Waverley

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and analyzes the source text’s depictions of xenophobia, racism, sexism, sexual assault, ableism, abduction, and loss of pregnancy.

The narrator explains his choice of name for the novel’s title and subtitle. While “Waverley” is a strong but “uncontaminated name,” the narrator chooses the subtitle “’Tis Sixty Years Since” to establish the story as one that will describe a time in the past that is near enough to impact the present.

Sixty years before the novel’s narration in 1805, the protagonist of Waverley, a young Englishman named Edward Waverley, leaves the home of his uncle Sir Everard to join the military.

Sir Everard is a conservative Tory, but his younger brother, Edward’s father Richard, is a Whig with opposite political views. While many Tories believe in the Stuart succession that would make James VII the King of England and Scotland, the Whigs are for the Hanoverian dynasty and King George II, who currently rule over Great Britain. After the news of Richard’s appointment to the Hanoverian government, Everard—an heirless bachelor—decides to bring up Richard’s son Edward as a proper Tory heir to the Waverley family. Edward, Everard, and his sister Rachel live at the family home of Waverley-Honour while Edward’s parents live nearby with hopes that their son will later