Ivanhoe

Description

Published in 1819, Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe is a swashbuckling historical romance set in the 12th century, about the life of Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, a fictional Saxon knight. Despite the criticism it received because of its historical inaccuracies, the novel was one of Scott’s most popular works. Banished from England for seeking to marry against his father’s wishes, Ivanhoe joins Richard the Lion Heart on a crusade in the Holy Land. On his return, his passionate desire is to be reunited with the beautiful but forbidden lady Rowena, but he soon finds himself playing a more dangerous game as he is drawn into a bitter power struggle between the noble King Richard and his evil and scheming brother John. The first of Scott’s novels to address a purely English subject, Ivanhoe is set in a highly romanticised medieval world of tournaments and sieges, chivalry and adventure where dispossessed Saxons are pitted against their Norman overlords, and where the historical and fictional seamlessly merge. This hardback edition was published in 1921 by the Clarendon Press and is in very good condition for its age.