English online course "Walter Scott: The Man Behind the Monument" (University of Aberdeen Great Britain)

Walter Scott English course-2020
WALTER SCOTT: THE MAN BEHIND THE MONUMENT 

UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN

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Introducing Ourselves

We were welcomed to this short course on Walter Scott. The educators for this course were Professor Ali Lumsden from the Walter Scott Research Centre at the University of Aberdeen and Honorary Librarian at Abbotsford, Scott’s home in the Scottish Borders, and Kirsty Archer-Thompson, Collections Manager of the Abbotsford Trust.We would like to begin by finding out more about us, where we came from and why we have signed up for this course. We introduced ourselves to our fellow learners on the discussion board. We also felt free to respond to anyone else’s introduction and to ask any questions we had about the course and how it ran.

Introducing Walter Scott

In the video, we have provided with some useful biographical Information on Scott and introduced to some of the key places that were important to his life and his professional and personal development.

Over the next few weeks we explored how these early experiences moulded him into one of the most celebrated writers of his time.

Walter Scott: a Biography

We were acquainted with some important information relating to Scott’s life. It also gave us the dates of some of his key publications. It is based on information included in the Abbotsford Guide Book. At the end of this step we also found an article that provided us with information about Scott’s family.We found out more about Scott’s life and work. At this point, we might wish to reflect upon what we knew about Scott already and what we have learnt. Then we shared our thoughts with others.

WEEK 1

Childhood and Storytelling

In the first video we were introduced to Scott’s family background and to some of the events and influences of his formative years. By approaching a writer in this way, we were suggesting that our early childhood experiences shape how we developed as adults. This was an idea that was emerging in the Romantic period and Scott’s fellow Romantic writer William Wordsworth wrote that “the Child is father of the man”.

Scott himself explored these ideas in his work. The extract below, from his story ‘My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror’, first published in The Keepsake in 1828, reminded us how memories of our childhood operated and suggested that they were a key component in story-telling. We have read the extract in the Downloads at the bottom of this page and thought about how our own childhood memories fed our imagination.

We could listen to Alison Lumsden speaking about the story on The Association for Scottish Literary Studies’ website.

Memory and Story

We have thought about a memory from our own childhood or family and how it had become a ‘story’ preserved in our family or friendship group. Then we have joined in a discussion on this topic. Key questions we might wish to consider were:

• How do memories of childhood feed our imaginations?

• How do these get passed down as stories?

• Does it matter if the stories do not fully represent the events that originally inspired them?

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Introducing Scott’s Writing and Collecting Activities

Scott is now recognised as one of the great writers of the nineteenth century and an important figure in the history of antiquarianism, salvage and collecting.

But where did it all begin? And why? This video aimed to introduce us to a timeline of that activity which we hoped will prove useful as the course developed.

Reading a Ballad

In the video we had been exploring how ballad collecting defined the early part of Scott’s literary career. We had an example of one of these ballads at the bottom of this page for us to download. It was the historical ballad “The Battle of Otterbourne”. We could read it and think about the following issues and questions:

• How does the ballad tell a story?

• How does it convey historical events?

• Can we see ways in which it relates to a sung tradition rather than a printed one?

• How is the ballad linked to a particular place?

We got a chance to post our responses to these questions and discuss them with our fellow learners in the next step.

Ballads were so much a product of their place that we might find some of the language unfamiliar. If we were struggling with some of the Scots dialect words, it might be useful to refer to the Dictionary of the Scots Language.

Ballad, Place and Story

Now that we have read the ballad and thought about the issues and questions mentioned, we could discuss our answers with our fellow learners.

These were the questions we asked in the previous step:

• How does the ballad tell a story?

• How does it convey historical events?

• Can we see ways in which it relates to a sung tradition rather than a printed one?

• How was the ballad linked to a particular place?

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Scott, Scotland and his Global Legacy

Scott’s complex contribution to the ‘image’ of Scotland endures and influences thinking and perceptions to this day, and this video introduced us to a theme that we were returning to in more detail as the course progressed. It also highlighted the global reach of Scott and the physical markers that he had left in the world around us.

Mapping Scott in our World

In the video we had suggested that Scott’s legacy could be found almost anywhere and that it was evident in statues of him around the world, place names, and the names of pubs, bars, restaurants, streets and houses. We would like to look around our own area to see if we could find any link to Scott in our own environment. This might be the name of a street, a business or a landmark.

