The Fortunes of Nigel is among Walter Scott's richest creations in its political insight, range of characterization, and linguistic virtuosity. Scott draws a detailed picture of London in the early seventeenth century while charting the ambitions and fears of Scottish newcomers, and the suspicion they aroused. Previous editions have obscured his virtuosity (as seen in a dazzlingly proto-Joycean monologue by a Greenwich barber), but painstaking examination of the manuscript and proofs for this new edition allows the full vigor of Scott's achievement to be revealed.