Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume 6

Lockhart, J. G. (John Gibson), 1794-1854Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
646K words
Chapters
65

Tags

English Originals Literary Figures Literary ArchivesLiterary GiantsGroup Biography19th CenturySocial ObservationScottish Flavor

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume 6 (of 10) by J. G. LockhartAuthor: Lockhart, J. G. (John Gibson), 1794-1854,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Oct 5, 2011

Editor's review

This is Volume 6 of the ten-volume Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott by John Gibson Lockhart, an English public-domain ebook. Lockhart was Scott's son-in-law, and this biography is built largely on letters, journals, and recollections of family and friends; it is both a biography and a documentary compilation, and has long been one of the foundational sources for the study of Scott's life. Volume 6 falls in the middle of the whole work, allowing readers to observe Scott's life and circle after his peak creative years, and how Lockhart arranged his materials and shaped the portrait of his subject. For Scott scholars and readers interested in nineteenth-century British literature and publishing history, this volume has documentary value; for general readers, lacking the continuity of the preceding and following volumes, it is easy to lose the thread when read on its own. The electronic edition is convenient for searching names of people and works, and is suitable for reference and topical reading rather than for reading straight through.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read Volume 1 or the general introduction first to understand Lockhart's stance and sources, then proceed to this volume.
  2. Note down names of people and works as they appear and check them together, so the dense social network does not interrupt your reading.
  3. Read this volume alongside Scott's novels from the same period, noting how the biographical narrative corresponds to the timeline of composition.
  4. For research purposes, use the electronic edition to search keywords first, then return to the context and read the relevant passages closely.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
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  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
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  21. 21
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  23. 23
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  25. 25
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  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
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  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65

FAQ

What was the relationship between the biographer and Scott? The author, John Gibson Lockhart, was Walter Scott's son-in-law and himself a writer and editor. This family connection gave him access to a large body of letters, journals, and family materials, but it also means the biography carries a family perspective, and readers should keep an eye on his stance and his selection of materials.
Can I skip the first five volumes and read Volume 6 directly? You can use it for reference, but reading it straight through is not recommended. Volume 6 falls in the middle of the ten-volume work, and most of its people and events carry over from earlier text; without the background of the previous volumes, the thread is hard to follow. If you want to learn about a particular period only, look it up in the table of contents first, then read the relevant volumes.
Does this electronic edition include notes or an index? According to the available information, this is an English public-domain electronic text released by Project Gutenberg, with no modern notes or index mentioned. You can compile your own list of names and works as you read, or use the electronic search function to make up for the lack of an index.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Lockhart, J. G. (John Gibson), 1794-1854 Author

J. G. Lockhart (John Gibson Lockhart, 1794–1854) was a nineteenth-century British man of letters known for his biographical and historical writing. Six of his works are held in this collection. The best known is the multi-volume Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, which recounts the life and literary career of his father-in-law, Scott, and remains an important source for Scott studies. He also wrote The History of Napoleon Buonaparte and the historical novel Valerius: A Roman Story. His writing emphasizes factual narrative and character portrayal, with a careful style and clear storytelling. Public information is limited, and details of his life are difficult to verify, yet these works sufficiently show his sustained effort and influence in biography and history.