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.
The plot owes something to Charlotte Lennox
's Female Quixote. The father of Green's heroine has lived through many crazes for novelists: first Burney
, then Radcliffe
, then Owenson
, then Rosa Matilda
This is perhaps the most remarkable fictional treatment of the general period of the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland. EH
thus defends her once-controversial subject-matter, and her remarkable empathy with the rebels' position: the tale...
Textual Features
Grace Aguilar
GA
's representation of Jews and Jewish history was profoundly influenced by novelists, pre-eminently Walter Scott
, and by historians including Americans Washington Irving
and William H. Prescott
.
Ragussis, Michael. Figures of Conversion: "The Jewish Question" and English National Identity. Duke University Press.
160
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Amy Levy
She continued: The Jew, as we know him to-day, with his curious mingling of diametrically opposed qualities; his surprising virtues and no less surprising vices; leading his eager, intricate life; living, moving, and having his...
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J. S. Anna Liddiard
An advertisement apologises for William's temerity in handling a topic (the battle of Waterloo) already touched by a Master's hand (that of Walter Scott
). The table of contents names JSAL
's poem as...
Textual Features
Elizabeth Fenton
Fenton sets out to paint a a familiar picture of the everyday occurrences, manners, and habits of life of persons undistinguished either by wealth or fame
Fenton, Elizabeth. The Journal of Mrs. Fenton. Editor Lawrence, Sir Henry, Edward Arnold.
1-2
in British India. But this is largely unfulfilled...
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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...
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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...
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Mary Bryan
MB
's preface repeats an opinion she had already voiced in letters to Scott
: that the dominance of his novels had narrowed the opportunities for others. Its village setting, in and around Sidmouth on...
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Ethel Savi
Writing of Savi's attempts to render Indian speech in English, critic Laxmi Moktali
cites Sir Walter Scott
's introduction of Indian words about food and dress, for example, as the beginning of an experiment with...
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Adelaide O'Keeffe
AOK
's unusual historical novel, which appeared several years before anything comparable by Sydney Morgan
, Christian Isobel Johnstone
, or Sir Walter Scott
, seems to carry within itself the seeds of the national...
Textual Features
Lady Louisa Stuart
LLS
's letters to Scott
show her to have been a trusted and perceptive critic of his novels, which she often read before publication. On The Heart of Mid-Lothian she sent him a major critique...
