ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the influences behind the first author-approved landscape illustrations to all the Waverley novels from Waverley to A Legend of Montrose, influences which implicate the illustrated editions as part of a wider cultural project of visualising literature for popular consumption. It seeks to establish the importance of Nasmyth as an illustrator of Scott, as he has been almost completely overlooked regarding his influence on nineteenth-century book-illustration. The chapter concentrates on the projection of Edinburgh through the Waverley novels, and particularly through the illustrations of Alexander Nasmyth. The Tolbooth of Edinburgh, the building after which Scott named this novel, becomes an important symbolic motif to both author and illustrator. The Tolbooth, therefore, takes on a greater symbolic significance in the artistic relationship and understanding between the two men. Nasmyth was one of the most prolific lifetime illustrators of the Waverley novels, providing all the illustrations for Constable's reprint edition of the Novels and Tales of the Author of Waverley.