In order to make these connections, we could visit Edinburgh University’s fantastic Walter Scott Digital Archive. Here we might find a list of all of Scott’s major novels and poems.

In order to make these connections, we could visit Edinburgh University’s fantastic Walter Scott Digital Archive. Here we might find a list of all of Scott’s major novels and poems. If we wished, we might pin the place we find on the following map: Walter Scott’s legacy map There were the instructions for using the map. We could also upload a picture and/or description of what it was (a hotel, restaurant or street name, for example) in this Padlet about Scott’s legacy around the world. There was a guide that FutureLearn has created on how to use Padlet. We could be surprised at just how many places connected to Scott we could find around the world! What do we know about Walter Scott? Intro Question1not attempted Question2not attempted Question3not attempted Question4not attempted Question5not attempted Question6not attempted Question7not attempted Question8not attempted This quiz covered some of the information we provided on Scott’s life and works in Steps 1.1 – 1.12. How much have we learnt about Scott?

In order to make these connections, we could visit Edinburgh University’s fantastic Walter Scott Digital Archive. Here we might find a list of all of Scott’s major novels and poems.

If we wished, we might pin the place we find on the following map: Walter Scott’s legacy map

There were the instructions for using the map.

We could also upload a picture and/or description of what it was (a hotel, restaurant or street name, for example) in this Padlet about Scott’s legacy around the world.

There was a guide that FutureLearn has created on how to use Padlet.

We could be surprised at just how many places connected to Scott we could find around the world!

What do we know about Walter Scott?

• Intro

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This quiz covered some of the information we provided on Scott’s life and works in Steps 1.1 – 1.12. How much have we learnt about Scott?

QUIZ RULES

• Quizzes do not count towards your course score, they are just to help you learn

• You may take as many attempts as you wish to answer each question

• You can skip questions and come back to them later if you wish

Begin quiz

Overview of Week 1

Well done on completing Week 1!

As we came to the end of this week, we hoped that we have enjoyed things so far.

We’ve tried to provide us with an introduction to some of the key themes we developed further in this course, from ideas about nationhood and identity through to storytelling and collecting. We’ve also started to think about where and how Scott was commemorated, and we were returning to the concept of a writer’s physical, cultural and literary legacy in week four.

WEEK 2: SCOTT, COLLECTING AND STORYTELLING

Scott as a Collector of Objects and Stories

In this section of the course we considered Scott’s activities as a collector of both ballads and objects and thought about this in the context of eighteenth-century antiquarianism.

2.1

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Scott the Collector

In this video the educators introduced us to our major theme for this week: Scott’s lifelong enthusiasm for collecting and preserving pieces of the past. Kirsty explained how this fits into the context of eighteenth-century antiquarianism. She suggested that evidence of Scott’s interest in the past leaves markers throughout his literary work and also in his home at Abbotsford.

WEEK 2

Scott, Collecting and Antiquarianism

In the last video the educators introduced us to Scott’ significance as a collector of both literary materials such as ballads and antiquarian objects. Such ‘antiquarianism’ as it was called was very common in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was often pursued by gentlemen scholars who were fascinated by the past and what we could find out about it.

If we would like to read more of this novel we could find it at The Walter Scott Digital Archive.

Scott also satirized the role of the antiquary in one of his last works and one that he did not have the opportunity to finish, Reliquaie Trotcosienses. In this text, he discussed the building of Abbotsford and the collections of armour, curios and books it contains, while also humorously mocking his own passion for collecting by revisiting the character of Jonathan Oldbuck and the absurdities to which his mania for collecting objects has led him.

Reliquiae Trotcosienses was not published in Scott’s lifetime but was edited by Gerard Carruthers and Alison Lumsden for The Abbotsford Library Project Trust in 2004 and published by Edinburgh University Press.

Scott was not alone in poking fun at antiquaries and there are many other literary works that do this. Antiquaries were also mocked in cartoons as in A Cognocenti contemplating ye Beauties of ye Antique (1801) by James Gillray.

A Mania for Collecting

We have been thinking about Scott as a collector and considering the wider context of antiquarianism. Now they would like to hear our thoughts about antiquarianism and its relationship to the past.

We joined in a discussion of the following questions:

• What do we think the objects from the past could tell us about history?

• Do they give us a connection to the people who lived in the past? If so what kind of connection was this?

