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A challenge for book lovers and bibliophiles, to explore a little further with a literary bucket list
21 Categories with 50 books in each category
Find them at Bucket List
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Had a super afternoon watching the YSP (York Shakepeare Project) production of Twelfth Night in the York Theatre Royal Studio. The venue is a small intimate studio with seating to three sides.
I enjoyed the production immensely with superb performances from all the performers particularly Paul Osborne as Sir Toby Belch and the lovely Emily White ‘stole my heart’ as Olivia.
The production ran from Thursday 3rd April to Saturday 12 April 2014 at 7.45pm with Saturday matinee perfomances at 2pm.
Edito-Service / Heron Books were responsible throughout the 60s, 70s and early 80s for publishing ‘Collectors Editions’ of famous authors, including Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, Aldous Huxley, Alistair MacLean, Wilbur Smith and many many others.
As the leading reseller in Complete Collections of Heron Books you can find them at Heron Books For Sale
You can view my Comprehensive Heron Books Documentation at Heron Books Index
St Ronan’s Well
Meg Dods, a sentimental virago, keeps a rundown inn in a derelict Tweedale village, while the young Laird is living way beyond his means. When a nearby spring becomes a Spa, life changes as a hotel and a troop of social climbers move in. But this is not a tale of antique virtue giving way to decadent ostentation: although the gang at the ‘Well’ dance the seven deadly sins, everyone in the book has feet of clay.
Redgauntlet
In the summer of 1765, Darsie Latimer sets out to discover the secret of his parentage in a journey to the wilds of Dumfriesshire. But very soon he discovers that he must confront not geographical but ideological wilds, for he is kidnapped by Edward Hugh Redgauntlet and involved in a last, fictional, attempt to restore the Stuarts to the British throne. The violent past is repeatedly recalled: the oral diablerie of the inset ‘Wandering Willie’s Tale’, probably the greatest short story ever written in Scots, provides a grotesque vision of the structures of an older Scotland. It is this older Scotland that Redgauntlet wishes to restore.
Woodstock
Woodstock opens in farce, yet it is one of Scott’s darkest novels. It is set in England in 1651 as Parliamentary forces hunt the fugitive Charles Stewart who days previously had been defeated at Worcester. In the superb portrait of Cromwell we see a self-torturing despot who attempts to be in full control in the name of religion; in the rakish Charles we see a man without self-reflection, whose own libertarianism after his restoration to the English throne in 1660 permitted a great burgeoning in scientific enquiry and the arts.
Ann of Geierstein
Anne of Geierstein (1829) is set in Central Europe in the fifteenth century, but it is a remarkably modern novel, for the central issues are the political instability and violence that arise from the mix of peoples and the fluidity of European boundaries. With Anne of Geierstein, Scott concludes the unfinished historical business of Quentin Durward, working on a larger canvas with broader brush-strokes and generally with more sombre colours. The novel illustrates the darkening of Scott’s historical vision in the final part of his career. It is also a remarkable manifestation of the way in which the scope of his imaginative vision continued to expand even as his physical powers declined.
An Appreciation of Sir Walter Scott in Ten Parts
Part I – Walter Scott, A Short Biography
Part II – Scott The Poet.
Part III – The Waverley Novels, Introduction and The First Four Novels (Waverley, Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, Rob Roy)
Part IV The Waverley Novels continued (The Black Dwarf, Old Mortality, Heart Of Midlothian, Bride of Lammermoor, Legend Of Montrose)
Part V – The Waverley Novels continued (Ivanhoe, The Monastery, The Abbot, Kenilworth)
Part VI – The Waverley Novels continued (The Pirate, The Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward)
Part VII – The Waverley Novels continued (St Ronan’s Well, Redgauntlet, Woodstock, Ann of Geierstein)
Parts VIII – The Waverley Novels continued (Coming Soon)
Part IX – Locations Associated with Sir Walter Scott. (Coming Soon)
Part X – Short Bibliography including Editions of The Waverley Novels. (Coming Soon)
Don’t miss any part of this series. Why not subscribe now?
Browse Walter Scott Books For Sale
If you have a Set or Part Set For Sale, why not email me at; sales@hcbooksonline.com
Her Majesty the Queen is to officially reopen the former home of author Sir Walter Scott in the Scottish Borders after its multi-million pound restoration.
The royal visit will take place on 3 July, the day before Abbotsford House reopens to the public.
Read more at Abbotsford
Browse Walter Scott Books For Sale
Having recently purchased a significant Folio Society collection I will be listing these over the next few days.
This superb collection put together over many decades has the following superb library sets;
Anthony Trollope Complete 49 Volumes Folio Society 1981-99
Jane Austen Complete 7 Volume Collection Folio Society 1975
Bronte Sisters Complete 8 Volume Folio Society Collection 1966-71
Jeeves and Wooster Wodehouse 3 Volume Boxed Set Folio Society 2010
Charles Dickens Complete 16 Volume Folio Society Collection 1981-88
Thomas Hardy 13 Volume Folio Society Collection 1975-97
William Shakespeare Complete 37 Volumes 1959-76
Plus many superb individual volumes.
