This compendium unites Scott’s prefatory apparatus, his historical notice of the MacGregors and Rob Roy, the documentary appendices, and the opening and central narrative sequence of Rob Roy, preserving principal persons, events and causal links while noting Scott’s editorial stance.

Scott’s Advertisement and Editor’s Introduction (1829) frame the tale as a blend of original fiction and traditional materials: he acknowledges interpolations, occasional anachronism and suppressed names, and reproduces contemporary prints and letters (a 1732 warrant, correspondence with the Duke of Montrose, Rob Roy’s mock challenge and a letter to Marshal Wade) that anchor the fiction within documentary trace.

The historical introduction sketches Clan Alpine from Gregor son of Alpin (c. 787) through territorial losses, feuds with neighbours (notably the Campbells), repeated proscription and legal abolition of the MacGregor name (early 17th century onward). Into this context Scott places Robert MacGregor (Rob Roy): of humble gentry origin, ruined by commercial reverses, who became a cattle-dealer, then outlaw, famed for Highland swordsmanship, local knowledge and a pragmatic reputation alternating between protector and raider. Incidents recorded include seizures, “Rob Roy’s Prison,” and the later fates of his sons—Robin Òig’s bloody end and James’s exile and death in Paris—material reproduced or condensed in appended documents.

The novel opens in first person with Francis (“Frank”) Osbaldistone, lately rejected from his father’s mercantile house and sent to Northumberland. At Osbaldistone Hall the household—Sir Hildebrand, his rough sons, the urbane but untrustworthy kinsman Rashleigh, the cultivated ward Diana Vernon, and retainers (Owen, Andrew Fairservice)—sets the social field. Frank’s rivalry with Rashleigh and attraction to Diana converge with a commercial crisis: remittances entrusted to Rashleigh vanish, threatening the Osbaldistone firm. Diana confides Rashleigh’s perfidy, entrusts Frank with a sealed packet and urges him to go to Glasgow to aid Owen and avert financial ruin.

Frank’s Glasgow enterprise draws him into the Highlands’ politics and loyalties. Bailie Nicol Jarvie becomes an unlikely ally; the combative Highland Campbell (Rob Roy’s circle) oscillates between threat and protection. Travelling north with Jarvie and Fairservice, Frank is immersed in Highland life: an alehouse brawl, hospitality and uneasy fraternization, and the escalation of military pursuit. Captain Thornton’s militia attempts to seize outlaws; a fierce ambush at a loch pass—Helen MacGregor’s defiant presence, Highland musketry and grenades—ends in Thornton’s defeat and capture. A captured informant, Morris, is summarily executed by MacGregor’s party, shocking the Lowland protagonists. Rob Roy himself is presented to authority, escapes custody amid river tumult, and remains an ambiguous figure—both ruthless and merciful.

Personal plots resolve amid political turmoil: Rashleigh’s treachery culminates in the seizure of Sir Frederick and Diana but is thwarted by Highland intervention; Rashleigh dies cursing Frank. The narrator’s losses and trials close into inheritance and marriage to Diana. Rob Roy’s legend survives ambiguous—outlaw, protector, and emblem of the clash between Highland loyalty, Lowland law, commerce and private honour that drives the novel.