The success of _Waverley_ led to the production of that series of
works, by which the author established himself "as the greatest master
in a department of literature, to which he has given a lustre
previously unknown;--in which he stands confessedly unrivalled, and
not approached, even within moderate limits, except, among
predecessors, by Cervantes, and among contemporaries, by the author of
_Anastasius_." We shall merely enumerate these works, with the date of
their publication, and, as a point of kindred interest, the sums for
which the original manuscripts, in the hand-writing of Sir Walter,
were sold in the autumn of last year. Of the merits of these
productions it would be idle to attempt to speak in our narrow space;
but, for a finely graphic paper, (probably the last written previously
to the author's death,) on the literary claims of Sir Walter Scott, as
a novelist, we may refer the reader to No. 109 of the _Edinburgh
Review_.
Year of Orig. MS.
Publication. sold in
Novels. Vols. 1831, for
£. s.
Waverley 3 1814 18 0
Guy Mannering 3 1815 27 10
The Antiquary* 3 1816 42 0
Tales of My Landlord 4 1st ser. 1816 33 0
Rob Roy* 3 1818 50 0
Tales of My Landlord 4 2nd ser. 1818
Tales of My Landlord 4 3rd ser. 1819 14 14
Ivanhoe 3 1820 12 0
The Monastery* 3 1820 18 18
The Abbot 3 1820 14 0
Kenilworth 3 1821 17 0
The Pirate 3 1822 12 0
The Fortunes of Nigel 3 1822 16 16
Peveril of the Peak* 3 1823 42 0
Quentin Durward 3 1823
St. Ronan's Well 3 1824
Redgauntlet 3 1824
Tales of the Crusaders 4 1825
Woodstock 3 1826
Chronicles of the Canongate 2 1st ser. 1827
Chronicles of the Canongate 3 2nd ser. 1828
Anne of Gerstein 3 1829
Tales of My Landlord 4 4th ser. 1831
Making in all, 73 volumes, within 17 years.
(Those marked * were alone perfect.)