View them now at Folio Society Books For Sale
John Blakey is one of the world’s great watercolour artists, superbly demonstrated in this his first exquisitely illustrated story. A superb fable, this is an epic story of Good and Evil. There are two further books forthcoming in this series.
A tale of a lost little dragon who hatches from his egg many centuries after all of the dragons have been vanquished from the world.
Lundravar the dragon is a charming tale of a journey of discovery, of love and hate, joy and disappointment and of being lost and being found.
His adventures bring him into contact with wonderful characters, who help him discover his true self and the terrible truth of his past.
Alone as the first and last of the great fire-dragons, he has to face a heart-breaking decision: should he remain alone for ever, or give up his powers and resign himself to mortality and happiness?
A truly wonderful fairy tale for children and adults alike.
This beautiful book is now available in three glorious editions;
Publisher Wee Hills, Cootehill, County Cavan, Ireland; 2008
Publisher Harvest Moon, Killeshandra, Ireland; 2010
Publisher Harvest Moon, Killeshandra, Ireland; 2009
The superb exclusive Special Edition. Each volume contains over 100 exquisite full colour illustrations and is printed on fine quality paper. It is beautifully hand-bound in rich Italian leather and decorated with polished turquoise set in silver and tooled and edged in gold. Each copy is certificated by the publishers (strictly 650 worldwide) and signed and numbered by the artist and author, John Blakey.
Why not Browse my Full Catalogue?
The Pirate
The novel is set in Orkney and Shetland in 1689, the plot hinges on an illicit relationship, and is driven by dark men twisted by their criminality, an obsessed woman searching for her lost son, and the murderous rivalry of two young men – a family tale which illustrates the uses and abuses of traditional lore, as well as Scott’s extraordinary grasp of the literature of the north.
Scott draws heavily on the diary he kept on his tour round the lighthouses of Scotland in 1814. In both the diary and the novel he weighs the real need to improve the agricultural methods of this barely subsistence economy against the force of tradition and the human cost of rapid change.
The Fortunes of Nigel
Set at the end of the reign of James VI and I, The Fortunes of Nigel sits among Walter Scott’s richest creations in political insight, range of characterisation and linguistic virtuosity.
Well versed in the political literature of the period, Scott drew a detailed picture of London in the early 17th century while charting the effects of Scottish influx into the English capital: the ambitions and fears of the incomers and the suspicion they aroused. The complex web of political (and sexual) intrigue, and especially of all-important financial dealings and double-dealings, is traced with a master’s hand.
No Scott novel has a more memorable cast of characters. King James heads them, with his childish irresponsibility and elusive character: a would-be Solomon and father of his country, theological disputant, prurient bisexual. But not far behind are jeweller George Heriot, clockmaker Davie Ramsay, courtier Sir Mungo Malagrowther, servant Richie Moniplies and many vivid minor characters.
Peveril of the Peak
Sir Geoffrey Peveril, an old Cavalier, and Major Bridgenorth, a fanatical Puritan, are neighboring landowners in Derbyshire, and though of widely different opinions and modes of life, have been connected by ties of reciprocal kindness in the days of the Civil War. Julian, the son of Sir Geoffrey, and Alice, the daughter of Bridgenorth, are deeply in love. The revival of bitter political feeling during the period of the ‘Popish plot’ brings the parents into acute conflict. The author draws elaborate portraits of Charles II and Buckingham, and gives glimpses of Titus Oates, Colonel Blood and Sir Geoffrey Hudson.
‘Here is a plot without a drop of blood; and all the elements of a romance, without its conclusion’, comments the King towards the end of Scott’s longest, and arguably most intriguing, novel. Set against the backdrop of the Popish Plot to overturn Charles II, Peveril of the Peak explores the on-going tensions between Cavalier and Puritan loyalties during the fraught years of Restoration England.
Ranging from Derbyshire to the Isle of Man and culminating in London, it is a novel which interweaves political intrigue, personal responsibilities and the ways in which the forces of history are played out in the struggles of individual human lives. But its true subject is perhaps the role of narration and the limits of storytelling itself.
Quentin Durward
Quentin Durward is a young Scotsman seeking fame and fortune in the France of Louis XI in the fifteenth century. He knows little and understands less, but Scott represents his ignorance and naiveté as useful to ‘the most sagacious prince in Europe’ who needs servants motivated solely by the desire for coin and credit and lacking any interest in France which would interfere with the execution of his political aims. In Quentin Durward Scott studies the first modern state in the process of destroying the European feudal system.
