Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Sir Walter Scott
-
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.
After this show, Siddal's illustration of Scott
's Clerk Saunders was part of an exhibition that toured the United States; beyond these two instances, her work was never exhibited in her lifetime. Charles Eliot Norton
Occupation
Mary Bryan
Though literary historian Mary Waldron
says that MB
took on the running of the business herself,
Waldron, Mary. Letter about Mary Bryan to Isobel Grundy.
Bryan later told her prospective patron, Sir Walter Scott
, that her father took on its management for her...
Occupation
Barbara Pym
This work gave her considerable free time, most of which she spent reading such authors as Austen
, Johnson
, Scott
, and Trollope
. She particularly admired the forms of Mansfield
's published scrapbook...
Occupation
Caroline Scott
CS
became a painter and musician of some accomplishment. According to Lady Louisa Stuart
she called her drawings dark-coloured, [her] music touching, and [her] style pathetic.
Stuart, Lady Louisa, and J. Steven Watson. Memoire of Frances, Lady Douglas. Editor Rubenstein, Jill, Scottish Academic Press.
100
Three years before she was married she produced...
Occupation
Anne Bannerman
AB
was instrumental in securing the papers of John Leyden
(linguist, poet, and friend of Walter Scott
, with whom she had had some kind of close relationship) for the use of James Morton
...
Occupation
Fanny Kemble
She toured England, Scotland, and Ireland with the Covent Garden Theatre
company, met Walter Scott
, and was feted by Lady Morgan
in Dublin.
Marshall, Dorothy. Fanny Kemble. Weidenfeld and Nicholson.
Marsh, Jan, and Pamela Gerrish Nunn. Women Artists and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement. Virago.
66
names
Joanna Baillie
Walter Scott
teased her about her taking up in her fifties the style of Mrs. (This had earlier been universal for older unmarried women, as a mark of respect; it was now becoming limited...
Material Conditions of Writing
Iris Murdoch
Though she was a contented only child, IM
said that the impulse to create imaginary siblings was the thing that first inspired her to write. In her teens she was a leading contributor to the...
Literary Setting
Catherine Gore
The title-page quotes and very slightly alters four lines from Pope
beginning What gay ideas crowd the vacant brain,
Gore, Catherine. Mothers and Daughters. Bentley.
title-page
but whereas Pope's imaginary Teresa Blount
was daydreaming idly and innocently of the dukes and...
Literary responses
Lady Charlotte Bury
Assessments of LCB
's work during her lifetime varied wildly. Sir Walter Scott
quoted her in print; Sydney Morgan
respected her work; but to most people her social identity eclipsed her literary one. Her early...
Literary responses
Joanna Baillie
The Eclectic Magazine raised her confidence about her Scots songs by pronouncing that she was easily the equal in the genre of Scott
or Campbell
, and inferior only to Burns
himself.
Baillie, Joanna. “Introduction”. The Selected Poems of Joanna Baillie, 1762-1851, edited by Jennifer Breen, Manchester University Press, pp. 1-25.
13
Literary responses
Anne Marsh
Chorley
's Athenæum review is remarkable for two things: for the vehemence with which he praised the novel's plotting and the climactic scene of preparations for the wedding (which he quoted at length, only regretting...
Literary responses
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
The review in the Critical made nostalgic reference to pleasure in Morgan's The Wild Irish Girl, and continued: As a national writer, we cannot too much admire her sentiments; and, as a descriptive writer...
Literary responses
Ann Taylor Gilbert
T he Critical, warming to the Taylors' work, said the authors of this little book had a better claim to the name of poet than many of higher pretensions.