• Why do we think antiquaries were so frequently mocked and ridiculed? How do we feel about their compulsion to collect, preserve and understand the past?

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Raiding the Borders for Ball

While Scott was still a young man he began ‘raiding’ the Borders for the remnants of an oral culture. Visiting local people, he asked them to recite the ballads they knew. He was to publish these in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Ali explained that this was part of a wider European movement at the time to gather together folk beliefs and material from popular culture in order to safeguard them for the future. She discussed the controversy around collecting and printing this material but suggested that it was at the heart of Scott’s interest in story-telling.

Books and Ballads

In the previous step we had started exploring Scott’s role as a collector of ballads. A project to edit Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border was currently underway led by Dr Sigrid Rieuwerts at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, and in conjunction with Edinburgh University’s School of Scottish Studies. This project was also exploring the provenance of the ballads (which versions Scott used for his sources) and setting them in their cultural contexts. If we would like to find out more about this project we could read about it on The Walter Scott Minstrelsy Project web page.

In the next 3 steps we were asked us to revisit week 1 and step 1.8, Reading a Ballad. This was also available at the end of this article in the Downloads section. Now we also experienced a sung version of it and the version that appeared in Scott’s Minstrelsy. We should think about the different experiences and how they shaped meaning. We l discussed this in step 2.8 of this section.

Ballad Singinged: 0%

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There was a sung version of the ballad The Battle of Otterbourne, produced by Steve Byrne for the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border project.

These ballads were sung to many different tunes and sometimes different ballads were sung to the same tune. Did this version match our idea of how a traditional ballad would be sung?

Ballad Editing

In the Downloads section we found the ballad as it appeared in Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802) with Scott’s notes and introduction added.

Once we’ve read it, we might consider the following questions:

• What was our experience of reading these notes?

Did we think contemporary readers would always have read them?

We felt free to share our thoughts below.

Reflecting on Week 2

Well done on reaching the end of Week 2!

This week we had been considering Scott’s activities as a collector of ballads, books and objects. We had considered how this relates to the eighteenth and early nineteenth-century passion for antiquarianism, and above all we had explored the ways in which the objects Scott collected fuelled his imagination as a writer, helping create his fiction and poetry and his home at Abbotsford. The educators also gave us the opportunity to explore our own creativity through the mystery object exercise. Now we might reflect upon the connection between objects and story and consider whether this has changed how we understood Scott’s work.

WEEK 3: SCOTT AND SCOTLAND

Start date:

Creating Scotland: Scott and Landscape

Many would say that Scott’s work created our sense of what Scotland was and that the descriptions of place he offered present it as both Romantic and majestic. There we explored the descriptions of landscape offered in his work.

3.2

Landscape and Identity

In this first activity of Week 3 we thought about Scott’s depiction of landscape and his engagement with history and suggesting that these things came together in his work to create a sense of Scottish identity.

The educators asked us to consider how we felt about landscape and its relationship to a sense of belonging. Did we think that our relationship to place was connected to our sense of national identity?

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Visiting Scott’s Landscapes

Scott’s work offered vivid descriptions of Scotland and inspired a desire to visit the places described.

In this video we heard a passage read from The Lay of the Last Minstrel. In it Scott invited his readers to visit Melrose Abbey by moonlight.

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Romantic Visions

The Lay of the Last Minstrel was published in 1805 and in many ways it represents everything that the Romantic movement and its philosophy had come to represent, blending ideas of landscape and place, exploring how these ideas might influence emotional response and celebrating how that feeling could then be used or channelled creatively. In this video, Kirsty asked Ali why this proved to be such an attractive mix.

What kind of Scotland?

The version of Scotland that Scott created in his writing was seen as controversial. Often people suggested that it was too romantic and contrived, and that it presented Scotland as a place stuck in the ruts of the past and divorced from the modern world.

Scott’s Scotland and the Birth of Tourism

Published in 1810, Scott’s third long narrative poem, The Lady of the Lake, was the one that really cemented and celebrated his relationship with the landscapes of Scotland.

The poem was set during the reign of James V against the backdrop of a bitter feud between the king and the Douglas clan. In the poem, James traveled in disguise to the area around Loch Katrine, so the loch and the surrounding scenery were described in the poem at length.