By far the most important of Scott’s sources for Quentin Durward is the splendid Memoirs of Philippe de Comines. Comines, who has more than a walk-on role in the novel itself, was trusted councillor of Charles the Bold of Burgundy until 1472, when Louis XI persuaded him to enter his service. Scott’s contrasting portraits of Louis and Charles, crafty king and fiery duke, essentially derives from Comines, whose memoirs are generally regarded as the first example of modern analytical history rather than chronicle. But it is as story that Quentin Durward succeeds, and it is one of Scott’s most absorbing tales.
An Appreciation of Sir Walter Scott in Ten Parts
Part I – Walter Scott, A Short Biography
Part II – Scott The Poet.
Part III – The Waverley Novels, Introduction and The First Four Novels; Waverley (1814), Guy Mannering, The Antiquary and Rob Roy
Part IV- The Waverley Novels continued (The Black Dwarf, Old Mortality, Heart of Midlothian, Bride of Lammermoor, Legend of Montrose)
Part V – The Waverley Novels continued (Ivanhoe, The Monastery, The Abbot, Kenilworth)
Part VI – The Waverley Novels continued (The Pirate, The Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward)
Part VII – The Waverley Novels continued (St Ronan’s Well, Redgauntlet, Woodstock, Ann of Geierstein)
Parts VIII – The Waverley Novels. (Coming Soon)
Part IX – Locations Associated with Sir Walter Scott. (Coming Soon)
Part X – Short Bibliography including Editions of The Waverley Novels. (Coming Soon)
Don’t miss any part of this series. Why not subscribe now?
Browse Walter Scott Books For Sale
If you have a Set or Part Set For Sale, why not email me at; sales@hcbooksonline.com
Purchased this week a superb Local History Collection as follows;
This superb collection will be listed over the next two weeks
Ivanhoe
Ivanhoe, a trusted ally of Richard-The-Lion-Hearted, returns from the Crusades to reclaim the inheritance his father denied him. He defends Rebecca, a vibrant, beautiful Jewish woman, against a charge of witchcraft – but it is Lady Rowena who is his true love. What happens when he teams up with Robin Hood, brings chivalrous romance to high adventure.
The Monastery
Set on the eve of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, The Monastery is full of supernatural events, theological conflict, and humour. Located in the lawless Scottish Borders, the novel depicts the monastery of Kennaquhair (a thinly disguised Melrose Abbey, whose ruins are still to be seen near Scott’s own home at Abbotsford) on the verge of dissolution, and the fortunes of two brothers as they respond to a new social and religious order. Highlights of the narrative include a moving encounter between two representatives of opposing sides in the Reformation controversy who had been students together in less troubled times, and the final formal procession of the Kennaquhair monks as the reformed forces arrive. A talking-point when the work was first published, the mysterious spectral White Lady, guardian of the magical Black Book, still intrigues readers. A strong comic element is provided by Sir Piercie Shafton with his absurd linguistic mannerisms fashionable at the English court.
The Abbot
This volume concludes the fiction begun in “The Monastery”. Scott follows the fortunes of young Roland Graeme as he emerges from rural obscurity to become an attendant of Mary Queen of Scots during her captivity in Lochleven Castle. Roland’s part in Mary’s escape from the Castle is excitingly narrated, and Mary herself is vividly characterised in captivity, in her brief period of freedom, and in her final defeat.
Kenilworth
No historian’s Queen Elizabeth was ever so perfectly a woman as the fictitious Elizabeth of Kenilworth,” wrote Thomas Hardy. Scott’s magnificent novel recreates the drama and the strange mixture of assurance and profound unease of the age of Elizabeth through the story of Amy Robsart. A woman of great beauty and integrity, Amy is married to the Earl of Leicester, one of the queen’s favorites, who must keep his marriage secret or else incur royal displeasure. Rich in character, melodrama, and romance, Kenilworth is rivaled only by the great Elizabethan dramas.
An Appreciation of Sir Walter Scott in Ten Parts
Part I – Walter Scott, A Short Biography
Part II – Scott The Poet.
Part III – The Waverley Novels, Introduction and The First Four Novels (Waverley, Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, Rob Roy)
Part IV The Waverley Novels continued (The Black Dwarf, Old Mortality, Heart Of Midlothian, Bride of Lammermoor, Legend Of Montrose)
Part V – The Waverley Novels continued (Ivanhoe, The Monastery, The Abbot, Kenilworth)
Part VI – The Waverley Novels continued (The Pirate, The Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward)
Part VII – The Waverley Novels continued (St Ronan’s Well, Redgauntlet, Woodstock, Ann of Geierstein)
Parts VIII – The Waverley Novels continued (Coming Soon)
Part IX – Locations Associated with Sir Walter Scott. (Coming Soon)
Part X – Short Bibliography including Editions of The Waverley Novels. (Coming Soon)
Don’t miss any part of this series. Why not subscribe now?
Browse Walter Scott Books For Sale
If you have a Set or Part Set For Sale, why not email me at; sales@hcbooksonline.com
