Based on the acclaimed Edinburg Edition of the Waverley Novels. The first authoritative edition drawn from Scott's original texts, with a special introduction for the Penguin Classics edition. Crowded with incident and full of memorable characters, among them wicked Prince John, the outlaw Robin Hood and the beautiful Jewess Rebecca, Ivanhoe is Scott's most high-spirited novel.
Ivanhoe, banished by his father, Cedris, for falling in love with Cedric's ward Rowena, wins the trust of Richard Coeur-de-Lion at the Crusades. Returning to England to claim his inheritance, Ivanhoe is drawn into the struggle between Richard and his brother John. In the three central scenes of the book - the great tournament at Ashby-de-la-Souche, the siege of Front de Boeuf's castle and Rebecca's trial for witchcraft - Scott draws together the apparently opposing themes of historical reality and chivalric romance, social realism and high adventure, past and present.