For the most popular of his Scottish romances, published at the end of 1817, Scott drew on the legends and historical anecdotes about Rob Roy MacGregor he had collected in his youth. The famous outlaw is only one of a series of vivid characters who cast their spell of the novel's hero, Frank Osbaldistone, on his journey through the wild northern territories of the new United Kingdom. Banished from his father's house, falling hopelessly in love with the spirited Diana Vernon, Frank becomes involved in he conspiracy surrounding the disastrous Jacobite rising of 1715. His adventures take him to `MacGregor's country', across the Highland Line, where he finds cruelty, heartbreak, and some unlikely friends. By turns thrilling and comic, Rob Roy contains Scott's most sophisticated treatment of the Scottish Highlands as an imaginary space where the modern and the primitive come together. Newly edited from the `Magnum Opus' text of 1830, this edition includes full explanatory notes and a critical introduction exploring the originality and complexity of Scott's achievement.

This novel is set in the north of England and Scotland in the years before, during and after the first Jacobite rising in 1715. Rob Roy is a swashbuckling chieftain of the clan MacGregor who is forced to become an outlaw for his alleged espousal of the Jacobite cause.

Ian Duncan is Barbara and Carlisle Moore Professor of English at the University of Oregon.

2007-07-31 Testament to Verbosity

The tale of Rob Roy follows Francis Osbaldistone, who rejects the family money making business for poetry. He is effectively disowned in favour of Rashleigh, and sent to the family home in Northumberland. While there he gradually falls in love with Diana Vernon, and uncovers some of the subterfuge of young Rashleigh. Rashleigh sets out to ruin Francis, and his entire family, forcing him to jounrey to the 'Hielands' in order to recruit Robin Macgregor to foil his plot.
But, this story could have been condensed considerably, and not to its detriment. Painfully long descriptions, running onto multiple pages when a paragraph could as easily covered it. But this was not my primary gripe. The biggest problem is with people like Macgregor, and Nicol, who speak with such strong, and antiquated Scottish accents (rendered into text), that you struggle to make head or tail of the conversations.
That said, you always seem to derive something more from a classic, than the run of the mill novels, and this is no different. But in this instance it is merely a sense of achievement for having struggled through such a book.
If you have already seen the film, expect surprises, for Rob Roy, in this, is almost a background character. The plot follows Francis, and Rob does not even appear in his true guise until halfway through the novel, and as such the book could hardly differ more from the dramtisation.