The first scholarly edition of Bogle Corbet Includes explanatory notes and a glossary of Scots vocabulary Three maps locate the novel's key transits and locales A detailed introduction lays out much of the historical background to the novel's four key locations (Glasgow; London; Jamaica; Upper Canada)Includes detailed overview of the novel's original 1831 reception; its rediscovery in the 1950s-70s, and current scholarly debates about the novel Includes an appendix excerpting key 1831 reviews and documents from the novel's belated Canadian revival Through the life-story of its eloquent but depressive narrator, Bogle Corbet links the industrial revolution in Scotland to the French Revolution, Jamaica's plantation economy to the settlement of English Canada. A pioneering industrial novel, colonial novel, and world systems novel, Bogle Corbet also offers an early psychological portrait of emigrant experience. Galt's vivid vignettes show Britain and key British colonies at moments of political unrest and transition, and explore the ambivalences of a world newly governed by industrialism, capitalism, globalisation, and mass displacement. Galt's novel thus remains a work for our own times, even as it offers important transcontinental insights into a key historical juncture. It has inspired eloquent champions (both nineteenth- and twentieth-century) and continues to spark critical debate.

A former revolutionary Scotsman achieves prosperity in New York through hard work and social networking Scholarly edition that distinguishes the 1832 text from the 1830 texts and presents it with a glossary of Scottish terms and historical notes Introduction that examines Galt's techniques for combining fiction with lived experience and that provides contextual information about emigration from Scotland, political reform in Britain, and socio-economic conditions and aspirations in New York at the beginning of the nineteenth century Maps that enable readers to put together the novel's imaginary and actual locations In Lawrie Todd (1830; rev. ed. 1832), John Galt paints an optimistic portrait of Scottish emigration to North America. Designed as a fictional autobiography, the novel charts the fortunes of its protagonist from his departure from Scotland to avoid being tried for treason over his French Revolutionary sympathies to his rise to prosperity as a shopkeeper in New York City and imaginary towns near Rochester. This edition of the novel provides a contextual introduction, explanatory notes and maps that connect Todd's life story with boom times in New York and with Galt's own efforts at social entrepreneurship in Canada as well as with debates over emigration and political reforms in Britain. It sheds light on Galt's methods of characterisation, including his use of Scots and Yankee" speech habits and adaptation of real-life models, and on his popularity with readers in his own time. "

Originally published in two volumes in 1816 and 1820, this collection of biographical information and anecdotes tracing the career of the artist Benjamin West (1738 1820) is reissued here in one volume. Prepared by the Scottish novelist John Galt (1779 1839), it is based on the personal recollections of West himself, yet it is acknowledged to include some embellishment. Born in Pennsylvania and largely self-taught, West was the first American artist to travel through Italy to improve his skill by studying antique sculptures and old master paintings. After he came to London in 1763, his strength as a history painter was recognised, not least by George III, and he became a leader of the neoclassical movement. Instrumental in establishing the Royal Academy of Arts, West became its second president in 1792. Galt's narrative emphasises the importance of West in the history of art in Britain."

The Ayrshire Legatees, The Steam-Boat and The Gathering of the West first appeared as serials in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine during the magazine's most innovative phase. Introducing a colourful cast of narrators and characters who present idiosyncratic perspectives on current events as they travel between London, Edinburgh, and the rural west of Scotland, Galt's texts experiment with observation, dialogue, storytelling, and genre. Bringing these three interrelated texts together in one volume for the first time, this edition includes extensive explanatory notes that identify Galt's allusions, references to historical events and social and cultural practices of the period in which they are set. An appendix details the textual changes between the Blackwood's serials and the book versions. The editor's introduction explores the origins of Galt's texts in the pages of Blackwood's Magazine and their reliance on the magazine's unique dialogism, cross-talk among contributions and inside jokes, along with the influential context of the historical novel.

Offers Galt's most successful novel, a microcosm of fifty years of Scottish history Provides a comprehensive Introduction by the volume editor which tells the story of this novel's production and reception; describes the literary and intellectual traditions on which it drew; and explains its relation to the social and political turmoil of the years in which it was written and published Includes extensive Explanatory Notes which identify Galt's biblical allusions, references to historical events, and social and cultural practices of the period in which the novel is set The appendices identify Galt's real-life sources for some of his incidents, and explain the history and institutions of the Church of Scotland as relevant to the story Maps assist the reader to understand the geography on which the novel is acted out: south-west Scotland and its relation to the British Isles John Galt's Annals of the Parish is the first novel of the Industrial Revolution. Narrated by the minister of a rural Scottish parish, it chronicles with humour and pathos the fifty years 1760-1810 from the perspective of ordinary people swept up in social and economic transformation.

This volume brings together three short novels that reveal the diversity of Galt's creative abilities. Glenfell is his first publication in the style of Scottish fiction for which he would become best known; Andrew of Padua, the Improvisatore is a unique synthesis of his experiences with theatre, educational writing, and travel; The Omen is a haunting gothic tale. With their easily readable scope and their vivid themes, each of the tales has a distinct charm. They cast light on significant phases of Galt's career as a writer and reveal his versatility in experimenting with themes, genres and styles.

Memorable for characters eccentric yet socially and economically representative, and for scenes alternately comic and tragic, John Galt's 1823 novel The Entail is a compelling story of greed, anxiety, and tradition against a background of social upheaval. In addition to making this remarkable novel available in a scholarly edition with annotations suitable both for the general reader and for research, the editors provide an introduction that makes its complex legal issues--of property, marriage law, trial procedures--accessible in the context of Scottish Romanticism and modernisation. Situating Galt's aesthetic choices in dialogue with the Romantic-era Scottish novel the volume discusses the text, Galt's letters, early periodical reviews, and recent scholarship. Through annotations that clarify Scots language and dialect as well as legal parlance, the editors highlight the novel's comic collisions of language and personalities, and the attention to social transformation that Galt painstakingly, although sometimes obliquely, details.