With a new introduction by Richard D. Jackson, which outlines Crockett's rivalry over the subject with Robert Louis Stevenson, as well as his treatment of sources and the publishing history of the novel, this edition restores to print a work which, like Scott's Old Mortality, Hogg's The Brownie of Bodsbeck and Galt's Ringan Gilhaize, captures the sufferings and torments of Scotland's blood-swept past.

Richard D. Jackson is a graduate of the University of St Andrews. A former schoolteacher, HM Inspector of Schools and retired senior administrative civil servant, he co-edited The Forest Minstrel for The Collected Works of James Hogg, contributes regularly to Studies in Hogg and his World and has published essays in other journals on Walter Scott, John Buchan and Philip Larkin.