William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge publish Lyrical Ballads.
1799 | The first of the Scotts’ five children, a daughter, is born. Scott secures a steady living when he becomes sheriffdeputy of Selkirkshire, a position he will hold throughout his life. |
1801 | The anthology Tales of Wonder, which contains Scott’s “Glenfinlas” and “The Eve of Saint John,” is published. The Scott family moves to 39 Castle Street in Edinburgh. |
1802- | The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, a collection of poems |
1803 | based on traditional ballads, is published in three volumes. |
1804 | The Scott family moves to a country house in Ashestiel; the poet Wordsworth pays a visit. Napoleon is crowned emperor of the French. |
1805 | The long narrative poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel is published to overwhelming popularity. Scott edits the works of Dryden, with a biography as preface. |
1806 | Scott is made principal clerk to the Court of Session in Edinburgh. Ballads and Lyrical Pieces is published. |
1808 | The poetic romance Marmion, another successful work, is published. |
1809 | Scott helps found the Tory Quarterly Review. He and his old friend James Ballantyne form a printing company. Encyclopaedia Britannica publishes Scott’s essays “Chivalry,” “Romance,” and “Drama” as part of the fourth edition (1801-1809). |
1810 | The Lady of the Lake is published to phenomenal book sales. |
1811 | The Scott family buys Clarty Hole Farm with plans to build a castle called Abbotsford. George III is declared insane , and the morally suspect Prince of Wales becomes regent. |
1812 | Napoleon withdraws from Moscow. |
1813 | Scott declines the position of poet laureate. The printing company he formed with Ballantyne collapses and is purchased by Constable and Company. Facing extreme financial duress, Scott is aided by his friend the Duke of Buccleuch. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is published. |
1814 | Napoleon abdicates, and the French monarchy is reinstated. The novel Waverley, published anonymously, is another great success. Scott continues to publish all his novels anonymously under various noms de plume, including “Jedediah Cleishbotham.” |
1815 | Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer and The Lord of the Isles are published. Scott visits the Waterloo battlefield. |
1816 | Paul’s Letters to his Kinsfolk, The Antiquary, and Tales of My Landlord (first series, including The Black Dwarf and Old Mortality) are published. |
1817 | Rob Roy is published. William Hazlitt’s Characters in Shakespeare’s Plays is published. |
1818 | Scott receives a baronetcy. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is published. The Heart of Midlothian (the second Tales of My Landlord novel) is published. |
1819 | The third Tales of My Landlord series, comprising The Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of Montrose, is published. Ivanhoe is published under the pseudonym Laurence Templeton and sells a remarkable 10,000 copies in two weeks; it is the first of Scott’s novels to take place outside Scotland. In Manchester, England, people who gather to protest economic conditions are attacked by soldiers in the Peterloo Massacre. Scott’s mother dies. George Gordon, Lord Byron’s Don Juan is published. John Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” is published. |
1820 | The Monastery and The Abbot are published. George III dies and is succeeded by George IV. Scott is elected president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and Oxford and Cambridge Universities award him honorary doctorates. |
| Ivanhoe continues to be a huge success. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound is published. |
1821 | The Pirate is published. |
1822 | Kenilworth and The Fortunes of Nigel are published. As Edinburgh’s most celebrated resident, Scott welcomes King George IV when he visits the city. |
1823 | Quentin Durward, Peveril of the Peak, and St. Ronan’s Well are published. |
1824 | Redgauntlet is published. |
1825 | Tales of the Crusaders, including The Betrothed and The Talisman , is published. Around this time, Scott begins his Journal. |
1826 | As a major depression grips the country, Scott faces financial ruin when the companies of his publisher and printer collapse. Scott works for the rest of his life to pay off the debt incurred by the disaster. His wife, Charlotte, dies.
|
1 comment