Sir Walter Scott

15 August 1771 - 21 September 1832

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.

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Connections	Author name Sort descending	Excerpt
Friends, Associates	Amelia Opie	In 1813 she again met de Staël (who was visiting London) and introduced her to Elizabeth Inchbald . Others she met after her husband's death included Richard Brinsley Sheridan , Byron , and Sir Walter Scott
Literary responses	Amelia Opie	This novel was an instantaneous success. Of the second edition the Critical Review (of May 1802) wrote: Seldom have we met with any combination of incidents, real or imaginary, which possessed more of the deeply...
Education	Bessie Rayner Parkes	BRP taught herself to read. By the age of seven she had completed all of Scott 's novels. Crawford, Anne, editor. The Europa Biographical Dictionary of British Women. Europa Publications. Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan. 265 She learnt both French and German with remarkable ease. Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan. 265 She developed a passionate admiration, and...
Education	Frances Mary Peard	However, according to her biographer, Mary J. Y. Harris , she was largely self-taught. Her mother never restricted her reading, and she later remembered tackling at an early age such classics as Scott , Shakespeare
Education	Winifred Peck	The young Knoxes had three governesses in two years, which later made WP feel guilty as she imagined these women weeping at night over the children's unruliness or the jealousy of the family nanny. Meanwhile...
Education	Winifred Peck	It was probably Mary A. Marzials ' anthology Gems of English Poetry which made poetry the only lesson the Knoxes disliked. Winifred felt that Hemans 's boy on the burning deck cut a poor figure...
Family and Intimate relationships	Anne Plumptre	By contrast, the youngest sister, Jemima (baptised at Cambridge on 29 December 1769), who also became a novelist, seems to have lost contact with most of her family; not one of them appears on her...
Friends, Associates	Anna Maria Porter	The young Walter Scott was a neighbour of the Porters in Edinburgh and a childhood friend to AMP and Jane. Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research. 265 Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford. Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge. under Jane Porter In London while Anna Maria was growing up, and even after...
Friends, Associates	Jane Porter	The Porters' mother lived a busy social life on limited means, and JP kept up this tradition. Sir Walter Scott was an early friend. Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research. 265 When she moved to London, JP included among her friends...
Reception	Jane Porter	The ODNB judged the London scenes (where the hero is living privately in London and trying to make a living out of selling his painting) the most convincing in the book. Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/. Thomas McLean , however...
Intertextuality and Influence	Jane Porter	Again her work was extremely popular. The French translation was banned by Napoleon because of its portrayal of nationalist resistance to conquest. Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford. Mary Russell Mitford , who thought very highly of Porter, found Wallace in...
Literary responses	Jane Porter	The notice in the Critical Review began by using this novel as a peg for a defence of good novels in general, especially, apparently, those dealing with national histories. The existence of many incompetent novelists...
Education	Beatrix Potter	Beatrix, educated at home and six years older than her brother, was a solitary child. She had few toys; but she became deeply interested in science, and was also, from an early age, devoted to...
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...
Literary responses	Ann Radcliffe	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...

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