The Siege of Malta and Bizarro

The Siege of Malta and Bizarro are Scott's final works, written in Malta and Italy at the end of 1831 and the beginning of 1832. Although extracts from The Siege of Malta have been published, this is the first complete edition. Bizarro has not been available in print until now.
The Siege of Malta begins as a novel but ends as a historical account of the extraordinary defence of Malta by the Order of St John of Jerusalem and their Maltese helpers against much larger Muslim forces. It is an epic tale of endurance, resulting in inevitable defeat for some of the Knights, and for the rest, in the most hard-won of victories, setting the scene for the subsequent development of the Maltese nation.
In the novella Bizarro Scott takes up the story of a notorious Calabrian brigand of the early nineteenth century. Scott's fictionalised account draws on his experience of visiting Naples and its surroundings and his earlier knowledge of Neapolitan history to tell a tale of passion, murder and revenge with a level of violence rarely seen in his earlier work. Though incomplete, Bizarro shows Scott had not lost his power to tell a good story in this, his very last piece of fiction.

J. H. Alexander is Reader Emeritus in English at the University of Aberdeen Graham Tulloch is Professor of English at the Flinders University, Australia Judy King is Research Fellow at the Flinders University, Australia