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The Monastery

Sir Walter Scott

Book Overview: 

Dame Elspeth is kept in a tower after the death of her husband. The widow of the Baron of Avenel and her daughter seek safety with Elspeth in her tower. Hearing the baroness's deathbed confession, Father Philip notices her Bible. As he carries it to the Lord Abbot, it is taken from him by a White Lady. A sub-prior investigates this story and finds that the Bible is now back in the owner's hands. Later, Elspeth's son sees the White Lady when he snatches the Bible from a flaming altar. Intrigue follows intrigue. Halbert and Sir Piercie Shafton fight, and Halbert flees, leaving Sir Piercie mortally wounded. Shafton, however, recovers only to be accused of murdering Edward's missing brother. Mysie helps Shafton escape from jail. Edward has vowed to become a monk at the urging of the White Lady. After a battle between English and Scottish soldiers against Sir John's troops, Mysie is declared a suitable wife for Sir Piercie. The monks are allowed to keep their monastery.

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .ding within the water, without any arches to join them. The middle one, which is the most entire, has a door towards the north, and I suppose another opposite one toward the south, which I could not see without crossing the water. In the middle of this tower is a projection or cornice surrounding it: the whole is hollow from the door upwards, and now open at the top, near which is a small window. I was informed that not long agro a countryman and his family lived in this tower—and got his livelihood by laying out planks from pillar to pillar, and conveying passengers over the river. Whether this be ancient or modern, I know not; but as it is singular in its kind I have thought fit to exhibit it."

The vestiges of this uncommon species of bridge still exist, and the author has often seen the foundations of the columns when drifting down the Tweed at night for the purpose of killing salmon by torch-light. Mr. John Mercer of Bridge-end recollects,. . . Read More

Community Reviews

This is a Scott novel so going into it I wasn’t expecting it to be short but in all honesty did it have to be so long winded? Once we got past the bizarre introduction which explains how the story came to be published the story did pick up and I did enjoy the supernatural elements.

The problem for me

I enjoyed The Monastery and look forward to reading The Abbot. The story is set in the 1550s on the borders of England and Scotland. It is a time of when Elizabeth 1 is on the English throne and her cousin Mary on the Scottish one. The setting is around a monastery based on the Melrose monastery. Th

This was supposed to be a letdown in the Waverley series, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Now on to The Abbot!

What I have learned after reading several of Walter Scott's books is that he was a writer who did not want to be stagnant and wanted to try different things, while still maintaining his personal writing style. What he does in this book is a small return to older things, particularly in the field of

The Monastery (1820) is not one of Scott’s better known novels, but I found it one of his most engaging to date. (I have read quite a few over the past decade, drawn in by a memorable Lucia di Lammermoor at the ENO in 2010—in order, The Bride of Lammermoor, Waverley, Ivanhoe, Guy Mannering, and Redg

Set on the English-Scottish border in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, this supposedly unsuccessful entry in the Waverly series revolves around the Catholic convent of the title and two Scottish families: the Glendinnings and the Avanels, both of whom have lost their male heads as the novel opens. Th

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