{"id":2086,"date":"2020-12-02T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/?p=2086"},"modified":"2025-09-21T18:18:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T22:18:14","slug":"robert-mayer-walter-scott-and-fame-authors-and-readers-in-the-romantic-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/2020\/12\/02\/robert-mayer-walter-scott-and-fame-authors-and-readers-in-the-romantic-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Mayer. Walter Scott and Fame. Authors and Readers in the Romantic Age<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Robert Mayer. Walter Scott and Fame. Authors and Readers in the Romantic Age<\/em><\/h1>\n\n
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Ileana Baird<\/a><\/div>\n\n
in <\/span>Book review<\/a>, <\/span>Reviews<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Robert Mayer. Walter Scott and Fame. Authors and Readers in the Romantic Age. <\/em>Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. 224 p. ISBN 978-0-19-879482-0, USD 90 (hardcover).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Professor Mayer\u2019s book is an insightful, eye-opening exploration of the emergence of a new type of literary celebrity at the beginning of the nineteenth century based on close readings of Walter Scott\u2019s correspondence. Considered by Byron himself as \u201cthe first man of his time,\u201d Scott is an ideal case study due to the immense popularity he enjoyed during his lifetime as a result of his poetic and novelistic output, especially the Waverley cycle. Beautifully contextualized through comparisons with predecessors such as Pope and Johnson, contemporaries such as Wordsworth, Southey, and Byron, and successors such as Dickens, Hardy, and Hemingway, this study sheds considerable light on the evolution of literary celebrity in general and on the brand of celebrity that Walter Scott embodied in the public consciousness of his time in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike similar attempts at defining literary celebrity, Walter Scott and Fame <\/em>provides a very nuanced analysis not only of Scott\u2019s construction of his authorial persona and his relationship with his fans but also of his engagement with his \u201cintimates,\u201d colleagues, and \u201cclients.\u201d These four categories of correspondents form the organizing principle of the study. The section on Scott\u2019s epistolary exchanges with his \u201cintimates,\u201d or individuals closest to Scott due to their position as mentors (Anna Seward, the Dukes of Buccleuch, Lord Abercorn), confidants (J. B. S. Morritt, Lady Louisa Stuart, George Ellis), or both (Lady Abercorn), sheds light on their creation of \u201can exalted, romantic view of the maker of texts,\u201d one generally acknowledged as \u201csomeone possessed of magical [literary] powers\u201d (59). In turn, Scott considers them as authorized critical readers of his texts and is open to their suggestions for improvement or advice on accepting or declining the laureateship in 1813. The section on Scott\u2019s colleagues — one that this reader found most rewarding to peruse — focuses on his relationship with contemporaries who provided him with materials for his poems or novels (Joseph Train) and especially with authors whose repute was well-established at the time (William Wordsworth, Robert Southey, Joanna Baillie, Maria Edgeworth, James Hogg). This chapter provides useful insight into how these authors conceptualized authorship and their relationship with each other, their readers, and the \u201cbookselling animal\u201d (as Scott calls it in a letter to Southey). Interestingly, when compared to the Lake Poets, Scott seems to be the more \u201cmodern\u201d of the two in his understanding of the profession and accommodating approach to his readers; equally interesting, his correspondence with his female colleagues underscores the fact that Scott is \u201cless committed to a \u2018patriarchal politics\u2019 of writing\u201d (85) than some of them, Edgeworth included, are. The section on \u201cclients\u201d — individuals who seek to advance their own careers through appeals to Scott\u2019s literary or financial help — highlights the author\u2019s active self-fashioning as an approachable celebrity, one that engages affably with his readers and, in doing so, builds a sympathetic relationship with them. By casting himself in the role of both patron and celebrity author, Scott seems to rejects Pope\u2019s \u201cArbuthonism\u201d — the pose of the great writer plagued by dunces — and, instead, generously shares time and advice with his clients, demonstrating an intuition of the way the literary marketplace operates that is well ahead of his time. Finally, the chapter on Scott\u2019s fans — another favorite of this reader — delves into the construction of the author by readers who strive to establish an affective connection with a celebrity figure. Particularly interesting and symptomatic of a modern form of celebrity worship is the fans\u2019 attempt to exchange objects with the author, either by soliciting portraits, signatures, and literary contributions, or by offering poetical tributes or gifting the author with objects — dogs, portraits, seeds, tea, books, swords — in an effort to find \u201csignificance, valorization, direction, and other intangible benefits \u2026 which speak to their inner lives, their sense of themselves\u201d (168). Beautifully documented and analyzed, the correspondence with these \u201cfetishistic fans\u201d sheds light on the author\u2019s and the readers\u2019 participation in the creation of a new, modern culture of celebrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the highlights of this study are the impressive archival work done by the author (the book is the result of consulting collections of letters written from 1802 to 1832 by more than three hundred letter writers), the impeccable organization of the material (with concluding sections for each chapter that reiterate the main threads of the argument), and the nuanced close readings of the cited material. The illustrations included are also evocative of the time period, characters, and texts discussed, being particularly useful in clarifying who some of Scott\u2019s correspondents were. One difficulty this reader had, however, was following the evolution of Scott\u2019s celebrity due to a lack of signaling the time of publication and critical reception of his major works: such clarifications would have helped in contextualizing some of the correspondence exchanged and high appraisals of the author. I also wonder if the beautiful illustrations to Scott\u2019s books by Charles Heath, William Allan, Charles Robert Leslie, Henry Corbould, or Richard Westall, to name just a few, have played a role in Scott\u2019s positive reception of his works, and if his correspondence includes any references to decisions related to their artists, engravers, or style made in conjunction with the author. Finally, one noticeable omission from this otherwise impeccably researched monograph is Fred Inglis\u2019s study, A Short History of Celebrity<\/em>, which could have informed some of the author\u2019s conclusions regarding the emergence of a new type of celebrity at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Rather than flaws, however, these are simply suggestions that the author could pursue in future studies on Scott\u2019s celebrification during his time and beyond, which this reader excitedly hopes for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ileana Baird, Zayed University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Mayer\u2019s book is an insightful, eye-opening exploration of the emergence of a new type of literary celebrity at the beginning of the nineteenth century based on close readings of Walter Scott\u2019s correspondence. Considered by Byron himself as \u201cthe first man of his time,\u201d Scott is an ideal case study due to the immense popularity he enjoyed during his lifetime as a result of his poetic and novelistic output, especially the Waverley cycle. Beautifully contextualized through comparisons with predecessors such as Pope and Johnson, contemporaries such as Wordsworth, Southey, and Byron, and successors such as Dickens, Hardy, and Hemingway, this study sheds considerable light on the evolution of literary celebrity in general and on the brand of celebrity that Walter Scott embodied in the public consciousness of his time in particular.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"wp-custom-template-post-template-reviews","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1888,1887],"tags":[1896,1904,1929,1930,1955],"class_list":["post-2086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","category-reviews","tag-19th-century","tag-authorship","tag-epistolary-culture","tag-europe","tag-reception"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2086"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5684,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086\/revisions\/5684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}