The action of The Pirate takes place in Shetland and Orkney in the last years of the seventeenth century. The plot hinges on an illicit relationship and is dominated by obsessed women and dark men twisted by their criminality. The new edition does not change the story, but in its return to the manuscript it recovers the underlying pattern, and exhibits not only Scott's considerable knowledge of northern history, but his extraordinary grasp of the literature of the north.