I just finished reading Sir Walter Scott for the first time. Andrew Marr (in his recent vid-bio of Scott) stated his favorite work by Scott is
The Heart of Mid-Lothian, so I gave that book a go. Marr also said; it is a commonly-held opinion that Scott did not write female characters well. Now that I have read Lothian...I strongly disagree with that view.
<imvho>For the most part, the story is driven by a very well defined
Jeanie Deans. Just like Dickens, Scott weaves a lot of detail into his players and I found I related to Jeanie's struggle very well indeed and although it is a story about life in the 1700s Jeanie does not sit weeping, waiting for a man to make things right. She is one very strong and determined person...nearly as much as our dear Frodo Baggins.
However, I will add this about
The Heart of Mid-Lothian it is NOT an easy read. Although Scott made the all important career decision to "write in English" he did not forsake his native Scotts dialect. I found it to be, at times, almost as difficult as middle-English...almost.
I'm trying to decide what to read next. I am leaning towards Robert Louis Stevenson's
Davey Balfour. I enjoyed the 1995? production
Kidnapped so this pick should be a good one but because of
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ I always feel like a "kid in a penny candy store holding a pound-note."
Btw, for anyone that likes historical novels, I discovered a genre-forerunner to the likes of Edward Rutherford. G.A. Henty's
The Dragon and the Raven was a good yarn set in King Alfred's time and I read another by the same author about the Luddite uprising in merry 1800s England called
Through the Fray. Neither book was awesome but both were nicely done and held my interest just as much as todays writers.