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.
In the most sustained consideration of the literary material, Constance Hassett
argues that what has been read as autobiographical is on the contrary a typically Victorian tonality.
Hassett, Constance W. “Elizabeth Siddal’s Poetry: A Problem and Some Suggestions”. Victorian Poetry, Vol.
35
, No. 4, pp. 443-70.
Hassett pursues the theme of muteness in...
Cultural formation
Felicia Skene
FS
was descended from Scottish aristocracy on her mother's side, with Jacobite connections; she was presumably white. Her parents belonged to the middle class. They travelled extensively and moved in distinguished circles; her father was...
Friends, Associates
Felicia Skene
From her youth FS
was accustomed to mixing with distinguished people. Sir Walter Scott
, a friend of both of her parents, found her youthful company a relief when he was old and ill. In...
Intertextuality and Influence
Charlotte Smith
Again the Analytical reviewer may have been Wollstonecraft
, and if so she was better pleased than before: another novel, written with her usual flow of language and happy discrimination of manners. . ....
Intertextuality and Influence
Harriet Smythies
In a critical preface HS
reveals her gender though not her name. She opens by invoking the author of Rienzi (either, Mary Russell Mitford
or Edward Bulwer Lytton
). The two groups of lovers and...
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...
Textual Production
Elizabeth Isabella Spence
In an AdvertisementEIS
claimed that she wrote this book before the appearance (in 1826) of two other historical novels about the Civil War period, Brambletye House by Horace Smith
and Woodstock by Sir Walter Scott
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Isabella Spence
The title-page quotes Burns
and Scott
. The preface remarks that books based on female impressions of national manners and moral character have succeeded in the past.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Sketches of the Present Manners, Customs, and Scenery of Scotland. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.
prelims iv
The book is again made up...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Isabella Spence
Spence's title-page bears a quotation from James Cririe
, a little-known Scots poet whom Burns had praised (and whom she cites several times later in her text). Perhaps for the sake of her original audience...
Education
Freya Stark
Family friends sympathetic to Freya's feelings of entrapment at Dronero sent her gifts of books: she was especially passionate about Shakespeare
, Sir Walter Scott
, Byron
, Keats
, Kipling
, Shelley
, Wordsworth
Literary responses
Anna Steele
In a lengthy review the Times noted that while Gardenhurst had many faults typical of first novels (citing other examples from Sir Walter Scott
, George Eliot
, and Charles Dickens
), it nonetheless has...
Family and Intimate relationships
Charlotte Stopes
Her other grandfather, William Carmichael
, was a solicitor, or Writer to the Signet. In this capacity he assisted and then succeeded Sir Walter Scott
.
Maude, Aylmer. The Authorized Life of Marie C. Stopes. Williams and Norgate.
12
Education
Harriet Beecher Stowe
HBS
's domestic training consisted of learning knitting, sewing, and Presbyterian and Episcopal church catechisms from an aunt and grandmother who were skilled at weaving and embroidery.
Hedrick, Joan. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life. Oxford University Press.
12-13
Her father did not allow novels in...
Textual Features
Elizabeth Strutt
The story's omniscient narrator offers historical explanations as the tale proceeds (noting, for instance, that women's status, unlike women's education, has not improved since the fourteenth century). ES
says she hopes to encourage her readers...
Textual Production
Lady Louisa Stuart
LLS
collaborated with Sir Walter Scott
on his spoof, Private Letters of the Seventeenth Century. Printed in part in this year, it did not appear complete until the twentieth century, long after both Scott's...
