Walladmor: And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. In Two Volumes. Vol. I.   By: Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859)

1. Scans provided by The Web Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/walladmor01dequ

2. The 3 volume German original was fictitiously attributed to Sir Walter Scott, but actually written by G.W.H. Häring (under the pseud. of Willibald Alexis). It was freely adapted into English by Thomas De Quincey.

3. The diphthong oe is indicated by [oe].

WALLADMOR:

"FREELY TRANSLATED INTO GERMAN FROM THE ENGLISH OF SIR WALTER SCOTT."

AND NOW FREELY TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN INTO ENGLISH.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

My root is earthed; and I, a desolate branch, Left scattered in the highway of the world, Trod under foot, that might have been a column Mainly supporting our demolished house. Massinger .

VOL. I.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND HESSEY, 93 FLEET STREET, AND 13 WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. 1825

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE READER.

The following novel was originally produced in the German language, as a soi disant translation from Sir Walter Scott, to meet the demands of the last Easter fair at Leipsic.

In Germany, from the extreme difficulties and slowness of communication between remote parts of the country, it would be altogether impossible to effect the publication of books, upon the vast scale of the current German literature, without some such general rendezvous and place of depot and exchange as the Leipsic fair presents to the dispersed members of the publishing body. By means of this fair (which is held half yearly at Easter and Michaelmas) a connexion is established between the remotest points of the German continent which, in a literary[1] sense, comprehends many parts of Europe that politically are wholly distinct from Germany. The publishers of Vienna, Trieste, and Munich, here meet with those of Hamburgh and Dresden, of Berlin and Königsburg: Copenhagen and Stockholm send their representatives: and the booksellers of Warsaw and even of Moscow are brought into direct contact with the agents of the foreign booksellers in London.

Hence, as may be supposed, it is an object of much importance that all books, which found any part of their interest upon their novelty, should be brought out at this time: and something or other is generally looked for from the pen of every popular writer as a means of giving zest and seasoning to the heavy Mess Catalog. If it happens therefore upon any account that an author fails to meet these expectations of the Leipsic fair, obliging persons are often at hand who step forward as his proxy by forging something in his name. This pleasant hoax it was at length judged convenient to practise upon the author of Waverley; the Easter fair offering a favourable opportunity for such an attempt, from the circumstance of there being just then no acknowledged novel in the market from the pen of that writer which was sufficiently recent to gratify the wishes of the fair or to throw suspicion upon the pretensions of the hoaxer. These pretensions, it is asserted, for some time passed unquestioned; and the good people of Germany, as we are assured, were universally duped. A work, produced to the German public and circulated with success under such assumptions, must naturally excite some curiosity in this country; to gratify which it has been judged proper to translate it.