to the taste of Scott’s adoring readers. But where did he find the inspiration for his story?

In his introduction to ‘The Fair Maid of Perth’, Scott gives us some insights. He relates a conversation that took place in Canongate, Edinburgh, between himself and a woman whom he names as Mrs Baliol. As they talk, Scott laments that so many stirring deeds in Scotland’s history are so thoroughly researched that they leave no scope for the imagination; as an example, he cites the assassination of David Rizzio in Mary Queen of Scots’ chambers at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and he argues good-naturedly with Mrs Baliol about the origin of the bloodstains that can still be seen on the floor. Trying to glimpse a well-worn story in a fresh light, Scott ponders the motives of the chief protagonists in Rizzio’s murder… and an idea for the plot of ‘The Fair Maid of Perth’ begins to form in his head, harking back to a gilded age of romance and chivalry.

Scott decided that, in order to capture the imagination of his readers and persuade the historians among them to suspend disbelief, he would set his story in the late 14th century - a timeframe that could still claim an acceptable degree of mystery. He also needed a geographical stage that had the same qualities: a landscape of exceptional beauty that was far enough off the beaten track to appear wild and unexplored. To Mrs Baliol, he asserts that fertile gaps in human knowledge still exist, despite the inroads of research:

“There are plenty of wildernesses in Scottish history, through which, unless I am greatly misinformed, no certain paths have been laid down from actual survey, but which are only described by imperfect tradition, which fills up with wonders and with legends the periods in which no real events are recognised to have taken place. Even thus, as Mat Prior* says—

‘Geographers on pathless downs

Place elephants instead of towns.’”

Setting aside his rather brutal observation about the habits of geographers, Scott can now be as creative as he likes, because he has conjured a misty no-man’s land where the elements of fact and fiction are still unresolved.

But was Scott really that scornful about the work of geographers? His lyrical descriptions of Scotland’s landscape hint at someone who is passionate about topography, and they were persuasive enough to attract visitors to Scotland in their thousands, keen to experience for themselves the ‘land of the mountain and the flood’. In his ‘Landscape in history and other essays’ (1905), Sir Archibald Geikie observed that “…no man ever did so much as Walter Scott to make the natural features of his native country familiar to the whole world.”

https://www.rsgs.org/blog/the-fair-maid-of-perth