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.
It was published with a dedication to Walter Scott
. Produced as a melodrama at the Surrey Theatre
in summer 1817, it had an excellent run of thirty-four nights.
Baillie, Joanna. The Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie. Editor Slagle, Judith Bailey, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
1: 168
Intertextuality and Influence
Joanna Baillie
JB
says she took the topic of Witchcraft from a scene in Scott
's Bride of Lammermuir in which disgruntled old women wish the devil would give them a helping hand. (Scott does not mention...
Literary responses
Joanna Baillie
When Baillie re-read her own Witchcraft as a work in progress she wrote: I am inclined to think well of it. Renfrew witches upon a polite stage! Will such a thing ever be endorsed!
JB
first met Walter Scott
(a very new literary celebrity); she really got to know him by March 1808, when she visited him at 39 Castle Street, Edinburgh.
Carhart, Margaret S. The Life and Work of Joanna Baillie. Archon Books.
21-2
Textual Production
Joanna Baillie
JB
composed, at Hampstead, Lines on the Death of Sir Walter Scott.
Baillie, Joanna. The Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie. Editor Slagle, Judith Bailey, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
1: 478
names
Joanna Baillie
Walter Scott
teased her about her taking up in her fifties the style of Mrs. (This had earlier been universal for older unmarried women, as a mark of respect; it was now becoming limited...
Textual Production
Joanna Baillie
She agreed to do this without payment, though Thomson gave her an Indian shawl when adding to his first request six years later.
Baillie, Joanna. “Introduction”. The Selected Poems of Joanna Baillie, 1762-1851, edited by Jennifer Breen, Manchester University Press, pp. 1-25.
9, 11
Baillie at first demurred, claiming that her talents did not...
Education
Ella Baker
EB
was educated at home, chiefly by her sister Amy. At the age of thirteen, she recited Sir Walter Scott
's long romantic poem The Lady of the Lake from memory, on a challenge from...
Occupation
Anne Bannerman
AB
was instrumental in securing the papers of John Leyden
(linguist, poet, and friend of Walter Scott
, with whom she had had some kind of close relationship) for the use of James Morton
...
Friends, Associates
Anne Bannerman
A friend who was crucial in AB
's career was Robert Anderson
, editor of a famous poetry anthology and of the Edinburgh Magazine.
Elfenbein, Andrew. Romantic Genius: The Prehistory of a Homosexual Role. Columbia University Press.
130
Other important friends were John Leyden
(linguist, poet, and...
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...
LAB
's later social life in London is mentioned in the diary of Frances Burney
.
Graham, Henry Grey. Scottish Men of Letters in the Eighteenth Century. Adam and Charles Black.
345
Sir Walter Scott
renewed his early acquaintance with her after fifty years.
Textual Production
Lady Anne Barnard
The words were printed anonymously in the second edition of Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, edited by David Herd
, 1776. LAB
did not admit her authorship until 1823, when she confided her secret...
Timeline
By 20 February 1908: K. L. Montgomery dedicated their historical...
Women writers item
By 20 February 1908
K. L. Montgomery
dedicated their historicalnovelColonel Kate to Sir Walter Scott
.
1920: The number of Miners' Institutes (which included...