Ivanhoe: Annotated Edition (I Couldn't Help It!)

If you read my last post, you know that I listened to the audiobook of Ivanhoe during a long drive this summer, and oooooooh did I love it! Published in 1819, Sir Walter Scott's epic has been beloved by some of the most brilliant minds of the past two centuries. Sir Winston Churchill described it as one of the "world's greatest books," and Charlotte Brontë famously told a friend that Scott's writing is so entertaining, all novels after his are "worthless."

That's probably because Ivanhoe features everything that makes an English adventure great: sword-fights, Robin Hood, Richard the Lionheart, damsels in distress, knights, heroes, scoundrels, and plenty of derring-do.

While Disney has done its best to simplify parts of the story, Ivanhoe is definitely designed for older audiences. In addition to the more anodyne adventures, you'll also encounter plenty of violence, sexual innuendo, and complex language.

All that complex verbiage is why I knew Ivanhoe would be the perfect book to annotate for Renaissance Revival (formerly Vocabbett!). My foreword gives you all the backstory you need, succinctly explaining the Norman Conquest, the Third Crusade, and a few other historical events that Scott expected his readers to know about. As always, you'll also find my definitions and explanations at the bottom of each page, and I've added dozens of exquisite illustrations from historical editions of Ivanhoe.

I truly believe Renaissance Revival's Ivanhoe: Illustrated and Annotated is the best edition that exists. I'm so grateful that I get to share these books with you! You can order the ebook directly from Renaissance Revival for a discount, but the ebook and paperback are both available on Amazon if you prefer that!

Coming in at a hot 600 pages, this is the longest book in my Annotated Classics collection, and I enjoyed every minute of it. The more I read the classics, the more I believe we are completely rootless without them. I read Dracula and some critically-acclaimed piece of modern drivel back-to-back this summer, and the contrast was incredible. It was like comparing the ocean to a cup of sewage.

Do yourself a favor and start reading the greatest books in history. You won't regret it!