Rob Roy

By Sir Walter Scott

Book Overview

When young Francis Osbaldistone discovers that his vicious and scheming cousin Rashleigh has designs both on his father's business and his beloved Diana Vernon, he turns in desperation to Rob Roy for help. Chieftain of the MacGregor clan, Rob Roy is a brave and fearless man, able and cunning. But he is also an outlaw with a price on his head, and as he and Francis join forces to pursue Rashleigh, he is constantly aware that he, too, is being pursued--and could be captured at any moment. Set on the eve of the 1715 Jacobite uprising, Rob Roy brilliantly evokes a Scotland on the verge of rebellion, blending historical fact and a novelist's imagination to create an incomparable portrait of intrigue, rivalry and romance.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140435549
• ISBN13: 9780140435542
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 7.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

I’m a huge fan of this book I love it

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A Classic Tale of High Adventure!

This is a great Scottish novel, with all of the lovely scenery and steadfast heroes desired in this type of book. Even a bit of the Gaelic! I love the tragic character of Helen McGregor, and the classic brutal honor of Robert Roy. The scottish scenary is a vital character. I read this book when I was living in Glasgow, and the descriptions of the city's early days were amazing. I also fell in love with Loch Lomand.Modern readers be warned! This book was written in 1817, when attention spans were longer. The pace is slow, and the story takes awhile to unfold.I was riveted by this book and I highly recommend it

A Rippingly Good Read!

This book has it all: action, romance, intrigue, revenge, and an outlaw who's really not so bad after all. Although the book takes its title from the character of Rob Roy, you really don't meet him until two hundred pages into the story...or do you? Instead, the novel focuses on Francis Osbaldistone, which may be a little disconcerting for those readers who expect a rolicking adventure novel. For me, the most interesting character is that of Helen McGregor, Rob's wife. She seemed to be a shrew who controlled not only her husband, but the rest of the highlanders as well. All in all, though, the novel is a wonderful read, perfect for a Sunday afternoon.

Take it with you for a week on a mountain-top.

The narrative pace is Scott's, not ours, so Rob Roy requires some patience and a locale that encourages reflection. For readers in the Pacific Northwest, I would recommend reading it among the crags at Hidden Lake Lookout.A point of clarification: while the film versions of Rob Roy and Braveheart may be of similar vintage, they definitely do not portray the same eras in Scots history. The Highlander gentleman outlaw and cattle thief Robert MacGregor (Rob Roy) lived from 1671 to 1734, during the transition from Stuart to Hanoverian Britain that shed so much Highlander blood. Rob Roy's life was roughly contemporary with that the Old Pretender (James Francis Edward Stuart, 1688-1766), the "King Over The Water" of many a Scotsman's toast. His lifestyle was much like that of the fictional Doone clan in R. D. Blackmore's novel Lorna Doone, which is set in southwest England of the 1670s and 1680s: deprived of their own estates by wars and legal chicanery, both the Doones and the MacGregors lived by stealing livestock and preying upon the surrounding countryside.William Wallace ("Braveheart") lived (1270-1305) and fought much earlier in Scots history, in the times of Edward I "Longshanks" (1239-1307) and Robert I "the Bruce" (1274-1329), kings of England and Scotland, respectively. In a nutshell, "Braveheart" provides the background for Robert the Bruce's victory at Bannockburn, while "Rob Roy" sets the stage for the Duke of Cumberland's dragoons' massacre of Highland Scots at Culloden Moor, which crushed Bonnie Prince Charlie's uprising of 1745. "Braveheart" lies at the beginning, and "Rob Roy" at the end, of several centuries of Scottish self-rule.-Doug Johnson