description Bizarro Overview
Bizarro is an unfinished novella by the Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott. The story concerns Francesco Moscato, a Calabrian brigand, and uses the conventions of adventure and picaresque fiction around a central rogue figure. Scott began the work in the nineteenth century, but it was not completed during his lifetime. The text was later published from his manuscript, making it a posthumous addition to his fictional works rather than a finished novel.
help Bizarro FAQ
Did Sir Walter Scott ever finish Bizarro?
No, Bizarro was left unfinished at Scott's death in 1832. Along with The Siege of Malta, it was among the fragmentary late works he was drafting in his final months, and neither circulated like his completed Waverley novels.
What is Walter Scott's Bizarro about?
It's a picaresque adventure centered on Francesco Moscato, a Calabrian brigand, written with the conventions of rogue-led adventure fiction. Scott only sketched the story, so readers get the setup of the outlaw antihero rather than a resolved plot.
Why did Walter Scott write about a Calabrian brigand?
Scott drafted it after his final overseas voyage through the Mediterranean in 1831–32, which took him to Malta and Italy, where tales of Neapolitan and Calabrian bandits circulated widely. The Italian material stuck with him even as his health declined.
Was Bizarro ever actually published?
It stayed unpublished for well over a century, since Scott's heirs and executors kept the unfinished texts back. Bizarro finally reached print in 2008, when the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels brought it out together with The Siege of Malta.
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