20 h 28 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A child is born, a stranger reads the stars, and a Scottish family's future hangs on his warning.
Lost in Galloway, young Englishman Guy Mannering finds shelter at Ellangowan, the home of Godfrey Bertram. That night, the laird's son Harry is born. Mannering casts the child's horoscope and sees danger ahead. In Walter Scott's adventure, a stolen inheritance and a missing boy turn that warning into a mystery.
Around the troubled family stand people with sharply different loyalties. Meg Merrilies remains fiercely faithful despite being driven away, while ambitious lawyer Gilbert Glossin sees opportunity in their weakness. Across the hills, inns and rough roads of Scotland, smugglers, scholars and farmers fill a story that asks how much fate rules human choices.
What you’ll discover
- A warning in the stars Follow a mystery that begins with a horoscope its maker cannot fully trust.
- Meg Merrilies stands firm Meet a feared outsider whose loyalty challenges the claims of more respectable people.
- An inheritance under threat Watch ambition and poor judgment put the future of Ellangowan at risk.
- Warmth along rough roads Find welcome with generous farmer Dandie Dinmont and steadfast devotion in Dominie Sampson.
- Scotland beyond the mystery Explore hill farms, coastal smugglers and questions of law, land and belonging.
Who will love it
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.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A stranger arrives on a night of birth
- Meg Merrilies and the laird's hard hand
- A smuggler, a dead officer, a vanished boy
- The fall of Ellangowan
- Mannering in India and a daughter's love
- Wanderers, farmers and a lawyer with a taste for wine
- What the story says about fate and choice
- Outsiders, loyalty and the moral weight of Meg
- How Scott builds the tale and why it has lasted
Who’s who
- Guy ManneringA proud, honorable young Englishman and later a colonel, who casts a horoscope at Ellangowan and is drawn back to Scotland by its consequences.
- Meg MerriliesA tall gypsy woman with a prophet's voice and a fierce loyalty to the Bertram family, though the laird once drove her out.
- Godfrey BertramThe kindly but weak laird of Ellangowan, whose poor judgment and trust in the wrong adviser bring trouble on his house.
- Harry BertramThe infant heir of Ellangowan, whose birth the story opens with, and whose fate hangs on the astrologer's warning.
- Gilbert GlossinA polite, ambitious lawyer who wants to rise in the world and sees the Bertrams' weakness as his opportunity.
- Dominie SampsonA gaunt, absent minded scholar and tutor, comic to look at, who stays faithful to the family through every misfortune.
- Dandie DinmontA big, generous Liddesdale farmer who keeps hardy terriers and gives a stranger in need a warm welcome.
- Julia ManneringThe colonel's spirited daughter, who loves a young officer her father will not accept and who has a mind of her own.
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- Large-print eBook
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- Audiobook
- 20 h 28 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Guy Mannering, ou l’Astrologue
by Walter Scott · 1815
At Ellangowan, an English stranger reads a newborn heir's stars and marks three dangerous dates.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 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.
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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.
The author
Walter Scott
1771–1832 · Scottish novelist and poet
Walter Scott (1771–1832) was a Scottish novelist, poet and playwright. He was born in Edinburgh and lived in Scotland, including at Abbotsford near Melrose, where he died. He wrote Marmion (1808), The Lady of the Lake (1810), Waverley (1814), Rob Roy (1817) and Ivanhoe (1819).
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