Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novels were published anonymously initially because he feared jeopardizing his reputation as a lawyer and poet. They created an immediate sensation, being a wholly new sort of fiction, combining thrilling romance and adventure with a strong historical narrative. Although they have since been criticized for their twisting of facts and shameless myth-making, their influence on the course of literature has been incalculable. Henry Cockburn, the advocate, recalls the speculation the first volume caused. It was more than ten years before Scott publicly owned up to the authorship which, by then, was an open secret.
The unexpected newness of the thing, the profusion of original characters, the Scotch language, Scotch scenery, Scotch men and women, the simplicity of the writing, and the graphic force of the descriptions, all struck us with an electric shock of delight. I wish I could again feel the sensations produced by the first year of these two Edinburgh works. If the concealment of the authorship of the novels was intended to make mystery heighten their effect, it completely succeeded. The speculations and conjectures, and nods and winks, and predictions and assertions were endless, and occupied every company, and almost every two men who spoke in the street. It was proved by a thousand indications, each refuting the other, that they were written by old Henry Mackenzie, by George Cranstoun, by William Erskine, by Jeffrey, and above all, by Thomas Scott, Walter’s brother, a regimental paymaster, then in Canada. But ‘the Great Unknown,’ as the true author was then called, always took good care, with all his concealment, to supply evidence amply sufficient for the protection of his property and his fame; so much so that the suppression of the name was laughed at in his presence as a good joke not merely by select friends, but by himself …