1905. Sir Walter Scott was a master of diverse talents. He was a man of letters, a dedicated historian and historiographer, a well-read translator of foreign texts, and a talented poet. Deriving most of his material from his native Scotland, its history and its legends, Scott invented and mastered what we know today as the historical novel. The twelfth book in the Waverley series, the novel is based around the murder of Amy Robsart, a story told in William Julius Mickle's Cumnor Hall, one of Scott's favorite ballads as a child. The heroine Amy Robsart enters into a secret marriage with the Earl of Leicester, spurning her fianci, Edmund Tressilian, a Cornish gentleman. A favorite of Queen Elizabeth, Leicester feels obliged to conceal his marriage in order to maintain his position at court. Having fled her father's house, Amy is therefore kept a virtual prisoner in Cumnor Place, an old country house. After a series of intrigues and murder attempts she dies in a fall. See the many other works by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.