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.
Many reviewers wrongly supposed that Gaston de Blondeville was derivative from Scott
's recent and very successful Kenilworth, which uses the same material.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press.
194-5
Talfourd
, who called it a ghost story, judged it...
Literary responses
Jane Austen
Sir Walter Scott
recorded in his journal on 14 March 1826 a judgement which has become famous: read again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and...
Literary responses
Felicia Hemans
Appreciation of FH
was slowly growing. Following on the positive responses from Scott
and Byron
, in October 1820John Taylor Coleridge
in the influential Quarterly Review (published by John Murray
, her own publisher)...
Literary responses
Susan Ferrier
Clavering
urged SF
not to alter (presumably not to tone down) her Lady McLaughlan portrait. The novel's immediate success was crucially boosted by the praise of Sir Walter Scott
. SF
read it aloud to...
Literary responses
Ann Radcliffe
Anna Seward
, in letters which were to be published in AR
's lifetime, mixed her praise of her gothic oeuvre with some trenchant criticism.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press.
Emma received eight reviews in English: more than any other Austen novel. Murray
sounded apologetic as he invited Walter Scott to review it (It wants incident and romance does it not?).
Tomalin, Claire. Jane Austen: A Life. Penguin Viking.
252
For...
Literary responses
Susanna Centlivre
From this plot Frances Burney
borrowed the four guardians of her heroine in Cecilia. Walter Scott
thought the plot was extravagant enough (when the play was a hundred and ten years old) yet that...
Literary responses
Anne Bannerman
The notice in the Critical Review was uncomplimentary, dismissing her as an imitator of Scott
, John Leyden
, and William Wordsworth
.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
38 (1803): 110ff
Elfenbein, Andrew. Romantic Genius: The Prehistory of a Homosexual Role. Columbia University Press.
143
The Poetical Register praised the volume for poetical...
Literary responses
Felicia Hemans
The play's debut was disappointing. It closed after a single night, though it was remounted with greater success in Edinburgh the following April with Harriet Siddons
in a major role (having been recruited at Joanna Baillie
Literary responses
Susan Ferrier
Again SF
met with success on balance. The Athenæum, however, naming Miss Ferriar as author, stated that the success of Marriage, backed by the good-natured commendation of Sir Walter Scott
, induced the...
Literary responses
Emily Lawless
First reviews of With Essex in Ireland were mixed. The New York Tribune felt the work to be uneven, partly on account of Harvey's narration and partly for lack of an adequately engaging plot.
New York Tribune.
(28 December 1890): 14
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.
Sarah Harriet Burney
was clearly more impressed by what she regarded as a popular, even a trashy novel, than she was willing to admit. She called it (in implicit contrast with Walter Scott
) a...
Literary responses
Emily Lawless
The Literary World vividly likened experiencing this novel to reading the life of a past century by lightning flashes, and the half-blinded reader reads on and on and cannot stop or look away short of...
Literary responses
Mary Russell Mitford
Charles the First was received well by the Athenæum, which indicated that the performance provided genuine satisfaction to a very attentive audience and gratification in its most agreeable shape to the gifted lady,
