Sir Walter Scott

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Standard Name: Scott, Sir Walter
Birth Name: Walter Scott
Titled: Sir Walter Scott
Nickname: The Great Unknown
Used Form: author of Kenilworth
The remarkable career of Walter Scott began with a period as a Romantic poet (the leading Romantic poet in terms of popularity) before he went on to achieve even greater popularity as a novelist, particularly for his historical fiction and Scottish national tales. His well-earned fame in both these genres of fiction has tended to create the impression that he originated them, whereas in fact women novelists had preceded him in each.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Wealth and Poverty Anne Grant
Sir Walter Scott , predicting on her first refusal that she would later eat her words, observed sharply that she was as proud as a Highland woman, vain as a poetess, and absurd as a...
Wealth and Poverty Anne Marsh
Their move back to England was facilitated by a legacy of £5,000 from Anne's father.
Heath-Caldwell, J. J. “Letters, References and Notes (1780-1874), Relating to James Caldwell and Anne Marsh (Marsh-Caldwell)”. Ancestors and Relatives of JJ Heath-Caldwell.
1839-1842
They bought the estate the previous year for £13,000 (including standing timber worth £3,280). AM sold the house, estate...
Wealth and Poverty Eliza Fay
She died in debt. A substantial collection of books, sold after her death in an auction held to raise money to satisfy her creditors, included works by Sir Walter Scott , Anna Letitia Barbauld ,...
Travel Sara Coleridge
In her years growing up, SC frequently visited the William WordsworthWordsworth family at Rydal Mount.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, and Sara Coleridge. Sara Coleridge, a Victorian Daughter: Her Life and Essays. Yale University Press.
24
Her father's home was frequented by notable guests including Francis Jeffrey , Thomas De Quincey , Charles Lamb ,...
Travel Felicia Hemans
FH took the first of two trips to Scotland, where she made a visit like an old familiar friend
Hughes, Harriet Browne Owen, and Felicia Hemans. “Memoir of Mrs. Hemans”. The Works of Mrs. Hemans, W. Blackwood, pp. 1-315.
180
with Sir Walter Scott . She also met Francis Jeffrey , who significantly shaped...
Travel Cecil Frances Alexander
During her youth, the future CFA traveled to Edinburgh where she met Sir Walter Scott , and watched the famous Scottish landscape painter, Rev. John Thomson , brother to her uncle Thomas Thomson , at...
Travel Maria Jane Jewsbury
MJJ travelled to Edinburgh, where she met Walter Scott .
Leighton, Angela, and Margaret Reynolds, editors. Victorian Women Poets: An Anthology. Blackwell.
28
Travel Elizabeth Isabella Spence
Her more northerly Scottish journey took her in summer 1816 from the painfully Scottish-associated Flodden Field in Northumberland (no doubt with Scott 's Marmion in mind) to further informative sojourns in Edinburgh and Glasgow...
Travel Maria Edgeworth
ME spent two weeks at Abbotsford in Melrose with Sir Walter Scott and his family.
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon.
418
Travel Maria Edgeworth
ME (with all her writing about Ireland long behind her) visited Killarney in County Kerry with Sir Walter Scott and J. G. Lockhart .
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon.
215, 420
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Elizabeth Pipe Wolferstan
Here she expounds her method of teaching her grandchildren [or step-grandchildren] through play, and features acute critical comment on female writers for children. In particular, she makes detailed, intelligent criticism of Maria Edgeworth 's children's...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Susanna Watts
This includes poems on Elizabeth Heyrick , William Cowper , and Sir Walter Scott , A Prayer: for the Slaves, Delicacy: Inscribed to the Ladies, several of natural description, and yet others on...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Margaret Emily Shore
The diary provides a full and vivid account of girlhood in the years leading up to Victoria 's reign, in addition to musings on familial and personal topics. It contains substantial literary criticism, such as...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Sarah Green
M. G. Lewis is a more complicated case, treated with some nuance. SG admires The Monk but feels that after that Lewis's real talent was obscured by the baneful influence of German fiction: she agrees...
Textual Production Maria Edgeworth
ME published three volumes of Tales of Fashionable Life, which Walter Scott called a series of moral fictions.
McCormack, William John et al. “Introduction”. The Absentee, The World’s Classics, Oxford University Press, p. ix - xlvii.
xlvi

Timeline

12 March to 25 May 1644: In her husband's absence the royalist Countess...

National or international item

12 March to 25 May 1644

In her husband 's absence the royalist Countess of Derby , born a Huguenot Frenchwoman, successfully stood a siege at Lathom House in Lancashire (a towered and moated building).

February 1809: The Quarterly Review was founded....

