Kenilworth

In the reign of Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the queen's favourite, has secretly married the beautiful Amy Robsart and keeps her hidden at Cumnor Place, an old house near Oxford, because the marriage would ruin his hopes of winning the queen herself. Amy's former suitor, Edmund Tressilian, believes she has been seduced and seeks justice, while Leicester's ruthless servant Richard Varney plots to keep the secret at any cost, all leading up to the queen's spectacular visit to Leicester's castle of Kenilworth.

Published in 1821, the novel mixes history and invention: Amy Robsart really died mysteriously in 1560, at the foot of a staircase, though the famous festivities at Kenilworth took place fifteen years later. Sir Walter Scott's portrait of Elizabeth, proud and passionate, is one of the book's pleasures. Then turn to Ivanhoe and The Talisman.