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.
Following this initial encounter, the two formerly isolated girls bonded over shared interests in Scott
, Baudelaire
, Dumas
, Rostand
's Cyrano de Bergerac, and their own pedigrees.
Glendinning, Victoria. Vita. Penguin.
23
Souhami, Diana. Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter. Flamingo.
72-3
Jullian, Philippe et al. Violet Trefusis: Life and Letters. Hamish Hamilton.
27
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...
Family and Intimate relationships
Dorothea Du Bois
This most sensational trial of the mid-century was reported in detail by the Gentleman's Magazine the following year, and used in more or less avowed fictions by Eliza Haywood
in Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young...
Family and Intimate relationships
Harriet Tytler
She and her Breton maid Marie were the only European women present during the siege of Delhi. When the time had come for women and children to leave, HT
was too advanced in her pregnancy...
Family and Intimate relationships
Alison Cockburn
AC
was both a cousin, through her mother, and a great-aunt, through one of her sisters, of Walter Scott
. First meeting him when she was in her sixties and he was not yet six...
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...
Family and Intimate relationships
Charlotte Stopes
Her other grandfather, William Carmichael
, was a solicitor, or Writer to the Signet. In this capacity he assisted and then succeeded Sir Walter Scott
.
Maude, Aylmer. The Authorized Life of Marie C. Stopes. Williams and Norgate.
12
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...
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...
Family and Intimate relationships
Mary Howitt
In Leicester she met William Howitt
; she later visited his family at Heanor in Derbyshire. His mother was a compounder of herbal medicines. William loved Walter Scott
, the Romantic poets, and the...
Family and Intimate relationships
Susan Ferrier
The first important position of James Ferrier
, SF
's father, was as Writer to the Signet. Later he was appointed Principal Clerk of Session and became estate manager to the Duke of Argyll
...
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...
Friends, Associates
Cecil Frances Alexander
The writers whom CFA
most admired during her childhood were Scott
, Gray
, and, to a lesser extent, Wordsworth
and Byron
.
Alexander, Cecil Frances. “Preface”. Poems, edited by William Alexander, Macmillan, p. v - xxix.
A friend who was crucial in AB
's career was Robert Anderson
, editor of a famous poetry anthology and of the Edinburgh Magazine.
Elfenbein, Andrew. Romantic Genius: The Prehistory of a Homosexual Role. Columbia University Press.
130
Other important friends were John Leyden
(linguist, poet, and...
Friends, Associates
Anne Grant
In the spring of 1809, AG
went to Edinburgh in search of a house. Invited to her home by the Duchess of Gordon
, she met there Sir Walter Scott
. Around the same time...