The Doom of Devorgoil is a play by Sir Walter Scott, initially written in 1817 and 1818,[1] and then reworked in 1829 and 1830 for publication in the spring of 1830, together with another work titled Auchindrane in an octavo volume.
[2] However, it was not performed, because "[t]he manner in which the mimic goblins of Devorgoil are intermixed with the supernatural machinery, was found to be objectionable, and the production had other faults, which rendered it unfit for representation".
[2] In April 1830, Scott further wrote of the play: I have called the piece a Melodrama, for want of a better name; but, as I learn from the unquestionable authority of Mr. Colman's Random Records, that one species of the drama is termed an extravaganza, I am sorry I was not sooner aware of a more appropriate name than that which I had selected for Devorgoil.
The crime supposed to have occasioned the misfortunes of this devoted house, is similar to that of a Lord Herries of Hoddam Castle, who is the principal personage of Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe's interesting ballad, in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol.
The story of the Ghostly Barber is told in many countries; but the best narrative founded on the passage, is the tale called Stumme Liebe, among the legends of Musæus.
[2]The Edinburgh Literary Journal, in its review of the play, summarized the plot as follows: Oswald of Devorgoil is a decayed Scottish baron, living in his solitary and ruinous castle on the Borders; be is married to a good sort of woman called Eleanor, and has a daughter Flora, and a niece Katleen, both residing with him.
[4]The play was poorly received, with the Edinburgh Literary Journal suggesting that Scott should have thrown both Doom of Devorgoil and Auchindrane into the fire rather than publishing them.
The three females are positively disagreeable, for they are made to talk in a petulant and unbecoming manner, quite foreign to the gentleness usually belonging to their sex, and consequently effectually checking our interest in them".