The Bride of Lammermoor

The story recounts the tragic love of Edgar, Master of Ravenswood, and Lucy Ashton, the daughter of Ravenswood's enemy, Sir William Ashton. Sir William's wife, Lady Ashton, is the villain and evil perpetrator of the whole intrigue, haughty and manipulative in her objective to cancel the initial happy engagement between Edgar and Lucy and forcing the latter to a speedily arranged marriage with the Laird of Bucklaw. In the climax, when the intrigue takes its full course and the wedding celebrations have been held, Lucy stabs the bridegroom, severely wounding him, and descends quickly into insanity and dies. In the story, Caleb Balderstone, an eccentric old Ravenswood family retainer, provides some comic relief.
About the Author: Walter Scott was born on August 15, 1771, in Edinburgh, Midlothian, England. When he was two, he contracted polio, which left him lame and he was sent to live with his grandparents, learning to read from his Aunt Jenny. When he was twelve, he studied the classics at the University of Edinburgh and became an apprentice solicitor in his father's office. When he was fifteen, he met Robert Burns, and later that year, began studying law. At the age of 25, Walter began writing professionally, first collecting and translating works from German. In 1797, he married Charlotte Genevieve Charpentier after only knowing her for three weeks and they had five children. In 1799, he was appointed a deputy sheriff. In 1796, Scott's childhood friend founded a publishing company and began to print Scott's poetry, bringing him public attention. It was in 1805 though that his career as a writer was truly established with "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." Franz Shubert set some of his work to music, one of which was "Ave Maria." When he became a partner in his friend's publishing business, he was able to expand to novels as well, writing "Ivanhoe," "Rob Roy," "The Lady of the Lake," and "Waverly." As he became an expert in Scottish history, George IV asked Scott to search for the long-lost Crown Jewels. He found them in 1818 and was granted the title of baronet. In 1826, a banking crisis hit Great Britain and caused the printing business to fail, but unwilling to accept any aid, he began writing frantically until 1831. Sir Walter Scott died on September 21, 1832, at the age of 61, in Melrose, England, under mysterious circumstances.