The poem was a huge success and resulted in a wave of tourists visiting Loch Katrine and the surrounding area in order to see the landscapes they had read about. It also captured the imaginations of artists wishing to paint scenes from the poem. These images appeared in prints and engravings right through the late Georgian and Victorian period. The relationship between Scott and the Scottish landscape was firmly established and, some might argue, the Scottish tourist industry as we might recognise it today was born, or at the very least its development was accelerated. Although tourists now may not make the connection between the poem and the landscape they are viewing, it was Scott who helped craft or stimulate the appeal of many of Scotland’s most visited places.

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On Tour in the Highlands

In the video above, Kirsty and Ali discussed the descriptions of the Scottish Highlands that Scott provided in his novels - particularly in Waverley, published in 1814.

In this novel, a young Englishman, Edward Waverley, came to Scotland for the first time – this is a common strategy used by Scott .

However, Scott didn’t give us the stereotypical Romantic version of Scotland’s landscape.

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Nevertheless, it is undeniable that, through his novels, Scott helped to popularise a version of Scotland and to promote it as an enchanting place to visit.

If we would like to read some of the material from Waverley that we have been discussing, we could download the .pdf at the bottom of the page, under Downloads. We could also access the full texts via the link below.

Scott’s Legacy in Landscapes

So far this week, we have been considering the relationship between Scott’s depiction of landscape and the version of Scotland his work offers. We could join in a discussion on the following topics:

• Before taking this course did you have any preconceptions about the ways in which Scottish landscapes are treated in Scott’s work?

• Have these preconceptions been challenged in any way by what we have been exploring here?

• Do you think Scott’s depiction of Scottish places has had a lasting legacy when we think of Scotland today?

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Scott’s Engagement with Historical Process

Scott was often credited with inventing the historical novel and certainly he was key to the evolution of a format that is still so widely enjoyed today.

In this video discussion, Ali and Kirsty discussed how Scott approached history, and why he chose to set his novels and poems in particular places and times. Often this offered him the opportunity to intelligently explore wider economic, social, cultural and religious issues and their legacy.

Scott’s Fiction: a Timeline

The following timeline provided details of some significant moments in Scottish history and notes how Scott’s fiction engages with these moments and the historical individuals that lived through them.

Scott and Scottish History: a Timeline Scott’s depiction of history in his fiction and poetry was complex. While he seldom departs from the historical record, he does set fictional events and characters alongside key moments from history and real people such as Charles Edward Stuart. It is not essential to know the historical background to enjoy Scott’s fiction and poetry, but it sometimes helps, so we have provided you with a timeline to download.

Scott and the Napoleonic Wars

In the video that opened this activity we noted that Scott was living through a time of historical conflict and turmoil: The Napoleonic Wars, bookended by the French Revolution in 1789 and the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. While Scott’s work mainly deals with historical events rather than his own times this does not mean that he never comments on the upheaval of his present, and the threat of social, economic and military upheaval is an undercurrent throughout much of this work.

However, in some of his fiction and poetry Scott deals with the Napoleonic Wars more overtly. For example, behind the events of The Antiquary (1816) there lies a constant fear of French invasion and the novel culminates with a false alarm when it is feared that Napoleon’s forces have landed. You can download and read an extract of The Antiquary from the Downloads at the bottom of the page, or find a link to the whole novel.

In 1815 Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. Scott was one of the first people of celebrity status to visit the battlefield and salvaged several artefacts for his collection, compelled by the powerful sensation of wanting to remember the momentous event that he had lived through. We could see some of these items at Abbotsford.

Scott wrote about his experiences of visiting the battlefield in a book called Paul’s Letters to his Kinsfolk. At the bottom of the page, under Downloads, we could find an extract from this book.

Shortly after Waterloo, Scott wrote a poem called The Field of Waterloo, which was sold to raise money for the widows and orphans of those who had been killed in the battle.

If we would like to read more about Scott’s engagement with the Napoleonic Wars, we could do so in this article from The Conversation, by Alison Lumsden.

While Scott was clearly relieved that Napoleon had been defeated, he remained fascinated by him throughout his life. In 1827-8 he published a monumental nine volume biography The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte. Scott had access to key first-hand source material and even today scholars still consider this to be one of the most important biographies of Napoleon ever written.

We could answer to these questions:

Did we know about the practical help Scott provided for widows, orphans and returning soldiers after Waterloo? Did this surprise us?

