Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer is an 1815 historical novel by Sir Walter Scott. It's the second book of the Waverley novels.
In the late eighteenth century Guy Mannering gets lost while travelling in Scotland. He takes shelter at a nearby house owned by the Laird of Ellangowan. The laird's son Harry has just been born, so Guy, an astrologer, offers to tell the baby's fortune. He's alarmed by what he sees. Instead of telling the parents there and then, he writes down his predictions and tells them to read them only when Harry turns five.
Harry is kidnapped on his fifth birthday. Seventeen years later Guy Mannering's daughter falls in love with Vanbeest Brown, a soldier of mysterious origins, who Guy challenged to a duel and who was reported killed in battle...
The novel can be read on Gutenberg
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Contains examples of:
- A Minor Kidroduction: Harry first appears as a baby, then as a five-year-old.
- As You Know: Guy describes his past in a letter to an old friend, who already knows most of what Guy tells him.
- Catchphrase: The Dominie exclaims "Prodigious!" every time something surprising happens.
- Character Title: Guy Mannering is one of the protagonists.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Things might have gone better for the Bertrams if only Guy had told them his predictions.
- Death by Childbirth: Henry's mother dies giving birth to his sister.
- Drunk with Power: The formerly easy-going Godfrey Bertram turns into a tyrant when he becomes a judge.
- Epigraph: Every chapter starts with a quotation, usually from one of Shakespeare's plays (including Henry IV, King Lear, and King John).
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Dominie Sampson's first name is never mentioned. He's known only as "Dominie" or "the Dominie", a Scottish word meaning "schoolmaster" or "clergyman".
- Funetik Aksent: Joe Hodges has a nigh-incomprehensible accent. Especially odd, because this is an in-universe phonetic accent; Brown transcribes Hodges's words in a letter to his friend.
- Gun Struggle: Brown and Hazlewood have a fight while Brown is holding a gun. Hazlewood gets accidentally shot, which leads to Hazlewood's father and Guy assuming Brown deliberately tried to kill him.
- Have a Gay Old Time: Guy describes his wife as gay (meaning that she was light-hearted and cheerful).
- I Am Who?: Vanbeest Brown is really Harry Bertram. He's as shocked as everyone else when this is revealed.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Sophia Mannering and Vanbeest Brown had a platonic friendship. But Guy, egged on by another soldier's Malicious Slander of Sophia, suspected they were having an affair and challenged Brown to a duel.
- No Communities Were Harmed: The various invented towns and villages in the novel have been mapped onto real Galloway locations - so Ellangowan is Barholm, Portanferry is Creetown, Kippletringan is Gatehouse of Fleet, Hazlewood is Ardwall (the curious "-le-" spelling of the "hazel" element does suggest it's also influenced by Hazlefield near Auchencairn, but that's inland while Hazlewood is on the coast).
- Put on a Bus: Guy disappears from the story in chapter five and doesn't reappear until chapter eleven, when several years have passed in-universe. Scott lampshades this later, when he snarks that Guy had better appear again or the readers will think he's disappeared for another quarter of a century.
- Reckless Gun Usage: The Dominie isn't familiar with guns, so when he picks up a fowling-piece (a sort of old shotgun) he accidentally fires it and almost hits a bystander.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Guy thinks Brown was killed in a battle. He gets a shock when Brown turns up again alive and well.
- Venturous Smuggler: Dirk Hatteraick and his crew are the less dashing, more ruthless kind.
