Considering that the historical novel as a genre, was in its infancy, this is okay as a reading experience. The book was published in 1829, and was not really a big seller. We have a totally fictitious hero, perhaps a bastard of John de Vere, an Earl of Oxford who was exiled during the reign of Edward iV, and was restored by Henry VII. in the opening we have some steps towards paranormal experience but these are rationalized later in the book. For the political plot, we follow the 1476 end of the Burgundian attempt at creating a kingdom. The love story is conventiona for the time. ( )

De Graaf van Oxford en zijn zoon reizen eind 15e eeuw door Zwitserland en Frankrijk om steun te zoeken voor de van de Engelse troon verdreven Margaretha van Anjou. Ze belanden in allerlei erfenistwisten en tussen roversbenden en uiteindelijk is alles tevergeefs als de Zwitserse eedgenoten Karel van Bourgondië verpletterend verslaan en Margaretha na het nieuws overlijdt. Maar na alle strijd en jaloezie kunnen uiteindelijk Anna van Geyerstein, nicht van de gastheer in Zwitserland, en de Arthur de Vere (zoon van de graag van Oxford) trouwen. Eerst leven ze eenvoudig in Zwitserland, later komen ze toch nog aan het Engelse hof terecht.

“No man is secure of his life, however guarded, if it be sought by a man who is careless of his own.”

The wife had chosen this novel for us to read upon a reference made to it in a book of jewelry she’d been enamored with: 𝘑𝘦𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘴: 𝘈 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 by Victoria Finlay. Apparently, the section about opals put that October birthstone in an unlucky light. However, there really seems no basis in this fact—not in research, and not in the actual Scott novel itself. In fact, there are barely any references to opals, very few scenes with the titular character, and whole chapters of exposition told through dialogue. I know it’s romantic literature—penned by the most productive novelist of that era—but Holy Lord! did this thing drag.

To be fair, the prose was fun to read—most of the time. But, quite honestly, I don’t even know what this work was really about. Sure, there was swashbuckling, harrowing mountain-scaling escapades, disguises, intrigues, secret societies, and one hell of a beheading. With so many disparate pieces, populated by enough characters who often looked and sounded so alike as to make me pause, resurvey the landscape, until the seconds of arc all blended together, I could only shrug and read on and hope it all came together by the end. Which it did. And so? I don’t know, it was kind of boring. It certainly was no 𝘐𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘩𝘰𝘦. And I’m sure I’d enjoy some of Scott’s other novels far more.

Eh, what are you going to do? It wasn’t a waste of time. No evening spent reading to the wife is a waste of time. Especially a novel with such flowing prose, vibrant vistas, and epic scope. Even though it was light on opals, large on backstory, weak in character, full of wonderful pomposity, I’d gladly fail to waste another couple of months chronicling another Sir Walter Scotch aged for two centuries. Would Scott be peaty? Smoky? Better in a rocks glass or from the severed and hollowed horn of a Highland bull?

“Then farewell peace, and welcome war,” said the Landamman; “and be its plagues and curses on the heads of those who choose blood and strife rather than peace and union.” ( )

I like this one quite a bit more than I do the better known Quentin Durward, the other Scott novel set in fifteenth century Europe and to which Anne of Geierstein is a bit of a "sequel" in the sense that it follows on the history of Charles the Bold that was begun in Quentin Durward. The two novels are quite sufficiently unrelated in their plots that it's not necessary to have read Quentin Durward in order to read and understand Anne of Geierstein.

Anne of Geierstein is also a bit more "historical" in nature than Quentin Durward since the eponymous hero of Quentin Durward seems to be a fictitious character while Anne of Geierstein's John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, was an important Lancastrian figure in the War of the Roses (though his son in the novel, Arthur, is purely fictitious).

Anne of Geierstein, with its focus on the Burgundian court of Charles the Bold, makes a nice counterpoint to Quentin Durward's focus on the French court of Louis XI. ( )

Set in the 15th century, this Waverley novel involves the Earl of Oxford who was exiled to Europe during the War of the Roses between the Houses of Lancaster and York. He is protected by the heroine named in the title, but he plans to return to England by enlisting the aid of Anne's uncle and a band of gallants. The following is a quote from the review in the 1937 edition of Reader's Digest of Books: "...the story is filled with wild adventure, and the reader follows the varying fortunes of its chief characters with eager interest. It presents vivid pictures of the still-lingering life--lawless and picturesque--of the Middle Ages."