Scott and the Historical Novel

Scott was clearly fascinated by the form of the historical novel and he set the pattern for how it was to evolve in Europe in the nineteenth century. While Scott never formally writes a theory of historical fiction and what it can achieve, reflections on the form can be found throughout his work.

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History and Romance

Romance and real history have the same common origin. It is the aim of the former to maintain as long as possible the mask of veracity; and indeed the traditional memorials of all earlier ages partake in such a varied a doubtful degree.

On his own practice of writing historical fiction in The Tale of Old Mortality

Walter Scott, anonymous review of Tales of my Landlord, Quarterly Review, January,1817; reprinted Prose Works 19.1 – 86, 61 – 62.

On the relationship between history and story

The Author of Waverley to Jonas Dryasdust, ‘Prefatory Letter’ in Peveril of the Peak (1822). Walter Scott, Peveril of the Peak, ed. by Alison Lumsden, Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels 14 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), p.9.

Walter Scott, Waverley, edited by P.D. Garside, Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels 1 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), p. 363.

On historical fiction and nationhood

Walter Scott, ‘General Preface’ (1829), in Introductions and Notes from the Magnum Opus, Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels 25 [A], ed. by J.H. Alexander with P.D.Garside and Claire Lamont (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012).

The Enduring Popularity of Historical Fiction

In the second half of this week we had been exploring Scott as a historical novelist and thinking about why he is interested in this form. We joined in a discussion of the following questions:

• What do we think the historical novel can offer that is different from conventional history?

• Do we think there are tensions in using historical events in novels and poems?

• Why do we think historical fiction has remained so popular as a form?

Reflecting on Week 3

Well done on completing Week 3!

In this section of the course we had explored Scott’s passion for the Scottish landscape and his enduring fascination with the events that drive historical process and, in particular, shaped Scotland’s turbulent past. We had discussed the ways in which these twin aspects of his work help shape our understanding of Scotland today.

Then we reflected upon the ways in which we imagined Scotland and the ways in which a nation could be shaped by its creative writers.

WEEK 4

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Curating Literary Legacies

In the final week of the course we explored how we took care of Scott’s legacy, both in terms of the creative work he produced and in caring for his home and estate at Abbotsford. Here Kirsty and Ali introduced us to some of the ideas we explored.

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Editing Walter Scott

The Walter Scott Research Centre at the University of Aberdeen has spent many years editing the fiction and poetry of Walter Scott.

In this video, Ali explained what this involved. She discussed how editing could throw up historical errors that changed the intended meaning and what had been done to put this right. She visited the National Library of Scotland to show us the manuscript of The Heart of Mid-Lothian and told us about some of her favourite examples of mis-readings in Scott’s work.

The Editorial Work of the Walter Scott Research Centre

The Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels was an international project that lasted for thirty years. In the words of its Editor-in-Chief Professor David Hewitt its aim was to provide ‘an authoritative text of Scott’s fiction, to give the reader the support required to appreciate the intellectual richness of his work, and to allow a new audience to share the excitement that the novels generated when they were first published’. It was published by Edinburgh University Press and was completed in thirty volumes in 2012.

The need for such an edition arose in part from the popularity of Scott’s novels, the speed at which they were produced and the rate at which new editions were required. While those involved in publishing Scott’s work did a remarkable job nevertheless mistakes were inevitably made; Scott’s handwriting is not always easy to read, his manuscripts were copied to preserve his anonymity, he made corrections as he wrote and in proofs, and his vocabulary and grasp of historical detail were often far greater than the compositors working on producing his work.

The first editions of Scott’s novels with the holograph manuscripts, any existing proofs and with all editions published in Scott’s lifetime. They discovered that there were often thousands of changes between manuscript and first edition and that the texts in general deteriorated as they were re-set in subsequent editions. Of course, some of the changes between manuscript and first edition were intentional; Scott was normally happy for the compositors to punctuate his work, to remove repetitions in close proximity and to correct his at times idiosyncratic spelling.

We could answer the following questions:

Do we ever think about the status of the novels and poems we read? Did it ever occur to us that the words we were reading might not be those that the author wrote? We were feel free to discuss this in the comments below.

The Editorial Work of the Walter Scott Research Centre

The Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels was an international project that lasted for thirty years. In the words of its Editor-in-Chief Professor David Hewitt its aim was to provide ‘an authoritative text of Scott’s fiction, to give the reader the support required to appreciate the intellectual richness of his work, and to allow a new audience to share the excitement that the novels generated when they were first published’. It was published by Edinburgh University Press and was completed in thirty volumes in 2012.

