Kenilworth
By (Author) Walter Scott
Edited by J. Alexander
Introduction by J. Alexander
Penguin Books Ltd
Penguin Classics
27th April 2006
28th January 1999
United Kingdom
Paperback
528
Width 130mm, Height 198mm, Spine 22mm
369g
Part of the series of Waverley Novels published by Penguin based on the acclaimed scholarship of the Edinburgh Editions. In the court of Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, is favoured above all the noblemen of England. It is rumoured that the Queen may chose him for her husband, but Leicester has secretly married the beautiful Amy Robsart. Fearing ruin if this were known, he keeps his lovely young wife a virtual prisoner in an old country house. Meanwhile Leicester's manservant Varney has sinister designs on Amy, and enlists an alchemist to help him further his evil ambitions. Brilliantly recreating the splendour and pageantry of Elizabethan England, with Shakespeare, Walter Ralegh and Elizabeth herself among its characters, Kenilworth (1821) is a compelling depiction of intrigue, power struggles and superstition in a bygone age.
Walter Scott (1771-1832) was an extremely influential novelist, establishing the form of the historical novel and the short story. He wrote both dramas and novels, including The Antiquary and The Tale of Old Mortality. J. H. Alexander is currently Reader in English at the Unversity of Aberdeen and has published critical studies of Walter Scott's poetry. For the Edinburgh edition of the Waverley novels he has also edited The Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of the Wars of Montrose.