The Scottish Chiefs Paperback – June 1, 2004

This is a historical novel, a fictional book about a historical person and events. Sir William Wallace was a real life hero of the Scottish people and the battles, honors and his execution along with a lot of the circumstances in this book really happened. Miss Porter in writing this opened up the world of the struggle for freedom of the Scots in the late 1200s and 1300s. She satisfactorily invented plots and people and times (and especially the ending of the book) because there seems to be very little actual factual information about William Wallace in existence even today. She takes the reader from life in the peaceful times to the bitter battles and struggles that the people of those years faced everyday. She portrayed King Edward I (Longshanks) as the despot he really was.I love the book, and as a romantic, I really liked the ending. The ending sounds possible but not probable. That's all I'm saying about the end.Miss Porter writes very well, in my opinion, and has a good word picture flow through the chapters and the insertion of her book's content into the real times and events was/is believable and entertaining. She depicted the economic times and the wishy-washy characters of a lot of the nobles of that era - "do whatever you must to keep your nobility and holdings", in a most human way. I think any first time reader should enjoy it and could be as engrossed in it as I was. I literally read this book in about a week. For the number of pages, 504, of the book and the lack of speed with which I read, that is really moving for me. For me it was an "I can't put this book down". Give it a reading.

When Jane Porter wrote "The Scottish Chiefs" more than 200 years ago, she was venturing into territory little known by women, the genre of the historical novel. As we read this wonderful book, we have to remember it was written in a romantic style, in a romantic age. The book had great appeal to all sorts of people then, but became most popular with younger readers. Jane Porter has given us a rich and colorful story of a man who is arguably Scotland's greatest hero. She paints a picture of a man which gives him god-like qualities; a little over the top by today's standards, but in her time, people ate this up, making the book a best seller. She took liberties with history, presumably for what she felt would make for a better story. As a scholar of Scottish history, I felt that had she followed the true history with respect to some of the actual characters, she could have improved her story even more.Years ago, I bought an original 1926 hardback edition of the book by Scribner, which included the wonderful color plates of paintings by N.C. Wyeth. More recently, to preserve the 1926 edition, I bought a contemporary printing by Atheneum. When I discovered this Kindle edition, I bought it ($.99 at the time) to make re-reading it more convenient. As I began reading however, some curious things soon appeared. There were typographical errors, where people's names and or titles, were not capitalized, when they should have been. Place names were misspelled. I discovered places where key words were missing or wrong, where phrases were repeated, where sentences were repeated, and towards the end, where paragraphs were repeated.I see that the Kindle edition has been withdrawn from sale because of formatting issues. I hope the editors will spend a bit more time correcting so many mistakes. This is a wonderful book, but I would like to see an editor's preface added to the Kindle edition, in which the reader is reminded that it is a work of historical fiction, and as such, includes departures from actual history, which must be compared with the facts. The true story is even more amazing!

This book takes me back to when I first read it in high school.

A review written by my teenage homeschooled son: I enjoyed Scottish Chiefs. The plot was interesting, and it certainly helped me really get to know William Wallace, the main character. The book was exciting and well-written. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about William Wallace, the Bruces, and Edward I of England. But Jane Porter, the author, was not perfectly historically accurate. She added some new characters that probably never existed--like Helen Mar, for example. This turned out okay, but readers should not assume that this is a perfect biography of Wallace. One thing I really did not like was the way all the women in the book were Also, Porter portrayed Wallace as an extremely perfect person, more like an angel that a human, which was certainly wrong. The book is also very long, and sometimes hard to follow, but it was good overall. Also, my mother, who read it to me and my brother and sister as part of our home education this past year, said that it was a difficult book to read out loud, and she has a lot of experience reading to us!

I first read this historical novel as a teenager, and my current reading of it (50 years later) did not disappoint. My motivation was based in large part on David McCullough's thoroughly engrossing biography, "John Adams" (2001) -- I was surprised to learn that Adams read "The Scottish Chiefs" during his retirement and enjoyed it very much. How "connected" I felt to our 2nd President, and on this very personal level! Also, if all you know about William Wallace comes from Mel Gibson's "Braveheart" (1995), there is more to learn from Jane Porter's novel. There were, of course, the wonderful illustrations by N. C. Wyeth -- completely transporting to this long-ago time and place.

ok

This is a magnificent dramatisation of the life of William Wallace ! The writing is superb.It reads like a page turning thriller, with a huge body count.It is one of very few books I can go back to, and read again.Ian McDonald

Even before Mel Gibson over-egged the pudding with his cinematic story of the life (and death) of William Wallace, the 13th/14th Century knight was fairly well known as a folk hero in Scotland. Still, everyone loves a story and, even with the 6' 6"+ Wallace (a giant in 14th Century Scotland) played by the slightly more diminutive Gibson (about 5' 9"?), "Braveheart" contained no lack of action or love interest, even if the facts were allowed to get in the way of a good film."The Scottish Chiefs" promises to be "the true story of Braveheart", but I noticed that I was finding it a bit quirky in parts. The first thing I noticed was that the book opens by telling us that "Wallace married Marion Braidfoot", whereas her Scottish name was Murron as told by Wallace's original biographer, the so-called "Blind Harry" or "Henry the Minstrel" in 1361.Secondly, the text is heavily written in American ("Unwilling to deny so small a favor" [sic]; ...such treason to honor [sic]"; "...honor [sic] of Sir Ronald Crawford..." (should have been Ranald Crawford); "...Wallace's father signalized..." [sic].However, the thing that makes this book really unreadable is the way in which it quickly descends into incredibly floral, "Mills & Boon" language! Here's an early line: "Not yet, not yet! What evil hath betided thee?" Or, later: "Art thou indeed here!" exclaimed she. Blood fell from his forehead upon her face and bosom: "O, my Wallace!" cried she in agony. (Murron seems to have a problem in remembering her husband's first name, and the author's punctuation isn't the best I've seen).As was shown fairly well in Mel Gibson's film, William Wallace had a decent amount of street credibility - Scotland's peers had succumbed to the English invasion; Wallace appealed directly to the people. Perhaps Jane didn't grasp that too well because she's not a Scot herself. If they'd heard his wife talking to him like that, maybe his "street cred" would have deserted him smartish.A decent attempt but, unfortunately, it comes over as a cross between Blind Harry and Catherine Cookson. It's a turn-off for those interested in the history of Scotland's greatest hero and I'm afraid that I couldn't stick with it very far. Still, she's unlikely to get rich when selling it at 70p per download (or even free, depending on which one you get).