When the handsome young peasant lad Donald saves the beautiful Matilda from drowning, he quickly becomes a favourite of her father, Lord Bosmora. The two youths soon fall in love, and nothing seems to stand in their way but Donald's uncertain parentage.

Little do they suspect the evil forces that surround them, represented by three villains. The wicked Lady Margaret has sworn vengeance on the young lovers, while the lecherous Baron Duncaethal threatens to storm Bosmora Castle and seize Matilda by force. And then there is the mysterious bandit Darthalgo-who is he, and what is his inscrutable purpose?

The Caledonian Bandit; or, The Heir of Duncaethal (1811) is one of the best of the later Minerva Press Gothic novels and also one of the rarest, with only two known copies surviving. This new edition features the unabridged text of the original two-volume edition as well as a new introductory essay by Carol Margaret Davison focusing on Scottish Gothic, notes, and a bibliography.

Mrs. Smith's other Gothic novel, Barozzi; or, The Venetian Sorceress (1815), is also available in paperback from Valancourt Books.