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Sketches by Boz, the first volume of the new Oxford Dickens, was also the title of Dickens's first book. It is a collection of sixty pieces, mostly humorous although there is nothing funny about 'A Visit to Newgate', which first appeared as contributions to magazines and newspapers in the mid 1830s. They are distinguished by his sharp and often satirical observation of social situations and London characters; but, with one exception, they are works of fiction. Fourteen can be described as short stories, but most are sketches presented to us as reportage. They show why Dickens was recognised as a brilliant new talent from the outset of his career. In the absence of any manuscripts, the text of each piece (with one exception) is based upon the first published version. They offer Dickens as he appeared to his very first readers in the mid 1830s, and as he has not been seen since. Dickens edited later editions, cutting contemporary references, oaths and sexual innuendo. The consequence of reading Dickens as he was is startling, for these pieces both offer a direct reflection of the social scene in London of the period, and have a raciness which Dickens excised from later printings. This work rediscovers the young Dickens.

The third of the Waverley Novels is dominated by two old men, Jonathan Oldbuck (the Antiquary of the title) and the beggar Edie Ochiltree. Together they apply their knowledge of the past to sort out the confusion of the present, and in doing so restore the fortunes of ancient houses. This was Scott's favourite among his novels, and presents a quizzical and amusing view of the profession of history and, by implication, of Scott's own practice as writer and collector.

The early days of cinema certainly weren't black and white, and if the films were silent, the audiences were anything but. This spellbinding book reveals just what was seen - and heard, and said - in the picture houses of Britain at that time. It is a gaudy, raucous, rancorous, glorious world. And it is the world into which Five Nights emerged. Hugely controversial, and the subject of a bitter court case, that film hasn't been seen for a hundred years. But in these pages it comes to life again. Drawing on long-forgotten documents, David Hewitt reconstructs the film and places it in a setting of his own creation, in the process holding up a kaleidoscope from a different age. There are actors and actresses here, film producers and film directors. But there are suffragettes and Zeppelins as well, Pimple and Winky, Chinese women - both real and imagined - and countless men trying to make you think they are Charlie Chaplin. This is a heady world, where everyone speaks at once and a young woman can direct a film of her own. But anyone can lose everything at the whim of a constable or a magistrate - or at the hands of an angry mob. It is a world of eyots and dulcitones, psalterium, imortelles and bhang. You might think it a familiar world, but it has surely never seemed so strange. The author, David Hewitt, can be found on his Twitter handle: @historycalled

Woodstock opens in farce, yet it is one of Scott's darkest novels. It deals with revolution, to Scott the most disturbing of all subjects: 'it appears that every step we made towards liberty, has but brought us in view of more terrific perils'. Written during the financial crisis which led to his insolvency in January 1826, the novel, Scott feared, 'would not stand the test'. Yet it does: it is set in England in 1651 as Parliamentary forces hunt the fugitive Charles Stewart who days previously had been defeated at Worcester. In the superb portrait of Cromwell we see a self-torturing despot who attempts to be in full control in the name of religion; in the rakish Charles we see a man without self-reflection whose own libertarianism after his restoration to the English throne in 1660 permitted a great burgeoning in scientific enquiry and the arts. This edition of Woodstock is based on the first, but emended in the light of readings in the manuscript and proofs that were misread, and at times deliberately suppressed, as Scott's own hand-written words were turned into a printed book.

Rob Roy is set in 1715, but it is less concerned with the Jacobite Rising than with the economic and political conditions which brought it about, and the remarkable entrepreneurial spirit of the new Hanoverian capitalists which resisted it. It celebrates the freebooting daring of the hero's father in the City of London and the robust balancing of generosity and selfish calculation which is required in successful enterprise, and which motivates one of Scott's most lively creations, the Glasgow merchant Baillie Nicol Jarvie. Rob Roy is nominally a retrospective autobiography written by Frank Osbaldistone and is suffused with a sense of loss both personal and cultural. The personal is the loss of his wife Diana; the cultural is epitomised in Rob Roy who is the hunted victim of a society richer and more powerful than his own. The text is based upon the first edition, corrected with readings from the manuscript, and is supported by comprehensive historical and explanatory annotation.

The Heart of Mid-Lothian is precisely focused on the trials for murder of John Porteous and of Effie Deans in 1736 and 1737. Yet it is a chronicle--Scott's only chronicle--which spans the eighty years of the life of David Deans, whose death takes place in 1751. It is the most complex of all Scott's narratives. It is also the most challenging in that it raises in an acute fashion the problem of a judicial system that does not produce justice. Scott places this fundamental issue in its immediate political context, in history as represented by the life of Deans, and alongside the justice of Providence as perceived by his daughter Jeanie, the greatest of Scott's heroines. This edition of The Heart of Mid-Lothian provides a new text established in accordance with the tried policies and practices of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels, and in its annotation treats comprehensively the novel's historical, legal, religious and cultural sources.

In 1810 a literary phenomenon swept through Britain, Europe and beyond: the publication of Sir Walter Scott's epic poem The Lady of the Lake, set in the wild romantic landscape around Loch Katrine and the Trossachs. The world's first international blockbusting bestseller, in terms of sheer publishing sensation nothing like it was seen until the Harry Potter books. Exploring the potent appeal that links books, places, authors and readers, this collection of eleven essays examines tourism in the Trossachs both before and after 1810, and surveys the indigenous Gaelic culture of the area. It also considers how Sir Walter's writings responded to the landscape, history and literature of the region, and traces his impact on the tourists, authors and artists who thronged in his wake.

Set at the time of the Third Crusade (1189 - 92), The Betrothed is the first of Scott's Tales of the Crusaders. The betrothed is Eveline, daughter of a Norman noble, who is a victim of the Crusade in that her intended husband is required by the Church to fulfil his vow to join the war and departs for three years. The full horror of an arranged marriage, and of being a possible prize as men seek to gain possession of her is vividly realised--the heroine is never free; her fate is always determined by the agency of men. And being set on the Marches of Wales, it is not just men but differing cultures that strive for mastery over her. The Betrothed is a problem novel: as Scott was writing he himself was arranging the marriage of his elder son. It is a problem novel too in that it was deeply disliked by Scott's printer and publisher who forced significant changes. What Scott was required to do to meet their objections has been confronted for the first time in this, the first critical edition of the novel.

The second of "Tales of the Crusaders," "The Talisman" is set in Palestine during the Third Crusade (1189 - 92). Scott constructs a story of chivalric action, apparently adopting a medieval romance view of the similarities in the values of both sides. But disguise is the leading theme of the tale: it is not just that characters frequently wear clothing that conceals their identity, but that professions and cultures hide their true nature.

In this novel the Christian leaders are divided by a factious criminality, and are contrasted to the magnanimity and decisiveness of Saladin, the leader of the Moslem armies. In a period when the west was fascinated with the exotic east, Scott represents the Moslem other as more humane than the Christian west.

"The Talisman" is one of Scott's great novels. It is a superb tale. It is also a bold departure as, for the first time, Scott explores not cultural conflict within a country or society but in the opposition of two world religions.