April 16, 2004

And in the right corner...

A piece of literary vitriol from a writers’ spat nearly two centuries old graced the walls of the National Library of Scotland yesterday.

An assault by Lord Byron on Sir Walter Scott in 1809 is the centrepiece of an exhibition of manuscripts from the John Murray archive that will run until 10 May. It faces, across the room, Scott’s gentlemanly response.

The library is gearing up to buy the publisher’s archive for Scotland for £33 million. The exhibition marks the latest effort to highlight the attractions of the unique literary treasure trove.

The exhibition includes the original manuscript of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

Byron penned the poem of over 1,000 lines after an unfavourable review of his Hours of Idleness in the Edinburgh Review of January 1808.

In it, he singled out Scott as a "prostituted muse and hireling bard" who dared to "foist his stale romance" on an unsuspecting public for "half-a-crown a line".

(Scott had once called Byron "the imp of fame" and "that young whelp, Lord Byron.")

Go to Scotsman.com for the whole story.

Via Mirabilis.ca.

Addendum (17/4/04): Edward Champion links to an article detailing plans to publish the unfinished novel Walter Scott was working on when he died. Reliquiae Trotcosienses: The Gabions of the Late Jonathan Oldbuck Esq of Monkbarns "came about after Scott was commissioned to write an account of Abbotsford’s collections museum items. However, instead of a guide book, he wrote a work of fiction in which he simultaneously mocked and exhibited his own bibliophilia and antiquarian knowledge."

I sense a new footnote coming to my Scott chapter.

Scribbled at April 16, 2004 08:48 AM AST | Hmmm? (0) | TrackBack (0) | Link Cosmos | More? books/reading, c19th




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