Memoirs (Walter Scott)
Walter Scott's "Memoirs", first published as "Memoir of the Early Life of Sir Walter Scott, Written by Himself" and also known as the Ashestiel fragment, is a short autobiographical work describing the author's ancestry, parentage, and life up to the age of 22. It is the most important source of information we have on Scott's early life.[1] It was mainly written between 1808 and 1811, then revised and completed in 1826, and first published posthumously in 1837 as Chapter 1 of J. G. Lockhart's multi-volume Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. It was re-edited in 1981 by David Hewitt.
Synopsis
The author begins with the hope that his memoir will be both interesting and edifying. He traces the history of his family, giving particulars of his great-grandfather, Walter Scott, a Jacobite, his grandfather Robert Scott, a
Composition
The manuscript of the "Memoirs", comprising three fascicles, was written intermittently between 1808 and 1826,[4] a period that saw several other literary memoirs: Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Byron's never-published Memoirs, and the semi-autobiographical essays of Charles Lamb.[5] Scott began composing it, as the manuscript itself records, on 26 April 1808 at Ashestiel, his home near Selkirk, and continued until he had filled the first fascicle, ending with the account of his stay in Bath. He returned to the project in late 1810 or early 1811 and seems to have completed the second and third fascicles without any further breaks. He then abandoned his memoirs until 1826 when he wrote a number of new passages, some of which were intended to be interpolated into the text and some to appear as footnotes. Despite this revision the text was still not in a finished state. Among other faults it contained inconsistencies arising from the fact that it had been written over such a long stretch of time, but Scott gave the work no final polishing to remove them.[6] The manuscript shows that it was written fluently, with the lack of punctuation typical of Scott's final drafts.[7] Scott's "Memoirs" have often been considered a fragment,[8][9][7][10] though the literary scholar David Hewitt has argued that it is a complete work, only ever intended to show how the author came to man's estate.[1]
Publication history
The "Memoirs" were never published in Scott's lifetime,[10] but after his death Scott's son-in-law J. G. Lockhart, according to his own claim, discovered the manuscript in an old cabinet at Abbotsford while writing the first volume of his Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., and decided to publish the "Memoirs" as the first chapter of his own work, "illustrating" them with his own researches into Scott's early life in the next five chapters.[11][8] He edited the "Memoirs" more faithfully than was always his practice, though he did print many of the 1826 passages as footnotes even when Scott had certainly intended that they appear in the main text.[7] He also added punctuation and dates.[12]
The Ashestiel fragment was displayed at the Scott Centenary Exhibition in 1871, but thereafter was unavailable to scholars for almost a hundred years until, in 1970, it was acquired by the National Library of Scotland.[7] It is now designated NLS MS Acc 4991.[13] It was edited from the original manuscript, for the first time since Lockhart's 1837 volume, by David Hewitt in 1981. This edition presents Scott's memoir more accurately than Lockhart did, differentiating the 1808–1811 text more clearly from the 1826 revisions.[10][14]
Criticism
Reviews of the first volume of Lockhart's biography had much to say in praise of the Ashestiel fragment.
His self-description is intelligent, discriminating and well-proportioned. His manner is relaxed...He varies the pace and tone of the narrative with anecdotes. He does not take himself too seriously and there is much amused self-observation. [It is] unquestionably a delightful work, and much the best description of his youth.[21]
He nevertheless finds "a lack of intimacy and no self-revelation".[22] He sees it as an exercise in teleological self-construction, examining his past life, and especially his early reading, for an explanation of his present success as a poet and ballad-collector.[1] In this respect he compares it unfavourably with Wordsworth's The Prelude, which, unlike the "Memoirs", "both describes his past experiences...and analyses their influence upon his mind as he creates". The interplay between the two time schemes of The Prelude, that covering the action and that covering the process of writing, "uncovers the fresh and immediate experience of the process of creation".[23]
Modern edition
- Hewitt, David, ed. (1981). Scott on Himself: A Selection of the Autobiographical Writings of Sir Walter Scott. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press. pp. 1–44, 262–268. ISBN 0707302838. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
Footnotes
- ^ a b c Hewitt 2008.
- ^ Hewitt 1981, p. 10.
- ^ Hewitt 1981, p. 43.
- ^ Hewitt 1981, pp. xxiv–xxv.
- ISBN 9781317208990. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ^ Hewitt 1981, pp. xxiv–xxv, 1.
- ^ a b c d Bell 1973, p. 156.
- ^ a b Lockhart 1896, p. iii.
- ^ Lang 1894, p. xiii.
- ^ a b c Sutherland 1995, p. 360.
- ISBN 0521782082. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ^ Hewitt 1981, p. xxv.
- ^ Hewitt 1981, p. xxiv.
- ^ Hewitt 1981, pp. xxiv, xxvi.
- ^ "Review of New Books". The Literary Gazette. No. 1052. 18 March 1837. p. 169. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ^ "Art. VIII. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. Vol. 1". The Monthly Review. NS 1 (4): 554. April 1837. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ^ "Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott". Tait's Edinburgh Magazine. NS 4 (4): 205. April 1837. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ^ "Art. V. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. by J. G. Lockhart, Esq". The Dublin Review. 5 (2): 399. October 1838. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ^ Journal of Henry Cockburn: Being a Continuation of the Memorials of His Time 1831–1854. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: Edmondston and Douglas. 1874. p. 134. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ^ Lang 1894, p. xiv.
- ^ Hewitt 1981, p. xv.
- ^ Hewitt 1981, pp. xv–xvi.
- ^ Hewitt 1981, p. xvi.
References
- Bell, Alan (1973). "Scott manuscripts in Edinburgh libraries". In Bell, Alan (ed.). Scott Bicentenary Essays: Selected Papers Read at the Sir Walter Scott Bicentenary Conference. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press. pp. 147–159. ISBN 070111987X. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
- Hewitt, David, ed. (1981). Scott on Himself: A Selection of the Autobiographical Writings of Sir Walter Scott. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press. ISBN 0707302838. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
- Hewitt, David (24 May 2008). "Scott, Sir Walter". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/24928.required.)
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: CS1 maint: date and year (link) (Subscription or UK public library membership - Lang, Andrew (1894). "Editor's Introduction to the Chronicles of the Canongate". Chronicles of the Canongate: The Two Drovers, My Aunt Margaret's Mirror, The Tapestried Chamber, Death of the Laird's Jock. By Scott, Walter. Lang, Andrew (ed.). Boston: Estes and Lauriat. pp. ix–xiv. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
- Lockhart, J. G. (1896) [1837–1838]. The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., 1771–1832. London: Adam & Charles Black. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
- ISBN 0631203176. Retrieved 29 July 2021.