Peveril of the Peak by Sir Walter Scott, Fiction, Historical, Literary, Classics 12+

📗 Most of the story takes place in Derbyshire, London, and on the Isle of Man. The title refers to Peveril Castle in Castleton, Derbyshire. "Here is a plot without a drop of blood; and all the elements of a romance, without its conclusion," says King Charles II near the end of Peveril of the Peak. As well he might! The book's about a popish plot to do him in, and pits puritan against catholic in a nation that'd just passed through the worst of its reformation. Peveril of the Peak was written in 1822 -- that is, in Scott's middle period, a time when he wrote books by reconstructing history, as he'd first done in Ivanhoe.