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.
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...
DW
's correspondents included Maria Jane Jewsbury
and Mary Ann Lamb
. She was very close to Coleridge
, who settled at Greta Hall near Keswick to be near the Wordsworths at Grasmere in June...
In the spring of 1809, AG
went to Edinburgh in search of a house. Invited to her home by the Duchess of Gordon
, she met there Sir Walter Scott
. Around the same time...
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...
She was amused at his appearance and manner: her likening him to a Walter Scott
character might particularly have displeased him. He looked a cross between a Dominie Sampson and a starved R. C. curate...
Friends, Associates
Lady Louisa Stuart
LLS
was introduced as a young woman into the Bluestocking circle. Her friendship with the younger Louisa Clinton
produced some attractive letters and that with Frances, Lady Douglas
, produced a remarkable memoir. Lady Douglas's...
Friends, Associates
Mary Martha Sherwood
Meeting the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry
, MMS
discussed with her the danger of celebrity, for females especially, and their respective temptations.
Sherwood, Mary Martha, and Henry Sherwood. The Life of Mrs. Sherwood. Editor Kelly, Sophia, Darton.
MB
(now Bedingfield) sent an anguished appeal to Scott
for an actual gift of money—fifteen pounds—to enable her to see a London specialist about her sight.
Ragaz, Sharon. “Writing to Sir Walter: The Letters of Mary Bryan Bedingfield”. Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text, No. 7.