I read Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe when I was in high school back in the 1970s. Was it required reading? Nope, I just picked it up in my local bookstore because the cover looked interesting and it was $0.95. With a 5% sales tax, it cost me a dollar even, which was a bargain. I soon got caught up in Scott’s fast-paced tale of a valiant and honorable knight who was treated wrongly. I’ve been rereading literary classics that I first read when I was much younger to see how much more meaning I get from them now, and I decided to dive into Ivanhoe.

The Paperback version I bought fifty years ago.

Scott published it in 1820, and it was a big hit. It is set in the late 1100s, in Britain, after the Normans had established their conquest of it. There remain a few Saxon nobles, but almost all power resides in the Norman landowners. Richard the Lionhearted is king, but he hasn’t been seen for years, since he left for a Crusade, and it’s rumored he is being held prisoner in Europe. His brother, John, sits on the throne, and he is doing everything he can to consolidate his power.

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