The need for such an edition arose in part from the popularity of Scott’s novels, the speed at which they were produced and the rate at which new editions were required. While those involved in publishing Scott’s work did a remarkable job nevertheless mistakes were inevitably made; Scott’s handwriting is not always easy to read, his manuscripts were copied to preserve his anonymity, he made corrections as he wrote and in proofs, and his vocabulary and grasp of historical detail were often far greater than the compositors working on producing his work.

We could answer the following questions:

Do we ever think about the status of the novels and poems we read? Does it ever occur to us that the words we were reading might not be those that the author wrote? We were feel free to discuss this in the comments below.

WEEK 4

Emending Scott

So how do we go about putting this right?

All those who worked on the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels found it to be an enriching process and one that enhanced their respect for Scott and his creative processes. A companion ten volume edition of Scott’s poetry is now underway. The first volume, Marmion, edited by Dr Ainsley McIntosh, was published in 2018.

We could find out more about the Edinburgh Editions of Scott’s work at the Edinburgh University Press.

Now we were told about the editorial work of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels. In the next step, we they would like us to experience something of this for ourselves.

WEEK 4

Experiencing Editing

Now the educators would like us to experience something of what is involved in textual editing. Here we found an image of the opening folio of the holograph manuscript of Scott’s novel The Heart of Mid-Lothian. The manuscript was held in the National Library of Scotland (NLS MS 1548) and this folio (f. 5r) was reproduced with their kind permission.

 Click to take a closer look at the manuscript

First, we were trying to read the first paragraph of the manuscript. We should remember that Scott’s vowels had a habit of looking the same and he did not always cross the letter ‘t’.

 Click to take a closer look at this paragraph

We were feel free to share our findings and thoughts on the manuscript in the comments below.

We could answer the following questions:

Did we have any success reading any of the sentences in The Heart of Mid-Lothian manuscript? Did we note any particular features?

In the next step we discussed what the first paragraph read and how it compared with the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels.

WEEK 4

The Editing Process

In the last few steps we had been considering the issues involved in editing Scott’s work. Now the editors would like us to share our thoughts about the editing process.

• Consider the differences between what was written in the manuscript and what appeared in the Edinburgh Edition. Are you surprised by the fact that there are discrepancies?

• We were very cautious about changing the colour of Effie’s hair in some places in the novel. Can you think of any other solution to the strange case of Effie’s changing hair colour?

• Reflect upon the process of scholarly editing. Do you think it is important to ‘curate’ a writer’s legacy in this way?

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Inside Abbotsford

In this video, Kirsty explored what was involved in curating Scott’s collections and preserving his house and wider estate at Abbotsford and Ali described her role as Honorary Librarian. Kirsty told us how Scott’s spirit of openness and hospitality was still very present today and how this was balanced with the needs of conservation. The educators invited us to consider some of the issues we thought were involved in looking after such an important writer’s house.

Abbotsford also had a special place in the history of early photography and there were many Victorian photographs and postcards depicting the building and its various rooms. Here was an 1860s image of the Armoury. There were two images laid side by side because this was a stereographic picture, an early type of three-dimensional image that was immensely popular in the Victorian period. We could find more information on the science of stereoscopy on the Victoria and Albert Museum blog.

Scott was passionate about the work of the Scottish artist William Allan. Famed for his historical paintings, Allan was commissioned to illustrate a posthumous biography of Scott, published by his son-in-law, John Gibson Lockhart in 1837. These original watercolours and sketches of rooms such as the Entrance Hall, Library, Study and Dining Room were completed in the weeks and months after Scott’s death in September 1832.

In 1831, Scott struck up a lucrative business partnership with the famous landscape artist Joseph Mallord William Turner. Turner visited Abbotsford in August 1831 and filled his pocket sketchbook with images of the house, estate and the local area to use as source material for illustrating lavish new editions of Scott’s poems. We could enjoy exploring this sketchbook in digital form courtesy of the Tate, using the scrolling bar underneath the pages.

To find out more about the relationship between the most famous writer and artist of the day, we could see the attached article by Kirsty produced in conjunction with the 2018 Abbotsford exhibition: The Painter and the Poet.

