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.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Charlotte Yonge
CY also learnt much on her own through reading widely in history, and classical and contemporary literature. She greatly admired Walter Scott .
Hayter, Alethea. Charlotte Yonge. Northcote House.
38-9
Literary responses Charlotte Yonge
The Daisy Chain's popularity was long-lasting, though not so intense as that of The Heir of Redclyffe. Jane Austen 's nephew James Austen-Leigh compared it to the work of Austen and Scott ...
Friends, Associates Dorothy Wordsworth
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...
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.
3
and as...
Textual Features Emma Caroline Wood
The volume included selections from Byron , George Eliot , Samuel Taylor Coleridge , Christina Rossetti , Sir Walter Scott , Alfred Lord Tennyson , Elizabeth Barrett Browning and William Wordsworth .
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...
Literary responses Harriette Wilson
Contemporary admirers of HW on literary grounds included Walter Scott , who praised her dialogue and intelligence, and thought her out and out
Thirkell, Angela. The Fortunes of Harriette. Hamish Hamilton.
218
a better writer than Teresia Constantia Phillips or others in the...
Textual Production Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson
Some time after July 1814 SSW published, bearing all three of her names, Waverley; or, The Castle of Mac Iver: A Highland Tale, of sixty years since. The title-page explained that this work was...
Literary responses Jane West
Unlike JW 's two previous works, this one was reviewed in the Quarterly Magazine and elsewhere.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.
2: 373
David Thame believes that this and West's next novel represent a substantial change of register from gossiping...
Intertextuality and Influence Jane West
JW 's preface invokes Shakespeare , Virgil , Homer , and Sir Walter Scott (she later adds Thomas Percy ) as more acceptable exemplars for romance than either the French romances (implicitly those of Madeleine de Scudéry
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...
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Webb
MW 's mother, Sarah Alice Meredith , claimed relationship with Sir Walter Scott , whose surname was her birth name. She set great store by the idea of duty, but seems to have become withdrawn...
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...
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...
Textual Features Rosamund Marriott Watson
Betty Barnes, The Book Burner was probably inspired by Walter Scott 's account of a cook who used her employer's manuscript collection to fuel a fire and line pie-tins.
Blain, Virginia, editor. Victorian Women Poets: A New Annotated Anthology. Longman.
264
Other titles in this volume...

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.

Mid 1820s: Harsh economic conditions caused two-thirds...

Writing climate item

Mid 1820s

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...

Writing climate item

3 May 1834

William Harrison Ainsworth published his hugely successful first novel, Rookwood.

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...

Writing climate item

1882

Walter Scott Publishing CompanySir Walter Scott was established out of the bankrupt Tyne Publishing Company in Paternoster Square, London.

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.