The Fortunes of Nigel is a historical novel by the Scottish author Walter Scott, published on May 29, 1822 under the signature "by the author of Waverley, Kenilworth, etc. " The story takes place under the reign of Jacques I, around 1620. A young Scottish nobleman arrives in London to try to recover the amount of a loan that his father once granted to the king. The reader immerses himself in the mazes of a big city where swarm colorful creatures, including a good number of the king, the courtiers, the rich bourgeois, the small shopkeepers, the apprentices, the boatmen and up to with the worst rascals of the Whitefriars bottomlands… If the backdrop is historic, the book is not centered on an event of national importance as are most of Walter Scott's novels. But the author suggests that a bloody civil war will start twenty years the central theme of the book is that of the noble haughty, inconsistent, always in search of the bourgeois whom he despises, but who will lend him the money necessary for his fredaines.
Author
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. British writer Sir Walter Scott popularized and refined a genre of ballads and historical novels; his works include Waverley (1814) and Ivanhoe (1819). Sir Walter Alva Scott created and called a series. Scott arranged the plots and characters so that the reader enters into the lives of great and ordinary persons, caught in violent, dramatic changes. Work of Scott shows the influence of the 18th century Enlightenment. He thought of every basically decent human, regardless of class, religion, politics, or ancestry. A major theme tolerates. They express his theory in the need for social progress that rejects not the traditions of the past. He first portrayed peasant characters sympathetically and realistically and equally justly portrayed merchants, soldiers, and even kings. In central themes, cultures conflict and oppose. Normans and Saxons warred. In The Talisman (1825), Christians and Muslims conflict. He deals with clashes between the new English and the old Scottish culture. Other great include Old Mortality (1816), The Heart of Midlothian (1819), and Saint Ronan's Well (1824). His series includes Rob Roy (1817), A Legend of Montrose (1819), and Quentin Durward (1823). Amiability, generosity, and modesty made Scott popular with his contemporaries. He also famously entertained on a grand scale at Abbotsford, his Scottish estate.
