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.
Head-and-shoulders painting of Sir Walter Scott by Sir Henry Raeburn, 1822. Scott is wearing a black coat, high collar, and yellow waistcoat adorned with a heavy watch-chain. Scottish National Galleries, Edinborough.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Anna Gordon
Walter Scott included a selection of AG 's songs in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (of which the first two volumes appeared on this day).
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Cultural formation Felicia Skene
FS was descended from Scottish aristocracy on her mother's side, with Jacobite connections; she was presumably white. Her parents belonged to the middle class. They travelled extensively and moved in distinguished circles; her father was...
Cultural formation George Eliot
She was acquainted with a multiplicity of sects, since many flourished in Warwickshire. From this time she deliberately dressed unfashionably, became censorious of the behaviour of others, and began reading more deeply in religion. Fear...
Cultural formation Jean Rhys
JR 's maternal great-grandfather, John Potter Lockhart of Old Jewry, London, acquired the Genever Plantation in 1824. The plantation was at times prosperous, but problems occurred as a result of natural disasters and labour disruptions...
Dedications Ann Taylor Gilbert
Young Josiah had the idea for this volume when he had been staying with the Taylors, and his father, Thomas Conder , was the book's publisher.
Armitage, Doris Mary. The Taylors of Ongar. W. Heffer and Sons, 1939.
207
The young authors dedicated it both to James Montgomery
Dedications Joanna Baillie
It was published with a dedication to Walter Scott . Produced as a melodrama at the Surrey Theatre in summer 1817, it had an excellent run of thirty-four nights.
Baillie, Joanna. The Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie. Editor Slagle, Judith Bailey, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999, 2 vols.
1: 168
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...
Education Margaret Haig Viscountess Rhondda
Taught by governesses until she was thirteen, Margaret Haig Thomas learned to read at about five. She was taught German and French, and she also learned Welsh as a child but did not retain it...
Education Ellen Johnston
She was largely self-taught, and by the age of thirteen had her imagination fired by reading Wilson 's Tales of the Borders and many of Walter Scott 's novels.
Johnston, Ellen. Autobiography, Poems, and Songs. William Love, 1867.
7
Education Charlotte Dempster
In early adulthood CD continued to study on her own: she read the poetry of Sir Walter Scott and often spent her mornings reading history, writing, or drawing.
Dempster, Charlotte. The Manners of My Time. Editor Knox, Alice, Grant Richards, 1920.
40, 42
She was also fluent in French.
Education Frances Hodgson Burnett
Her next school was the Select Seminary for Young Ladies and Gentlemen (a school that counted its pupils in single figures and was run by a trio of very young sisters). Frances was good at...
Education Charlotte Yonge
CY also learnt much on her own through reading widely in history, and classical and contemporary literature. She greatly admired Walter Scott .
Hayter, Alethea. Charlotte Yonge. Northcote House, 1996.
38-9
Education Harriet Shaw Weaver
HSW 's family encouraged her in the regular pursuits of a young, middle-class Victorian woman. From her father she inherited an enthusiasm for poetry—she especially liked Shakespeare , Coleridge , and Whitman —and she read...
Education Pauline Johnson
PJ was educated at home first by her mother , who introduced her to the English Romantics. She was also taught by a governess in her early years. Chiefswood was full of books, and she...
Education Florence Dixie
Lady Florence was at first educated at home in Scotland. After a first, unsuccessful attempt to place her in a convent she had, in France, an Irish Catholic governess whom she calls Miss O'Leary...

Timeline

12 March to 25 May 1644: In her husband's absence the royalist Countess...

National or international item

12 March to 25 May 1644

In her husband 's absence the royalist Countess of Derby , born a Huguenot Frenchwoman, successfully stood a siege at Lathom House in Lancashire (a towered and moated building).
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

February 1809: The Quarterly Review was founded....

Writing climate item

February 1809

The Quarterly Review was founded.
Martin, Philip W. Byron: A Poet Before His Public. Cambridge University Press, 1982.
33
University of Alberta Libraries On-line Catalogue. http://www.library.ualberta.ca/.

1813: The Shetland poet Margaret Chalmers (born...

Women writers item

1813

The Shetland poet Margaret Chalmers (born at Lerwick in 1858 and left in poverty with her sisters and aged mother after the death of their brother William at the battle of Trafalgar) published her Poems...

By January 1821: Ballantyne's Novelists Library began publication;...

Writing climate item

By January 1821

Ballantyne's Novelists Library began publication; it was completed in 1824.
Quarterly Review. J. Murray.
24 (1821): 57

14-29 August 1822: George IV visited Edinburgh (first reigning...

National or international item

14-29 August 1822

George IV visited Edinburgh (first reigning monarch to do so since the 1630s); Sir Walter Scott laid on a lavish display of Scottish national pride.
Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837. Yale University Press, 1992.
235, 387n12, 403n94
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.

Mid 1820s: Harsh economic conditions caused two-thirds...

Writing climate item

Mid 1820s

Harsh economic conditions caused two-thirds of established British publishing firms to crash: authors were ruined, like Sir Walter Scott , by the bankruptcy of Constable and Ballantyne in Edinburgh.
Campbell, Mary, 1917 - 2002. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora, 1988.
215-16
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.

