PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT.

No works of the imagination, of the same extent, have ever been received with so great favour as the Waverley Novels. Since their first publication, not fewer than a Hundred and Thirty Thousand copies have been sold in Great Britain, and a very large number in the United States. These have been printed in a variety of forms, to suit the taste of the public; but there has long been wanted an edition of portable size, combining the advantages of a clear, readable type and uniformity with other standard English authors.

This "Household Edition" contains all the latest corrections of the author, with some curious additions, especially in Guy Mannering and the Bride of Lammermoor; and the illustrations are engraved in the first style, after paintings by the most eminent artists of the day.

BOSTON, January, 1857.

AUTHOR'S DEDICATION.

TO THE KING'S MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY

The Author of this Collection of works of Fiction would not have presumed to solicit for them your Majesty's august Patronage were it not that the perusal has been supposed in some inftances to have succeeded in amusing hours of relaxation or relieving those of languor, pain, or anxiety; and therefore must have so far aided the warmest wish of your Majesty's heart by contributing in however small a degree to the happiness of your People.

They are therefore humbly dedicated to your Majesty, agreeably to your Gracious Permission, by your Majesty's

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ADVERTISEMENT TO EDITION 1829.

Ir has been the occasional occupation of the Author of Waverley, for several years past, to revise and correct the voluminous series of Novels which pass under that name; in order that, if they should ever appear as his avowed productions, he might render them in some degree deserving of a continuance of the public favour with which they have been honoured ever since their first appearance. For a long period, however, it seemed likely that the improved and illustrated edition which he meditated would be a posthumous publication. But the course of the events which occasioned the disclosure of the Author's name having in a great measure restored to him a sort of parental control over these Works, he is naturally induced to give them to the press in a corrected, and, he hopes, an improved form, while life and health permit the task of revising and illustrating them. Such being his purpose, it is necessary to say a few words on the plan of the proposed Edition.

In stating it to be revised and corrected, it is not to be inferred that any attempt is made to alter the tenor of the stories, the character of the actors, or the spirit of the dialogue. There is no doubt ample room for emendation in all these points,—but where the tree falls it must lie.