The Pirate: Illustrated

The Pirate is set at the end of the seventeenth century, a few decades earlier than the real-life events, on which they are loosely based. The editors of the recent Edinburgh Edition of the novel, Mark Weinstein and Alison Lumsden, convincingly argue that the plot unfurls between July and August 1689, against the back-drop of the Glorious Revolution. By moving events further into the past, Scott was able to portray tension between the native Norse stock of the Northern Isles and the incoming Scots lairds. He is thus able to portray the old order succumbing to the new both locally and nationally.