September 1826: The conservative Quarterly Review, discussing...

Writing climate item

September 1826

The conservative Quarterly Review, discussing Sir Walter Scott 's Lives of the Novelists, omitted all mention of any female writer.
Quarterly Review. J. Murray.
34 (1826): 349ff, 366-7

1827: Constable's Miscellany, a prolific series...

Writing climate item

1827

Constable's Miscellany, a prolific series of affordable books, was established.
Altick, Richard D. The English Common Reader. 2nd ed., Ohio State University Press, 1998.
379
Bennett, Scott. “Revolutions in Thought: Serial Publication and the Mass Market for Reading”. The Victorian Periodical Press: Soundings and Samplings, edited by Joanne Shattock and Michael Wolff, University of Leicester Press; University of Toronto Press, 1982, pp. 225-57.
228

3 May 1834: William Harrison Ainsworth published his...

Writing climate item

3 May 1834

William Harrison Ainsworth published his hugely successful first novel, Rookwood.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
11-12
Turner, Ernest Sackville. “Delightful to be Robbed”. London Review of Books, 9 May 2002, pp. 32-3.
33-4
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.

26 September 1835: Lucia di Lammermoor, probably the most famous...

Building item

26 September 1835

Lucia di Lammermoor, probably the most famous opera by Gaetano Donizetti , had its first performance at Naples; its first appearance in London came three years later.
Harewood, George Henry Hubert Lascelles, Earl of, editor. Kobbé’s Complete Opera Book. Putnam and Company, 1983.
453

9 August 1838: The Hampstead circulating library, intended...

Writing climate item

9 August 1838

The Hampstead circulating library, intended for the middling and lower ranks, which had stocked no novels on principle except those of Scott and Edgeworth , found these were borrowed so much more often than...

August-September 1846: William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Rebecca...

Writing climate item

August-September 1846

William Makepeace Thackeray 's novel Rebecca and Rowena, a sequel to Scott 's Ivanhoe, was serialised in Fraser's Magazine.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press, 1989.

1882: Walter Scott Publishing Company was established...

Writing climate item

1882

Walter Scott Publishing CompanySir Walter Scott was established out of the bankrupt Tyne Publishing Company in Paternoster Square, London.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 106. Gale Research, 1991.
285

27 June 1894: Mudie's Circulating Library and bookseller...

Writing climate item

27 June 1894

Mudie's Circulating Library and bookseller W. H. Smith together announced they would not pay more than four shillings a volume for novels; this forced publishers to abandon triple-decker format, and quickly led to its replacement...

1904: Sir Walter Raleigh, author of the literary...

Writing climate item

1904

Sir Walter Raleigh , author of the literary history The English Novel, 1894, moved from Glasgow to become the first Professor of English Literature at Oxford .
Warner, William Beatty. Licensing Entertainment: The Elevation of Novel Reading in Britain, 1684-1750. University of California Press, 1998.
29

Texts

Barnard, Lady Anne. Auld Robin Gray. Editor Scott, Sir Walter, J. Ballantyne, 1825.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Dramatic Works of Goethe. Translators Swanwick, Anna and Sir Walter Scott, H. G. Bohn, 1851.
Grant, Douglas et al. “Introduction”. Private Letters of the Seventeenth Century, Clarendon Press, 1947, pp. 7-54.
Scott, Sir Walter. Ivanhoe. A. Constable, 1820, 3 vols.
Scott, Sir Walter. Kenilworth. A. Constable, 1821, 3 vols.
Scott, Sir Walter. Marmion. A. Constable; W. Miller and J. Murray, 1808.
Scott, Sir Walter. Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies; Longman and Rees, 1803, 3 vols.
Scott, Sir Walter. “Papers of Sir Walter Scott”. MSS 3278. 102, 3888.20, 3890. 89, 208, 261, National Library of Scotland, 1817.
Scott, Sir Walter et al. Private Letters of the Seventeenth Century. Clarendon, 1947.
Scott, Sir Walter. St. Ronan’s Well. A. Constable; Hurst, Robinson, 1824, 3 vols.
Scott, Sir Walter. Tales of My Landlord. W. Blackwood and J. Murray, 1816, 4 vols.
Scott, Sir Walter. Tales of My Landlord, Fourth and Last Series. R. Cadell, 1832, 4 vols.
Scott, Sir Walter. Tales of My Landlord, Second Series. A. Constable, 1818, 4 vols.
Scott, Sir Walter. Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. A. Constable, 1819, 4 vols.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Abbot. A. Constable, 1820, 3 vols.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Journal of Sir Walter Scott. Editor Anderson, W. E. K., Clarendon, 1972.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Lady of the Lake. J. Ballantyne; Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and W. Miller, 1810.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme; A. Constable, 1805.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Letters of Sir Walter Scott. Editor Grierson, Sir Herbert John Clifford, Centenary Edition, Constable, 1937, 12 vols.
Seward, Anna. The Poetical Works of Anna Seward. Editor Scott, Sir Walter, J. Ballantyne, 1810, 3 vols.
Scott, Sir Walter. Waverley. A. Constable; Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 3 vols.
Scott, Sir Walter. Waverley. Editor Lamont, Claire, Oxford University Press, 1986.