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.
Both in an Address to the Editor and in a series of explanatory footnotes, AO
positions herself on the one hand as a historian with a proper regard for available evidence, and on the other...
Intertextuality and Influence
Harriet Smythies
In a critical preface HS
reveals her gender though not her name. She opens by invoking the author of Rienzi (either, Mary Russell Mitford
or Edward Bulwer Lytton
). The two groups of lovers and...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth B. Lester
Its title-page quotes from Akenside
, but the tutelary genius of the novel is Shakespeare
, several of whose plays have left their mark on it. The story opens (recalling two of Mrs Ross
's...
The Duke makes its moral point with a quotation from Sir Walter Scott
on the title-page: Oh woman! in our hours of ease, / Uncertain, coy, and hard to please . . . . When...
Intertextuality and Influence
Marjorie Bowen
MB
recalls being influenced at an early age by her enjoyment of Tennyson
's Idylls of the King, Wilde
's Picture of Dorian Gray, the novels of Sir Walter Scott
, and Richardson
Intertextuality and Influence
Grace Aguilar
The central character is the undowered girl Florence Leslie—so called because of her birth in Italy—whose high-minded principles have been fuelled by indiscriminate
Aguilar, Grace. Woman’s Friendship. D. Appleton and Company.
13
reading in history, poetry, and romance at an early age...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Isabella Spence
The title-page quotes Burns
and Scott
. The preface remarks that books based on female impressions of national manners and moral character have succeeded in the past.
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Sketches of the Present Manners, Customs, and Scenery of Scotland. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.
prelims iv
The book is again made up...
Intertextuality and Influence
Grace Aguilar
One of her source texts was John Stockdale
's The History of the Inquisition, which like other English books on the topic was more concerned to demonstrate the dangers of Catholicism than the plight...
Intertextuality and Influence
Joanna Baillie
JB
says she took the topic of Witchcraft from a scene in Scott
's Bride of Lammermuir in which disgruntled old women wish the devil would give them a helping hand. (Scott does not mention...
Intertextuality and Influence
Harriet Martineau
Writing to Mary Russell Mitford
of her hope that they might meet, HM
acknowledged the influence which the spirit of your writings has had over me.
L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, editor. The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford as Recorded in Letters from Her Literary Correspondents. Hurst and Blackett.
Spence's title-page bears a quotation from James Cririe
, a little-known Scots poet whom Burns had praised (and whom she cites several times later in her text). Perhaps for the sake of her original audience...
Intertextuality and Influence
Grace Aguilar
The martyr named in the title is a Spanish Jew named Marie, who refuses to convert despite her love for an English Catholic man, and the further inducements represented by the torture of the Inquisition
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
MEB
was encouraged to write from an early age, particularly by her mother. She would later recall how when she was eight and had just learned to write, her godfather bought her a beautiful brand...
Intertextuality and Influence
Marion Moss
Written as a challenge to anti-Semitism, MM
's fiction is set in the remote past as a way of explaining Jewish history, religion, and customs to English readers in much the same way Scottexplained...
