Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
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.
During her first marriage Lady Charlotte frequently entertained the literary celebrities of her day.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.
Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge.
She was a friend and patron of Sir Walter Scott
, and a friend (with her daughters) of the exiled Italian...
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Charlotte Bury
Her second marriage shocked her friends and family, including her children. Although Bury was a clergyman from a good family, he had no fortune and was fifteen years younger than she was. Scott
called him...
Reception
Lady Charlotte Bury
Walter Scott
used verses by her to head a chapter in The Heart of Midlothian, 1818.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research.
57
Literary responses
Lady Charlotte Bury
Assessments of LCB
's work during her lifetime varied wildly. Sir Walter Scott
quoted her in print; Sydney Morgan
respected her work; but to most people her social identity eclipsed her literary one. Her early...
Friends, Associates
Lady Eleanor Butler
Among their many visitors (apart from the local gentry, with whom they duly established links), close friends included Anna Seward
, Henrietta Maria Bowdler
(who wrote mock-flirtatiously of LEB
as her veillard [sic] or old...
Butler, Lady Eleanor et al. “Foreword and Editorial Materials”. The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton, edited by Eva Mary Bell, Macmillan, p. vii - viii; various pages.
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...
Textual Production
Augusta Ada Byron
As an adolescent Ada composed an essay on Sir Walter Scott
's Heart of Midlothian, and a handful of creative tales.
Woolley, Benjamin. The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason and Byron’s Daughter. Macmillan.
114
Later she composed an essay on the imagination.
Woolley, Benjamin. The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason and Byron’s Daughter. Macmillan.
217
Family and Intimate relationships
Margaret Calderwood
MC
's mother, born Anne Dalrymple
and by marriage Lady Steuart, was one of the youngest of a large family, and described as witty and beautiful. She was a niece of Janet Dalrymple
who was...
Friends, Associates
Dorothea Primrose Campbell
DPC
corresponded with Walter Scott
, who offered moral and some material support.
Scott, Sir Walter. “Papers of Sir Walter Scott”. MSS 3278. 102, 3888.20, 3890. 89, 208, 261, National Library of Scotland.
Dedications
Dorothea Primrose Campbell
In December 1813 DPC
wrote to J. W. H. Payne
, editor of The Ladies' Monthly Museum, to explain her dire financial circumstances and ask for his help in producing a second, London edition...
Intertextuality and Influence
Rosa Nouchette Carey
One of the many novels which RNC
chose to dignify by quotations to head her chapters, this seems to make a particular attempt to impress. Those quoted imply considerable learning, even if (as seems likely)...
Education
Catherine Carswell
In her unfinished autobiography, CC
remembers that while she grew up there were no novels in the house except Sir Walter Scott
's, and a small, fat, small-printed volume, bound in ornamental red and black...
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...