GUY MANNERING
By Sir Walter Scott
PF Collier & Son Company, 1917, 494 pages
Reviewed by Michael Beach
The author shares his name with his homeland, born in Scotland in 1771. The work in question was first published in 1815 anonymously. The story has two main characters. The titular character is a military man who dabbles in astrology. He interacts with a landed family in Scotland, the Bertrams, as he heads off to his first assignment. He makes predictions about the family’s young son that include a hazardous future.
The son, Harry, is later kidnapped by gypsies as retribution for how they are treated by the Laird Bertram. In his twenty-year absence a sister is born, the mother dies, the father falls into financial ruin and dies as well. Eventually Harry returns not knowing who he is. Mannering also returns. There are all sorts of interesting characters who either help Harry or try to harm him. In particular, those who helped cause his father’s ruin and then took over his property plot to have him thrown in jail and hanged. Like many novels, the story has a happy ending. Lands return to rightful ownership, the bad guys get their come-uppin’s, and Mannering’s predictions all prove true.
Guy Mannering is considered classic literature. Scott spins a good yarn with plenty of colorful characters. Perhaps the most memorable is the old gypsy woman Meg Merrilies. She mixes it up with thief and lord alike. It is she who ultimately saves Harry and gets him restored, though most people see her only as a rough old hag, not to be trusted. The difficulties between gentry and outcasts seem to make an interesting social statement that can be echoed in more modern events. As it turns out the most evil of the antagonists include one gypsy man and one local sottish man working as a team in murder and usurpation of property.
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