Writing climate item

February 1809

The Quarterly Review was founded.

1813: The Shetland poet Margaret Chalmers (born...

Women writers item

1813

The Shetland poetMargaret Chalmers (born at Lerwick in 1858 and left in poverty with her sisters and aged mother after the death of their brother William at the battle of Trafalgar) published her Poems...

By January 1821: Ballantyne's Novelists Library began publication;...

Writing climate item

By January 1821

Ballantyne's Novelists Library began publication; it was completed in 1824.

14-29 August 1822: George IV visited Edinburgh (first reigning...

National or international item

14-29 August 1822

George IV visited Edinburgh (first reigning monarch to do so since the 1630s); Sir Walter Scott laid on a lavish display of Scottish national pride.

Mid 1820s: Harsh economic conditions caused two-thirds...

Writing climate item

Mid 1820s

Harsh economic conditions caused two-thirds of established British publishing firms to crash: authors were ruined, like Sir Walter Scott , by the bankruptcy of Constable and Ballantyne in Edinburgh.

September 1826: The conservative Quarterly Review, discussing...

Writing climate item

September 1826

The conservative Quarterly Review, discussing Sir Walter Scott 's Lives of the Novelists, omitted all mention of any female writer.

1827: Constable's Miscellany, a prolific series...

Writing climate item

1827

Constable's Miscellany, a prolific series of affordable books, was established.

3 May 1834: William Harrison Ainsworth published his...

Writing climate item

3 May 1834

William Harrison Ainsworth published his hugely successful first novel, Rookwood.

26 September 1835: Lucia di Lammermoor, probably the most famous...

Building item

26 September 1835

Lucia di Lammermoor, probably the most famous opera by Gaetano Donizetti , had its first performance at Naples; its first appearance in London came three years later.

9 August 1838: The Hampstead circulating library, intended...

Writing climate item

9 August 1838

The Hampstead circulating library, intended for the middling and lower ranks, which had stocked no novels on principle except those of Scott and Edgeworth , found these were borrowed so much more often than...

August-September 1846: William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Rebecca...

Writing climate item

August-September 1846

William Makepeace Thackeray 's novelRebecca and Rowena, a sequel to Scott 's Ivanhoe, was serialised in Fraser's Magazine.

1882: Walter Scott Publishing Company was established...

Writing climate item

1882

Walter Scott Publishing CompanySir Walter Scott was established out of the bankrupt Tyne Publishing Company in Paternoster Square, London.

27 June 1894: Mudie's Circulating Library and bookseller...

Writing climate item

27 June 1894

Mudie's Circulating Library and bookseller W. H. Smith together announced they would not pay more than four shillings a volume for novels; this forced publishers to abandon triple-decker format, and quickly led to its replacement...

1904: Sir Walter Raleigh, author of the literary...

Writing climate item

1904

Sir Walter Raleigh , author of the literary historyThe English Novel, 1894, moved from Glasgow to become the first Professor of English Literature at Oxford .

Texts

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Dramatic Works of Goethe. Translators Swanwick, Anna and Sir Walter Scott, H. G. Bohn, 1851.
Grant, Douglas et al. “Introduction”. Private Letters of the Seventeenth Century, Clarendon Press, 1947, pp. 7-54.
Scott, Sir Walter. Ivanhoe. A. Constable, 1820.
Scott, Sir Walter. Kenilworth. A. Constable, 1821.
Scott, Sir Walter. Marmion. A. Constable; W. Miller and J. Murray, 1808.
Scott, Sir Walter. Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies; Longman and Rees, 1803.
Scott, Sir Walter. “Papers of Sir Walter Scott”. MSS 3278. 102, 3888.20, 3890. 89, 208, 261, National Library of Scotland, 1817.
Scott, Sir Walter et al. Private Letters of the Seventeenth Century. Clarendon, 1947.
Scott, Sir Walter. St. Ronan’s Well. A. Constable; Hurst, Robinson, 1824.
Scott, Sir Walter. Tales of My Landlord, Second Series. A. Constable, 1818.
Scott, Sir Walter. Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. A. Constable, 1819.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Journal of Sir Walter Scott. Editor Anderson, W. E. K., Clarendon, 1972.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Lady of the Lake. J. Ballantyne; Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and W. Miller, 1810.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme; A. Constable, 1805.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Letters of Sir Walter Scott. Editor Grierson, Sir Herbert John Clifford, Constable, 1937.
Seward, Anna. The Poetical Works of Anna Seward. Editor Scott, Sir Walter, J. Ballantyne, 1810.
Scott, Sir Walter. Waverley. A. Constable; Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown.
Scott, Sir Walter. Waverley. Editor Lamont, Claire, Oxford University Press, 1986.