Bibliography

Burr, Allston. Sir Walter Scott: An Index Placing the Short Poems in His Novels and in His Long Poems and Dramas. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936.

A guide to Scott's short verse compositions.

Corson, James Clarkson. A Bibliography of Sir Walter Scott: A Classified and Annotated List of Books and Articles Relating to His Life and Works, 1797-1940. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1943, 428 p.

Exhaustive annotated bibliography of writings on Scott, categorizing the sources as bibliographical, biographical, literary, and literary and biographical combined.

Hillhouse, James T., and Welsh Alexander. "Sir Walter Scott." In The English Romantic Poets & Essayists: A Review of Research and Criticism, rev. ed., edited by Carolyn Washburn Houtchens and Lawrence Huston Houtchens, pp. 115-54. New York: Modern Language Association/New York University Press, 1966.

An extended bibliographical essay that surveys critical and biographical writings on Scott.

Rubenstein, Jill. Sir Walter Scott: A Reference Guide, edited by Marilyn Gaull. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1978, 344 p.

An annotated bibliography of writings about Scott that were published between 1932 and 1977.

Biography

Grierson, Sir Herbert J. Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 1938. Reprint. New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1969, 300 p.

A highly regarded biography that supplements and corrects inaccuracies in Lockhart's study of Scott's life (see below).

Johnson, Edgar. Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1970.

The definitive modern biography of Scott.

Lockhart, John Gibson. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 2d ed. 10 vols. Edinburgh: Robert Cadell, 1839.

An indispensable source of information about Scott's life and works, written by his son-in-law. Despite its inaccuracies, Lockhart's biography is considered one of the greatest biographies of an English literary figure.

Criticism

Crawford, Thomas. Scott. Rev. ed. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1982.

Critical study of Scott, the first edition of which appeared in 1965. Includes an analysis of his poetry and fiction, as well as a bibliography of writings by and about the author.

Goslee, Nancy M. "Marmion and the Metaphor of Forgery." In Scottish Literary Journal 7, No. 1 (May 1980): 85-96.

Analyzes Marmion's act of forgery in order to "reveal the complexity of attitudes toward fiction" that Scott employs in the poem.

——. "Romance as Theme and Structure in The Lady of the Lake." In Texas Studies in Literature and Language: A Journal of the Humanities XVII, No. 4 (Winter 1976): 737-57.

Discusses the romantic subplot of the poem and the manner in which Scott combines a love story with a tale of political struggles.

——. Scott the Rhymer. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988, 264 p.

Book-length study of Scott's poetry.

Guest, Ann M. "Imagery of Color and Light in Scott's Narrative Poems." In Studies in English Literature XII, No. 4 (Autumn 1972): 705-20.

Analyzes Scott's use of color as it pertains to the "description, mood creation, characterization, symbolism, and overall structure" of his verse.

McClatchy, J. D. "The Function of the Marmion Epistles." In Studies in Scottish Literature IX, No. 4 (April 1972): 256-63.

Argues that the interplay between the epistles and the narrative make Marmion "a poem about the workings of the imagination which produced it."

Noyes, Alfred. "The Poetry of Sir Walter Scott: A Reevaluation." In The Quarterly Review 290, No. 592 (April 1952): 211-25.

Praises the "splendid objectivity" of Scott's verse and predicts a renewed appreciation for poet's work among contemporary readers.

Ross, Marlon B. "Scott's Chivalric Pose: The Function of Metrical Romance in the Romantic Period." In Genre XIX, No. 3 (Fall 1986): 267-97.

Analyzes Scott's poems as exemplars of the metrical romance and argues that the works reveal the "confusions and contradictions" of the Romantic period.

Rubenstein, Jill. "Symbolic Characterization in The Lady of the Lake." In Dalhousie Review 51, No. 3 (Autumn 1971): 366-73.

Finds that Scott's characters are "representative of various aspects of the … historical situation" depicted in the poem. Rubenstein contends that Scott uses these figures to stress the value of compromise, a position that he also endorses in his novels.

Smith, Goldwin. "Scott's Poetry Again." In The Atlantic Monthly 95, No. 3 (March 1905): 300-02.

Defends Scott's poetry in response to Arthur Symons's 1904 essay. Smith lauds Scott's narrative excellence and offers a brief assessment of each of the epic poems.

Smith, Iain Crichton. "Poetry in Scott's Narrative Verse." In Sir Walter Scott: The Long-Forgotten Melody, edited by Alan Bold, pp. 109-26. London: Vision Press Ltd., 1983.

Praises Scott's narrative verse for its descriptive accomplishments while conceding that the poems are not interesting as poetry or for their human insights.

Additional coverage of Scott's life and career is contained in the following sources published by Gale Research: Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography 1789-1832; Discovering Authors; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vols. 93, 107, 116, 114; Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 15; World Literature Criticism; and Yesterday's Authors of Books for Children, Vol. 2.