House of the Wolfings-William Morris

The Black Dwarf is the first of the “Tales of My Landlord” series, which also includes The Bride of Lammermoor and The Heart of Midlothian. The third preliminary chapter depicts two horsemen arriving at the Wallace Inn in Gandercleugh, where one of the horsemen relates the tale. The story proper is set on the Scottish borders during the reign of Queen Anne. The Jacobite movement is in its infancy, but the inhabitants of this part of the country have enough to quarrel about without politics inciting them to it. Several families of high and low birth bear no good intentions to each other, and a weird, brooding dwarf, who wishes ill on all of humanity, seems to direct and perpetuate the mayhem from his lonely cottage on Mucklestane Moor. (tbragg)