19th century Upon publication,
Waverley had an astonishing success. Almost all of the reviewers of
Waverley were favourable, praising the truth to nature of the characters (both major and minor) and manners. Adverse criticisms were more diverse.
The Anti-Jacobin Review and
The Critical Review considered the work too Scottish, and the latter (assuming Scott's authorship) thought it odd for an established poet to become a 'scribbler' while
The New Annual Register found it less interesting than might have been expected from his hand.
The British Critic detected a tendency to caricature and broad farce.
The Scourge thought the novel lacked pathos and sublimity. In
The Quarterly Review John Wilson Croker, writing anonymously like all the reviewers, compared it to Dutch paintings, congenial rather than exalted, and advised the author to stick to history, while
The Scourge considered that Scott did not take readers beyond their usual susceptibilities.
Francis Jeffrey in
The Edinburgh Review found the work hastily and often indifferently written and judged those passages where the author addresses the reader directly flippant and unworthy.
Waverley was published anonymously, but half of the reviews ascribed it with varying degrees of certainty to Scott. Many readers too recognized his hand. Contemporary author
Jane Austen wrote: "Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has Fame and Profit enough as a Poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. I do not like him, and do not mean to like
Waverley if I can help it but fear I must".
Letitia Elizabeth Landon was a great admirer of Scott and one of her poetical illustrations () relates to a painting by
Daniel Maclise of
The Hall of Glennaquoich. A Highland Feast, a scene taken from
Waverley. In Eckermann's
Conversations with Goethe,
Goethe lauded
Waverley as "the best novel by Sir Walter Scott," and he asserted that Scott "has never written anything to surpass, or even equal, that first published novel." He regarded Scott as a genius and as one of the greatest writers of English of his time, along with
Lord Byron and
Thomas Moore. Discussing Scott's talent as a writer, Goethe stated, "You will find everywhere in Walter Scott a remarkable security and thoroughness in his delineation, which proceeds from his comprehensive knowledge of the real world, obtained by lifelong studies and observations, and a daily discussion of the most important relations." In 1815, Scott was given the honour of dining with
George, Prince Regent, who wanted to meet "the author of Waverley". It is thought that at this meeting Scott persuaded George that as a Stuart prince he could claim to be a
Jacobite Highland Chieftain, a claim that would be dramatised when George became King and
visited Scotland.
20th century E. M. Forster is renowned as one of Scott's fiercest and unkindest critics. His critique has received fierce opposition from Scott scholars, who believe his attack is a symptom of his ignorance, perhaps of literature, but more certainly of all things Scottish. This hostility reaches academic circles, as is made evident by
Allan Massie's lecture
The Appeal of Scott to the Practising Novel, the inaugural lecture at the 1991 Scott conference. Defence of Scott subsumes a defence of a national culture against the attacks of Englishness. Others have, however, suggested that this misrepresents Forster's case. Lukács is most adamant in his belief that
Waverley is the first major historical novel of modern times. This is clear from the distinction he draws between the eighteenth-century
novel of manners, where social realities are described with little attention to diachronic change, and the eruption of history in the lives of communities, as occurs in historical novels. Furthermore, that
Waverley marks an important watershed is firmly stated in Lukács' opening sentence, that "The historical novel arose at the beginning of the nineteenth century at about the time of Napoleon's collapse." ==Namesakes==