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.
In the most sustained consideration of the literary material, Constance Hassett
argues that what has been read as autobiographical is on the contrary a typically Victorian tonality.
Hassett, Constance W. “Elizabeth Siddal’s Poetry: A Problem and Some Suggestions”. Victorian Poetry, Vol.
35
, No. 4, pp. 443-70.
Hassett pursues the theme of muteness in...
Literary responses
Jemima Tautphoeus
The novel was very popular in both England and Bavaria. The general view was that there is no novel . . . in which the epithet charming could be applied with more strict propriety...
Literary responses
Susan Ferrier
Again SF
met with success on balance. The Athenæum, however, naming Miss Ferriar as author, stated that the success of Marriage, backed by the good-natured commendation of Sir Walter Scott
, induced the...
Literary responses
Jane Porter
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...
Literary responses
Jane Austen
Emma received eight reviews in English: more than any other Austen novel. Murray
sounded apologetic as he invited Walter Scott to review it (It wants incident and romance does it not?).
Tomalin, Claire. Jane Austen: A Life. Penguin Viking.
252
For...
Literary responses
Susanna Centlivre
From this plot Frances Burney
borrowed the four guardians of her heroine in Cecilia. Walter Scott
thought the plot was extravagant enough (when the play was a hundred and ten years old) yet that...
Literary responses
Emily Lawless
First reviews of With Essex in Ireland were mixed. The New York Tribune felt the work to be uneven, partly on account of Harvey's narration and partly for lack of an adequately engaging plot.
New York Tribune.
(28 December 1890): 14
Literary responses
Mary Charlton
Sarah Harriet Burney
was clearly more impressed by what she regarded as a popular, even a trashy novel, than she was willing to admit. She called it (in implicit contrast with Walter Scott
) a...
Literary responses
Mary Russell Mitford
Charles the First was received well by the Athenæum, which indicated that the performance provided genuine satisfaction to a very attentive audience and gratification in its most agreeable shape to the gifted lady,
Athenæum. J. Lection.
349 (1834): 508
Literary responses
Rhoda Broughton
The Times marked RB
's death with an editorial asserting her permanent value as a novelist,
Times. Times Publishing Company.
(7 June 1920): 13
as well as with an obituary. The former commented that Broughton had made a sound...
Literary responses
Emily Lawless
The Literary World vividly likened experiencing this novel to reading the life of a past century by lightning flashes, and the half-blinded reader reads on and on and cannot stop or look away short of...
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...
Literary responses
Felicia Hemans
Wordsworth
in 1837 revised his existing Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg to include a stanza describing FH
as that holy Spirit / Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep.
Wordsworth, William. The Complete Poetical Works of Wordsworth. Editor George, Andrew J., Houghton Mifflin.
737
Although his...
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
Anne Grant
The pension was granted following the petition of Sir Walter Scott
(who had praised her writing at the end of Waverley),
Perkins, Pamela. “Anne Grant and the Professionalization of Privacy”. Authorship, Commerce and the Public: Scenes of Writing, 1750-1850, edited by Emma Clery et al., Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 29-43.
