SOLD FOR BIG PRICE.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17973, 19 March 1930, Page 11

SOLD FOR BIG PRICE.

SECRET OF ABBOTSFORD

DEPOSITED in LONDON BANK. The .manuscript of the unfinished novel “The Siege of Malta,” by Sir Walter Scott, has just been sold at the highest price ever paid for a Scott MS., says the London Sunday Times. Although the existence of this manuscript has been known by the frequent references to it in Scott’s “Journal," its contents have been hidden from the world. It has lain for nearly a century at Abbotsford in the keeping of the author’s descendants. The present owner of Abbotsford, General Walter Maxwell-Scott, D.S.O. (Sir Walter’s great-grandson), has sold the manuscript to Mr F. J- Sheed who, before leaving fur America, deposited the manuscript in a London bank. IVIS, Of 150 Page 3. Although Mr Sheed is the head of the publishing firm of Sheed and Ward, he has apparently made the purchase in his private capacity and has not any plans for its publication. The news that this last of the Waverley Novels has changed hands opens up, of course, the possibility that it may one day be published. The centenary of the death of Sir Walter Scott will be celebrated in two years, and this may be a convenient date to reveal to the world the manuscript which- has lain at Abbotsford for a hundred years. The MS. of “The Siege of Malta" consists of 150 pages. It begins with the story of an imaginary hero, but quickly passes to a vivid account of the actual siege—an account which shows glimpses of Scott at the height of his powers—for, as he writes in his “Journal”: —-“As yet my spell holds fast. I have besides two or three good things on which I may advance ''with spirit and with palmy hopes ” Allusions In “Journal.” Further allusions in the “Journal” strike a wistful note: — November 23- —I am getting on with “The Siege of Malta” very well. [ think, if 1 continue, it will be ready in a very short time, and I will get the opinion of others, and if my charm hold I will lie able to get home through Italy—and take up my own trade again. •November 2i. —The death of Dragut would he a fine subject for a poem, hut in life meantime I will proceed with my Knights. December t. —There are two good libraries, on a different plan, and for different purposes—a modern subscription library that lends 1 ts own books and an ancient foreign library which belonged to the Knights, but

does not lend books. - Its value is considerable, but the funds unfortunately are shamefully small; I may do this last some good. I have got In a present from Prere the print of ‘‘The Siege of Malta," very difficult to understand, and on loan from Mr Murray, Agent of the ’Navy Office, the original of Boiardo, to be returned through Mr Murray, Albemarle Street. Mr Murray is very good-natured about it. .January 6-12, 1832.—Have written a great many pages of ‘‘The Siege of Malta,” which I think will sucoeed. Sir Walter Scott cruised about in the Mediterranean and visited places of interest for the greater part of a year before his (tenth at Abbotsford on September 21, 1832.