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.
Bowles and her circle likened the young woman who enjoyed dancing and singing to Walter Scott
's Flora McIvor.
Friends, Associates
Lady Eleanor Butler
Among their many visitors (apart from the local gentry, with whom they duly established links), close friends included Anna Seward
, Henrietta Maria Bowdler
(who wrote mock-flirtatiously of LEB
as her veillard [sic] or old...
Friends, Associates
Alison Cockburn
She wrote that some of my most steady friends thro' Life were my childhood companions, girls she had been at school with.
Cockburn, Alison. Letters and Memoirs. Editor Craig-Brown, Thomas, David Douglas.
2
Besides Ramsay (whom, too, she had known since her girlhood), Burns
Friends, Associates
Felicia Skene
From her youth FS
was accustomed to mixing with distinguished people. Sir Walter Scott
, a friend of both of her parents, found her youthful company a relief when he was old and ill. In...
Benger, Elizabeth Ogilvy. Memoirs of the late Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown.
1: 152-4
Smith, Elizabeth. Fragments, In Prose and Verse. Editor Bowdler, Henrietta Maria, Richard Cruttwell.
151
In Edinburgh in 1803...
Friends, Associates
Mary Boyle
MB
noted in her reminiscences that she had been on terms of close and tender friendship with many great men.
Boyle, Mary. Mary Boyle. Her Book. Editor Boyle, Sir Courtenay Edmund, E. P. Dutton; John Murray.
xxiii
Her correspondence with some of them has since been published. She called G. P. R. James
Family and Intimate relationships
Margaret Calderwood
MC
's mother, born Anne Dalrymple
and by marriage Lady Steuart, was one of the youngest of a large family, and described as witty and beautiful. She was a niece of Janet Dalrymple
who was...
Family and Intimate relationships
Anne Plumptre
By contrast, the youngest sister, Jemima
(baptised at Cambridge on 29 December 1769), who also became a novelist, seems to have lost contact with most of her family; not one of them appears on her...
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
Mary Howitt
In Leicester she met William Howitt
; she later visited his family at Heanor in Derbyshire. His mother was a compounder of herbal medicines. William loved Walter Scott
, the Romantic poets, and the...
Family and Intimate relationships
Susan Ferrier
The first important position of James Ferrier
, SF
's father, was as Writer to the Signet. Later he was appointed Principal Clerk of Session and became estate manager to the Duke of Argyll
...
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
Anne Grant
AG
's parents were married in 1753; they moved to Glasgow shortly afterwards.
Wilson, James Grant, and Anne Grant. “Preface, Memoir of Mrs. Grant”. Memoirs of an American Lady, edited by James Grant Wilson and James Grant Wilson, Books for Libraries Press, p. ix - xxxvi.
xiii
Her mother, Catherine (Mackenzie) MacVicar
, was a grand-daughter of the ancient family of Stewart, settled at Invernahyle in Argyllshire...
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.
