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.
TD
and Aru
were briefly enrolled at a boarding school in Nice where they studied French.
Rao, Raja, and Toru Dutt. “Aru and Toru”. Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan, Writers Workshop.
After moving to England they continued their studies and attended the Higher Lectures for Women series begun by Henry Sidgwick
Education
Celia Moss
Little is known of CM
's education. Scholar Michael Galchinsky
(who later wrote of her for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography) describes her family's household as secularizing . . . for their father...
Education
Harriet Shaw Weaver
HSW
's family encouraged her in the regular pursuits of a young, middle-class Victorian woman. From her father she inherited an enthusiasm for poetry—she especially liked Shakespeare
, Coleridge
, and Whitman
—and she read...
Education
Emma Marshall
At a very early age Emma Martin could recite See'st thou my home is where yon woods are waving by Felicia Hemans
.
BRP
taught herself to read. By the age of seven she had completed all of Scott
's novels.
Crawford, Anne, editor. The Europa Biographical Dictionary of British Women. Europa Publications.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan.
265
She learnt both French and German with remarkable ease.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan.
265
She developed a passionate admiration, and...
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
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
Frances Mary Peard
However, according to her biographer, Mary J. Y. Harris
, she was largely self-taught. Her mother never restricted her reading, and she later remembered tackling at an early age such classics as Scott
, Shakespeare
Education
A. S. Byatt
She was educated at Sheffield High School and, from 1949, at the Mount School in York, a Quaker boarding school where her mother had taught English. ASB
felt awkward, anxious, and socially isolated at...
Education
Elinor Glyn
Since she abhorred her governesses, Elinor took her education into her own hands, reading every book she could in the library: Pepys
's diary, Cervantes
' Don Quixote (an eighteenth-century French version), Scott
, Agnes
Education
Clara Codd
CC
never went to school; instead, she and her sisters were taught by a series of governesses who she never loved.
Codd, Clara. So Rich a Life. Caxton Limited.
6
Her education was not particularly religious: she was not exposed to Bible...
Education
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Mary Elizabeth read early and voraciously, polishing off Anna Maria Hall
's three-volume Marian when she was only seven. By nine she was reading Scott
and Dickens
. One of the family servants introduced her...
Education
Marion Moss
Little is known is about MM
's formal education. However, according to critic Michael Galchinsky
, her father entertained the family by reading romantic poetry as the women sat and sewed, including Byron
's Childe...
Education
Winifred Peck
The young Knoxes had three governesses in two years, which later made WP
feel guilty as she imagined these women weeping at night over the children's unruliness or the jealousy of the family nanny. Meanwhile...
