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.
Her second marriage shocked her friends and family, including her children. Although Bury was a clergyman from a good family, he had no fortune and was fifteen years younger than she was. Scott
called him...
Family and Intimate relationships
Violet Trefusis
Following this initial encounter, the two formerly isolated girls bonded over shared interests in Scott
, Baudelaire
, Dumas
, Rostand
's Cyrano de Bergerac, and their own pedigrees.
Glendinning, Victoria. Vita. Penguin.
23
Souhami, Diana. Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter. Flamingo.
72-3
Jullian, Philippe et al. Violet Trefusis: Life and Letters. Hamish Hamilton.
27
Family and Intimate relationships
Dorothea Du Bois
This most sensational trial of the mid-century was reported in detail by the Gentleman's Magazine the following year, and used in more or less avowed fictions by Eliza Haywood
in Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young...
Family and Intimate relationships
Harriet Tytler
She and her Breton maid Marie were the only European women present during the siege of Delhi. When the time had come for women and children to leave, HT
was too advanced in her pregnancy...
Family and Intimate relationships
Alison Cockburn
AC
was both a cousin, through her mother, and a great-aunt, through one of her sisters, of Walter Scott
. First meeting him when she was in her sixties and he was not yet six...
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.
3
and as...
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
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
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...
Education
Clara Codd
CC
never went to school; instead, she and her sisters were taught by a series of governesses who she never loved.
Codd, Clara. So Rich a Life. Caxton Limited.
6
Her education was not particularly religious: she was not exposed to Bible...
Education
Charlotte Yonge
CY
also learnt much on her own through reading widely in history, and classical and contemporary literature. She greatly admired Walter Scott
.
Hayter, Alethea. Charlotte Yonge. Northcote House.
38-9
Education
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Mary Elizabeth read early and voraciously, polishing off Anna Maria Hall
's three-volume Marian when she was only seven. By nine she was reading Scott
and Dickens
. One of the family servants introduced her...
Education
Marion Moss
Little is known is about MM
's formal education. However, according to critic Michael Galchinsky
, her father entertained the family by reading romantic poetry as the women sat and sewed, including Byron
's Childe...
Education
Ellen Johnston
She was largely self-taught, and by the age of thirteen had her imagination fired by reading Wilson
's Tales of the Borders and many of Walter Scott
's novels.
Johnston, Ellen. Autobiography, Poems, and Songs. William Love.
7
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...