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.
Their move back to England was facilitated by a legacy of £5,000 from Anne's father.
Heath-Caldwell, J. J. “Letters, References and Notes (1780-1874), Relating to James Caldwell and Anne Marsh (Marsh-Caldwell)”. Ancestors and Relatives of JJ Heath-Caldwell.
1839-1842
They bought the estate the previous year for £13,000 (including standing timber worth £3,280). AM
sold the house, estate...
Wealth and Poverty
Eliza Fay
She died in debt. A substantial collection of books, sold after her death in an auction held to raise money to satisfy her creditors, included works by Sir Walter Scott
, Anna Letitia Barbauld
,...
Wealth and Poverty
Anne Grant
Sir Walter Scott
, predicting on her first refusal that she would later eat her words, observed sharply that she was as proud as a Highland woman, vain as a poetess, and absurd as a...
Travel
Maria Jane Jewsbury
MJJ
travelled to Edinburgh, where she met Walter Scott
.
Leighton, Angela, and Margaret Reynolds, editors. Victorian Women Poets: An Anthology. Blackwell.
28
Travel
Maria Edgeworth
ME
spent two weeks at Abbotsford in Melrose with Sir Walter Scott
and his family.
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon.
418
Travel
Maria Edgeworth
ME
(with all her writing about Ireland long behind her) visited Killarney in County Kerry with Sir Walter Scott
and J. G. Lockhart
.
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon.
215, 420
Travel
Elizabeth Isabella Spence
Her more northerly Scottish journey took her in summer 1816 from the painfully Scottish-associated Flodden Field in Northumberland (no doubt with Scott
's Marmion in mind) to further informative sojourns in Edinburgh and Glasgow...
FH
took the first of two trips to Scotland, where she made a visit like an old familiar friend
Hughes, Harriet Browne Owen, and Felicia Hemans. “Memoir of Mrs. Hemans”. The Works of Mrs. Hemans, W. Blackwood, pp. 1-315.
180
with Sir Walter Scott
. She also met Francis Jeffrey
, who significantly shaped...
Travel
Cecil Frances Alexander
During her youth, the future CFA
traveled to Edinburgh where she met Sir Walter Scott
, and watched the famous Scottish landscape painter, Rev. John Thomson
, brother to her uncle Thomas Thomson
, at...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Sarah Green
M. G. Lewis
is a more complicated case, treated with some nuance. SG
admires The Monk but feels that after that Lewis's real talent was obscured by the baneful influence of German fiction: she agrees...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Margaret Emily Shore
The diary provides a full and vivid account of girlhood in the years leading up to Victoria
's reign, in addition to musings on familial and personal topics. It contains substantial literary criticism, such as...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Susanna Watts
This includes poems on Elizabeth Heyrick
, William Cowper
, and Sir Walter Scott
, A Prayer: for the Slaves, Delicacy: Inscribed to the Ladies, several of natural description, and yet others on...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Elizabeth Pipe Wolferstan
Here she expounds her method of teaching her grandchildren [or step-grandchildren] through play, and features acute critical comment on female writers for children. In particular, she makes detailed, intelligent criticism of Maria Edgeworth
's children's...
Textual Production
Anna Seward
Late in life she edited a juvenile journal, which however Walter Scott
chose not to print.
Barnard, Teresa. Oral communication with Isobel Grundy.
Timeline
12 March to 25 May 1644: In her husband's absence the royalist Countess...
National or international item
12 March to 25 May 1644
In her husband
's absence the royalist Countess of Derby
, born a Huguenot Frenchwoman, successfully stood a siege at Lathom House in Lancashire (a towered and moated building).
February 1809: The Quarterly Review was founded....
Writing climate item
February 1809
The Quarterly Review was founded.
1813: The Shetland poet Margaret Chalmers (born...
Women writers item
1813
The Shetland poetMargaret Chalmers
(born at Lerwick in 1858 and left in poverty with her sisters and aged mother after the death of their brother William at the battle of Trafalgar) published her Poems...
