SOURCE: An introduction to The Victorian Historical Novel, 1840-1880, Macmillan, London, 1978, pp. 1-31.

In this excerpt, Sanders examines the impact of Sir Walter Scott's work on later historical novelists, discussing in detail the advances made within the genre by such writers as Charles Reade and George Eliot.

Despite the sharp decline in Scott's critical reputation in this century, the Waverley novels have not lacked powerful friends and committed advocates, notable amongst them being Georg Lukács, a critic himself moulded by his study of Hegel and Marx. To Lukács, Scott's art is both progressive and in a true sense revolutionary, structured on the economic and ideological basis of the European reaction to the Revolution in France. Scott's inherent conservatism, which Lukács readily acknowledges, is seen as giving him a special kind of objectivity as a social critic, for by studying conflict, and by seeking to balance...