Résumé
Résumé de Guy Mannering, ou l’Astrologue
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love mystery, inheritance and old Scotland, with hidden identities, prophecy and fierce loyalty. For anyone who enjoys smugglers, scheming lawyers and stories that turn on fate and choice.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, is a novel by Walter Scott, published in 1815 without his name on the title page. It was his second novel, written soon after the success of Waverley, and he set it in the south west of Scotland in the middle of the eighteenth century. It is a tale of a lost child, a stolen inheritance, a gypsy woman with a terrible gift for prophecy, and an English gentleman who dabbles in the stars.
The story begins on one night. Guy Mannering, a young Englishman fresh from Cambridge, loses his way in Galloway and is taken in at Ellangowan, the house of the laird Godfrey Bertram. That same night the laird's wife gives birth to a son, and Mannering, who has studied astrology, is asked to read the boy's future. What he sees there starts a chain of events that runs through more than twenty years.
In this summary you get the whole shape of the book, from the horoscope to the fall of a great house, and from the wars of India to the hills of the Border. You also get Scott's cast of smugglers, lawyers, farmers and scholars, and the ideas that hold them together. We begin with the stranger on the road and the birth he happens to meet.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A stranger arrives on a night of birthFree
- 2Meg Merrilies and the laird's hard hand
- 3A smuggler, a dead officer, a vanished boy
- 4The fall of Ellangowan
- 5Mannering in India and a daughter's love
- 6Wanderers, farmers and a lawyer with a taste for wine
- 7What the story says about fate and choice
- 8Outsiders, loyalty and the moral weight of Meg
- 9How Scott builds the tale and why it has lasted
Point clé 1 sur 9
A stranger arrives on a night of birth
Scott opens with a traveler lost in the dark. Guy Mannering is a young Englishman, educated at Cambridge, who is touring the Scottish lowlands. His horse wanders, the light fails, and a kindly local man guides him to Ellangowan, a rambling old house by the sea, the seat of the Bertram family for many generations.
The laird, Godfrey Bertram, is an easygoing and rather vain man. He is good natured, but he is not wise, and he is glad of company. He welcomes Mannering warmly, though the house is in a flutter because his wife is in labor. By morning the household has an heir, a baby boy who is named Henry, though the family calls him Harry.
The laird learns that his guest has a strange hobby. Mannering has studied the old art of astrology, and he half believes in it and half distrusts it. The laird, delighted to have a clever man in the house on such a day, begs him to cast the child's horoscope. Mannering hesitates, but he agrees.
He works out the position of the stars at the hour of birth and finds a troubling pattern. The child's life, he says, will meet danger at three points, in his fifth year, his tenth, and his twenty first. He writes his findings down for the family, and he does not hide his unease. Even a man who doubts the science feels the chill of what he has written.
This first scene sets the terms for the whole novel. It gives us a prophecy to wait on, a house that seems secure, and a visitor who will not forget it. Mannering leaves Ellangowan, but the novel is not done with him. The boy's fate and the Englishman's conscience are now tied together, and Scott will keep that thread taut until the very end.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Questions about Guy Mannering, ou l’Astrologue
What is Guy Mannering about?
It follows an English gentleman who casts the horoscope of a newborn Scottish heir. When the boy vanishes years later, a lawyer takes the estate, and the old wrongs return to be settled over many years.
Who is Meg Merrilies in Guy Mannering?
Meg Merrilies is a tall, fierce gypsy woman who lives near Ellangowan. She has a prophetic manner and a deep loyalty to the Bertram family, even after the laird drives her people away.
When was Guy Mannering written and is it a true story?
Scott published it in 1815. It is fiction, set in Scotland in the middle of the eighteenth century, though it draws on real places, customs, smuggling and the legal life of Edinburgh.
Is Guy Mannering hard to read?
It reads steadily, and the comic and adventurous scenes help carry a reader along.
Is Guy Mannering worth reading?
Readers who like rich plots, strong characters and a sense of place will find it rewarding. It offers mystery, humor and a moving story of loyalty.