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.
On her arrival in Oxford, her father
became to some extent interested in her education, enrolling her for music lessons with the organist James Taylor
, and having her copy work for him. He provided...
Literary responses
Mary Augusta Ward
Beatrice Webb
called this novel the most useful bit of work that has been done for many a long day. You have managed to give the arguments for and against factory legislation and a fixed...
Textual Features
Rosamund Marriott Watson
Betty Barnes, The Book Burner was probably inspired by Walter Scott
's account of a cook who used her employer's manuscript collection to fuel a fire and line pie-tins.
Blain, Virginia, editor. Victorian Women Poets: A New Annotated Anthology. Longman.
264
Other titles in this volume...
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...
Education
Harriet Shaw Weaver
HSW
's family encouraged her in the regular pursuits of a young, middle-class Victorian woman. From her father she inherited an enthusiasm for poetry—she especially liked Shakespeare
, Coleridge
, and Whitman
—and she read...
Family and Intimate relationships
Mary Webb
MW
's mother, Sarah Alice Meredith
, claimed relationship with Sir Walter Scott
, whose surname was her birth name. She set great store by the idea of duty, but seems to have become withdrawn...
Education
Mary Wesley
Mary acquired various country skills, like milking (by hand), butter-making, and of course riding.
Wesley, Mary, and Kim Sayer. Part of the Scenery. Bantam.
19, 20
She was not expected, however, to need to acquire skills that were marketable. Initially she was educated by about...
Literary responses
Jane West
Unlike JW
's two previous works, this one was reviewed in the Quarterly Magazine and elsewhere.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.
2: 373
David Thame
believes that this and West's next novel represent a substantial change of register from gossiping...
Some time after July 1814 SSW
published, bearing all three of her names, Waverley; or, The Castle of Mac Iver: A Highland Tale, of sixty years since. The title-page explained that this work was...
Literary responses
Harriette Wilson
Contemporary admirers of HW
on literary grounds included Walter Scott
, who praised her dialogue and intelligence, and thought her out and out
Thirkell, Angela. The Fortunes of Harriette. Hamish Hamilton.
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...
Family and Intimate relationships
Ellen Wood
EW
's father, Thomas Price
, was a glove manufacturer. His grandson describes him as an unambitious and literary man, more fitted for a cathedral stall than the calling he had adopted,
Wood, C. W. Memorials of Mrs. Henry Wood. R. Bentley and Son.
DW
's correspondents included Maria Jane Jewsbury
and Mary Ann Lamb
. She was very close to Coleridge
, who settled at Greta Hall near Keswick to be near the Wordsworths at Grasmere in June...