We could also hear Kirsty delivering a lecture on Abbotsford’s remarkable collection and what it told us about Scott and his place in time on the Youtube Channel of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

We could have still access the biographies of Scott’s wife and four children in Step 1.4.

The Interior of Abbotsford

In the previous step we have started exploring Scott’s Abbotsford as one of the most important and best-preserved literary homes in the UK. We could join in a discussion of the following questions:

• What do we think was involved in looking after the kind of interiors we have seen in our videos?

• In the video Kirsty paid attention to the various interventions that curators and conservators could take to balance the needs of conservation and the desire for access - whether it’s barriers, special routes, replica copies of delicate items or other more radical approaches. What kind of interventions had we experienced at other historic homes or heritage sites and what was our response to them as a visitor?

• Would we as a visitor distinguish the former home of an author, artist or musician from other types of heritage site? Did we think they had something special to offer?

• Had we visited any other examples of literary homes and gardens, whether in Britain or elsewhere in the world? And if so, what was your motivation? Did you feel this brought we closer to the author and their works?

• Did we think the works of writers were always a product of place?

Scott's Library

The books in the Abbotsford Library and a number of key artefacts in the house were cared for by the Faculty of Advocates Abbotsford Collection Trust in conjunction with the Abbotsford Trust. With the support of funding from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland a full digital catalogue of the library was completed in 2013, a landmark project spanning over a decade of research and one that revealed many secrets. It was also established Scott as one of the most important collectors of rare books in the world.

The Abbotsford Library Chapbook and Popular Print Project

One of the most exciting projects taking place at the moment is the Abbotsford Library Chapbook and Popular Print Project. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘Chapbook’ as ‘the modern name applied by book-collectors and others to specimens of the popular literature which was formerly circulated by itinerant dealers or chapmen, consisting chiefly of small pamphlets of popular tales, ballads, tracts, etc.’ In other words this was cheap and ephemeral material that was sold on stalls or door to door and was not expected to last. The magnificent collection of material of this nature at Abbotsford is therefore all the more remarkable, and is another example of the way in which Scott has helped collect and preserve material from the realms of popular culture.

John Bell was a bookseller and printer in Newcastle and Scott noted that he ‘had a good deal of the spirit to a person who was desirous of keeping the old minstrelsy afloat in the popular recollection’. John Bell’s volumes was found to contain hundreds of examples of chapbook literature. After further investigation it was estimated that Scott in fact owned around 2500 chapbooks and many more pamphlets and scrapbooks that might fall under the category of popular print. All of these items had now been catalogued in the Abbotsford Library Catalogue. In 2017 a successful bid was made to the Royal Society of Edinburgh so that funding was available for scholars to investigate the significance of this magnificent collection. This project is currently underway.

The Abbotsford chapbook and popular print collection told us much about publishing networks in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Many of the chapbooks were printed in the north of England and south of Scotland revealing that print material was regularly travelling across the border. The content of the chapbooks is also fascinating. Much of it is political and deals with the Napoleonic wars, reminding us of the stories of ordinary people who were forced to fight as soldiers and sailors and their sweethearts who were left at home. Many popular songs are also recorded in these cheap volumes and fairy and folk tales are also common, reminding us that while the Brothers Grimm were collecting ‘official’ versions of fairy tales less official ‘popular’ versions were also in circulation. Superstition forms another common theme and several chapbooks recount stories of ghosts and outline methods of predicting the future.

Scott and Planting

At present, the Abbotsford Trust is turning its attention to the restoration and conservation of the estate and Regency gardens that Scott designed to envelop his home. Just as the interiors of the house demonstrate, these outside spaces are full of meaning and allusion.

Scott once said that ‘my oaks will outlast my laurels’ and his astonishing impact on the history of forestry, landscape design and even habitat conservation is still vastly undervalued.

We could find in the Downloads section an article by Dr. Lindsay Levy on Scott’s passion for tree planting.

We could also read more on Scott’s planting notes Sylva Abbotsfordiensis: Memoranda concerning the woods and plantations at Abbot’s Ford on the Faculty of Advocates web site.

We could also read Scott’s complete review ‘On Planting Waste Lands’.

Scott’s interest in tree-planting and landscape seems surprisingly modern.

Sites:

1. [email protected]

2. http://about.futurelearn.com/about/faq

3. http://futurelearn.zendesk.com

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