Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Sir Walter Scott
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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.
Since the cousin with whom she shared lessons was three years older, Ada Ellen read a good many books at that time which must have been far beyond . . . [her] powers. At twelve...
Education
Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck
In the house of an aunt she was surprised to find novels (particularly those of Richardson
) a topic of conversation,
Schimmelpenninck, Mary Anne. Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck. Editor Hankin, Christiana C., Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts.
1: 118
and that (in her own judgement) Fielding
and Smollett
, and various...
Education
Rebecca Harding Davis
Influenced by her mother's linguistic virtuosity and her father's storytelling and love of classic literature, Rebecca grew up well acquainted with early American history (whose evidence lay close at hand) and with the stories...
Education
Alice Meynell
In the summer of 1852 Elizabeth and Alice Thompson (later AM
) began their education under their father's instruction. Recording her daughters' lessons, Christiana Thompson writes, Dear little angels do their writing . ....
Education
Pearl S. Buck
Mr Kung despised fiction and the Sydenstricker library contained only the supposedly factual Plutarch
's Lives and Foxe
's Book of Martyrs, but Pearl read fiction avidly in both Chinese and English, devouring Shakespeare
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...
Education
Mary Wesley
Mary acquired various country skills, like milking (by hand), butter-making, and of course riding.
Wesley, Mary, and Kim Sayer. Part of the Scenery. Bantam.
19, 20
She was not expected, however, to need to acquire skills that were marketable. Initially she was educated by about...
Education
Charlotte Dempster
In early adulthood CD
continued to study on her own: she read the poetry of Sir Walter Scott
and often spent her mornings reading history, writing, or drawing.
Dempster, Charlotte. The Manners of My Time. Editor Knox, Alice, Grant Richards.
Some Recollections of Jean Ingelow and Her Early Friends. Kennikat Press.
150-1
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Peters, Maureen. Jean Ingelow: Victorian Poetess. Boydell.
23
Education
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Her next school was the Select Seminary for Young Ladies and Gentlemen (a school that counted its pupils in single figures and was run by a trio of very young sisters). Frances was good at...
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Charlotte Bury
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...