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.
At a very young age, JR
imagined that God was a book. She was so slow to read that her parents were concerned, but then suddenly found herself able to read even the longer words...
Literary responses
Ann Radcliffe
Many reviewers wrongly supposed that Gaston de Blondeville was derivative from Scott
's recent and very successful Kenilworth, which uses the same material.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press.
194-5
Talfourd
, who called it a ghost story, judged it...
Literary responses
Ann Radcliffe
Anna Seward
, in letters which were to be published in AR
's lifetime, mixed her praise of her gothic oeuvre with some trenchant criticism.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press.
This work gave her considerable free time, most of which she spent reading such authors as Austen
, Johnson
, Scott
, and Trollope
. She particularly admired the forms of Mansfield
's published scrapbook...
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...
Friends, Associates
Anna Maria Porter
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...
Friends, Associates
Jane Porter
The Porters' mother lived a busy social life on limited means, and JP
kept up this tradition. Sir Walter Scott
was an early friend.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research.
265
When she moved to London, JP
included among her friends...
Reception
Jane Porter
The ODNB judged the London scenes (where the hero is living privately in London and trying to make a living out of selling his painting) the most convincing in the book.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Again her work was extremely popular. The French translation was banned by Napoleon
because of its portrayal of nationalist resistance to conquest.
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.
The notice in the Critical Review began by using this novel as a peg for a defence of good novels in general, especially, apparently, those dealing with national histories. The existence of many incompetent novelists...
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...
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...
Education
Winifred Peck
It was probably Mary A. Marzials
' anthology Gems of English Poetry which made poetry the only lesson the Knoxes disliked. Winifred felt that Hemans
's boy on the burning deck cut a poor figure...
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
Bessie Rayner Parkes
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.