Another Wednesday and time again for Shelf Control. Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies. It appears every Wednesday, and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR. To participate, simply pick a book from your TBR, write a post about it and link back to Lisa’s page. I would also love to read about your picks, so do share your links in the comments if you plan to participate.
For 2019 I’ve been planning to pick a reading theme each month (based on my overlong TBR), and pick books to read that fit that theme (something I did for a few months in 2018 as well). This month, since tackling the oldest books on my TBR is one of my 2019 goals, I picked Oldest First as my theme (read about my January plans here). So I thought for the three weeks that I have left of this month, in this feature too, I’ll pick some of the oldest books on my TBR. And this time’s pick is The Bride of Lammermoor by Sir Walter Scott.
The Story: This is a historical novel telling of the tragic love story of Lucy Ashton and her family’s enemy Edgar Ravenswood. Edgar’s father was deposed of title for supporting King James VII, and it was Lucy’s father who bought his estate. Edgar is bent on revenge but gives up his plans after meeting and falling in love with Lucy. But Lucy’s mother isn’t going to allow things to go along smoothly. This is a fictionalised account of an actual story that took place in the Lammermuir Hills in 1669 involving the Dalrymple family. Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor is based on this story.
When and Where I got it: I have an Everyman’s Classics edition paperback, bought second hand a few years ago (probably four years).
The author: Sir Walter Scott was a historian, playwright, novelist and poet born in 1771. He turned to writing novels and stories, genres then considered aesthetically inferior, after having achieved success as a poet. His numerous novels include Waverley, Ivanhoe, and Kennilworth.
Why I want to read it: I’ve read one book by the author earlier, which is Ivanhoe and enjoyed it quite a lot, and had been planning to pick up some more (another reason being that one of the schools I studied in as a child was called Waverley), and spotted this when shopping and picked this up. This year seems the perfect time to read it since first published in 1819, The Bride of Lammermoor turns two hundred this year (see my post on some book birthdays here).
Have you read any books by Scott or do you plan to? Which ones and if you’ve read them, what did you think of them? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Literary Potpourri 
I’d love to hear your reaction to this book! I just read Ivanhoe last year, and had been thinking I should read more of Walter Scott’s works. This one sounds so interesting!
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Doesn’t it? But of course, it is described as tragic so am expecting it to either get teary or the characters to go the Romeo and Juliet way. But anyway, I’m sure it’ll be a good read.
p.s I corrected my mistake up there- the book turns 200 this year.
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I’ve only read Ivanhoe, and that as a teenager, and think I started but never finished The Black Arrow. Incidentally, my mother and her siblings were allegedly named after Walter Scott characters, notably my uncle Ivan (after Ivanhoe) and aunt Renee (after Rowena) but I can’t vouch for the originals of my mother, Dorothy, or my other aunt, Sheila.
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How interesting about the names. Have you read Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm? She was Rebecca Rowena after both the heroines.
I’ve also only read Ivanhoe. I have read a Black Arrow but that one was by RL Stevenson. I kept meaning to read Waverley after I studied in that school but never did get to it.
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Duh! Of course The Black Arrow was by Stevenson, sorry! Blame it on those uniform editions of the classics published in the 1950s when it was hard to tell one classic from another because under the torn dust jackets they all merged into a title ‘by a long dead author’!
No, not read the Sunnybrook Farm book yet, I’m only just starting to get back to those classics seen as ‘girls novels’ way back when, a time when boys were boys and girls were girls and never the twain shall meet…
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I read it a couple of years ago and quite enjoyed it.
Rebecca is something on the lines of the Anne of Green Gables books- so quite enjoyable but fairly similar.
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