Saint Ronan's Well  Saint Ronan's Well is a novel by Sir Walter Scott. It is the only novel he wrote with a 19th-century setting. The composition of "Saint Ronan's Well" was somewhat erratic. Scott began it immediately after completing "Quentin Durward" in early May 1823, and by the end of the month more than half of the first volume had been written. It is likely that he then slowed composition to avoid exhausting the market, and the volume was apparently not completed until late August or early September. Thereafter the pace quickened again, with the second volume finished and the third under way by mid-October, but then there came another slowing, and it is probable that it was into December before all was done. It seems likely that this second hold-up was occasioned by Scott's long resistance to the demand by James Ballantyne that the reference in the text to Clara's intercourse with Tyrell should be deleted: he eventually gave in, though signs of the original intention persist in the first edition. Given its modern setting, it is not surprising that the sources of "Saint Ronan's Well" are predominantly literary rather than historical. It seems likely, though, that Clara's story was influenced by a protracted legal case involving a Border family, which ran from 1804 until 1820. The first edition was published in Edinburgh on 27 December 1823, and in London two days later. It is likely that Scott was responsible for some of the small changes to the text of the novel when it appeared in the 1827 "Tales and Romances". During the latter part of 1830 he revised the text more extensively and provided an introduction and notes for the 'Magnum' edition, in which it appeared as Volumes 33 and 34 in February and March 1832. The standard modern edition, by Mark Weinstein, was published as Volume 16 of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels in 1995: this is based on the first edition with emendations mainly from the manuscript; the 'Magnum' material appears in Volume 25b (2012). The novel concerns the rivalry of two men: Valentine Bulmer, the Earl of Etherington, and his half-brother Francis Tyrrel. Both wish to marry Miss Clara Mowbray, who is the sister of John, the laird of Saint Ronan’s. Saint Ronan’s Well is a spa at Innerleithen, a town near Peebles in southern Scotland. Valentine Bulmer and his half-brother Francis Tyrrel had been Mrs Dods' guests at Cleikum Inn when they were students from Edinburgh, and she gladly welcomed Francis when he arrived, some years afterwards, to stay at the inn again, to fish and sketch in the neighbourhood.