By January 1821: Ballantyne's Novelists Library began publication;...
Writing climate item
By January 1821
Ballantyne's Novelists Library began publication; it was completed in 1824.
14-29 August 1822: George IV visited Edinburgh (first reigning...
National or international item
14-29 August 1822
George IV
visited Edinburgh (first reigning monarch to do so since the 1630s); Sir Walter Scott
laid on a lavish display of Scottish national pride.
Harsh economic conditions caused two-thirds of established British publishing firms to crash: authors were ruined, like Sir Walter Scott
, by the bankruptcy of Constable and Ballantyne
in Edinburgh.
September 1826: The conservative Quarterly Review, discussing...
Writing climate item
September 1826
The conservative Quarterly Review, discussing Sir Walter Scott
's Lives of the Novelists, omitted all mention of any female writer.
1827: Constable's Miscellany, a prolific series...
Writing climate item
1827
Constable's Miscellany, a prolific series of affordable books, was established.
3 May 1834: William Harrison Ainsworth published his...
26 September 1835: Lucia di Lammermoor, probably the most famous...
Building item
26 September 1835
Lucia di Lammermoor, probably the most famous opera by Gaetano Donizetti
, had its first performance at Naples; its first appearance in London came three years later.
9 August 1838: The Hampstead circulating library, intended...
Writing climate item
9 August 1838
The Hampstead circulating library, intended for the middling and lower ranks, which had stocked no novels on principle except those of Scott
and Edgeworth
, found these were borrowed so much more often than...
August-September 1846: William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Rebecca...
Writing climate item
August-September 1846
William Makepeace Thackeray
's novelRebecca and Rowena, a sequel to Scott
's Ivanhoe, was serialised in Fraser's Magazine.
1882: Walter Scott Publishing Company was established...
27 June 1894: Mudie's Circulating Library and bookseller...
Writing climate item
27 June 1894
Mudie's Circulating Library
and bookseller W. H. Smith
together announced they would not pay more than four shillings a volume for novels; this forced publishers to abandon triple-decker format, and quickly led to its replacement...
1904: Sir Walter Raleigh, author of the literary...
Writing climate item
1904
Sir Walter Raleigh
, author of the literary historyThe English Novel, 1894, moved from Glasgow
to become the first Professor of English Literature at Oxford
.
Texts
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Dramatic Works of Goethe. Translators Swanwick, Anna and Sir Walter Scott, H. G. Bohn, 1851.
Grant, Douglas et al. “Introduction”. Private Letters of the Seventeenth Century, Clarendon Press, 1947, pp. 7-54.
Scott, Sir Walter. Ivanhoe. A. Constable, 1820.
Scott, Sir Walter. Kenilworth. A. Constable, 1821.
Scott, Sir Walter. Marmion. A. Constable; W. Miller and J. Murray, 1808.
Scott, Sir Walter. Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies; Longman and Rees, 1803.
Scott, Sir Walter. “Papers of Sir Walter Scott”. MSS 3278. 102, 3888.20, 3890. 89, 208, 261, National Library of Scotland, 1817.
Scott, Sir Walter et al. Private Letters of the Seventeenth Century. Clarendon, 1947.
Scott, Sir Walter. St. Ronan’s Well. A. Constable; Hurst, Robinson, 1824.
Scott, Sir Walter. Tales of My Landlord, Second Series. A. Constable, 1818.
Scott, Sir Walter. Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. A. Constable, 1819.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Journal of Sir Walter Scott. Editor Anderson, W. E. K., Clarendon, 1972.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Lady of the Lake. J. Ballantyne; Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and W. Miller, 1810.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme; A. Constable, 1805.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Letters of Sir Walter Scott. Editor Grierson, Sir Herbert John Clifford, Constable, 1937.
Seward, Anna. The Poetical Works of Anna Seward. Editor Scott, Sir Walter, J. Ballantyne, 1810.
Scott, Sir Walter. Waverley. A. Constable; Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown.
Scott, Sir Walter. Waverley. Editor Lamont, Claire, Oxford University Press, 1986.