ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on adaptations of The Heart of Mid-Lothian for downmarket readers of chapbooks. It describes a facet of print culture not often acknowledged in the criticism of canonical historical novels. The chapter demonstrates that communication cannot be reduced to either linear transmission or passive absorption by showing how publishers and authors reinvented one popular historical novel to communicate effectively with working- and middle-class readers before cheap reprints of the Waverley novels were widely available. It focuses on a wider media landscape within which the novel was only one means to address the consequences of modernity. Physical considerations such as the availability of space, the quality of shelter, and the quantity of light would have contributed to the popularity of chapbooks and short histories. Self-education and distinction were not restricted to the upper classes or the readers of Waverley novels.
