Coordinates	33°51′35.9″N151°12′40″N
Name	British Isles
Local name	or ''Oileáin Iarthair Eorpa''
Image name	Britain and Ireland satellite image bright.png
Image caption	Satellite image of the British Isles, excluding Orkney (southern part obscured by cloud, northern part out of frame) and Shetland (out of frame).
Image alt	A map of the British Isles and their location in Europe.
Locator map	British Isles location.svg
Location	Western Europe
Coordinates
Area km2	315134
Total islands	6,000+
Major islands	Great Britain and Ireland
Highest mount	Ben Nevis
Elevation m	1344
Country heading	Sovereign states and Crown Dependencies
Country	Ireland
Country largest city	Dublin
Country 1	United Kingdom
Country 1 largest city	London
Country 2	Isle of Man
Country 2 largest city	Douglas
Country 3	Jersey
Country 3 largest city	Saint Helier
Country 4	Guernsey
Country 4 largest city	Saint Peter Port
Population	~67 million
Ethnic groups	British, Channel Islanders, Cornish, English, English Gypsies, Irish, Irish Travellers, Kale, Manx, Scottish, Ulster-Scots, Welsh }}

The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom) and Ireland (also described as the Republic of Ireland). The British Isles also include three dependencies of the British Crown: the Isle of Man and, by tradition, the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Bailiwick of Guernsey in the Channel Islands, although the latter are not physically a part of the archipelago.

The oldest rocks in the group are in the north west of Scotland and Ireland and are 2,700 million years old. During the Silurian period the north-western regions collided with the south-east, which had been part of a separate continental landmass. The topography of the islands is modest in scale by global standards. Ben Nevis rises to an elevation of only and Lough Neagh, which is notably larger than other lakes on the isles, covers only . The climate is temperate marine, with mild winters and warm wet summers. The North Atlantic Drift brings significant moisture and raises temperatures 11 °C (20 °F) above the global average for the latitude. This led to a landscape which was long dominated by temperate rainforest, although human activity has since cleared the vast majority of forest cover. The region was re-inhabited after the last glacial period of Quaternary glaciation, by 12,000 BC in Great Britain and 8000 BC in Ireland. At that time, Great Britain was a peninsula of the European continent from which Ireland had become separated to form an island.

Scoti (Ireland), Pictish (northern Britain) and Brythons (southern Britain) tribes inhabited the islands at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. Much of Brythonic-controlled Britain was conquered by the Roman Empire from AD 43. The first Anglo-Saxons arrived as Roman power waned in the 5th century and eventually dominating the bulk of what is now England. Viking invasions began in the 9th century, followed by more permanent settlements and political change—particularly in England. The subsequent Norman conquest of England in 1066 and the later Angevin partial conquest of Ireland from 1169 led to the imposition of a new Norman ruling elite across much of Britain and parts of Ireland. By the Late Middle Ages, Great Britain was separated into the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, while control in Ireland fluxed between Gaelic kingdoms, Hiberno-Norman lords and the English-dominated Lordship of Ireland, soon restricted only to The Pale. The 1603 Union of the Crowns, Acts of Union 1707 and Acts of Union 1800 attempted to consolidate Britain and Ireland into a single political unit, the United Kingdom, with the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands remaining as Crown Dependencies. The expansion of the British Empire and migrations following the Irish Famine and Highland Clearances resulted in the distribution of the islands' population and culture throughout the world and a rapid de-population of Ireland in the second half of the 19th century. Most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom after the Irish War of Independence and the subsequent Anglo-Irish Treaty (1919–1922), with six counties remaining in the UK as Northern Ireland.

The term ''British Isles'' is controversial in Ireland, where there are objections to its usage due to the association of the word ''British'' with Ireland. The Government of Ireland does not use the term and its embassy in London discourages its use. As a result, ''Britain and Ireland'' is becoming a preferred description, and ''Atlantic Archipelago'' is increasingly favoured in academia, although ''British Isles'' is still commonly employed.

Etymology

The earliest known references to the islands as a group appeared in the writings of sea-farers from the ancient Greek colony of Massalia. The original records have been lost; however, later writings that quoted from the Massaliote Periplus (6th century BC) and Pytheas's ''On the Ocean'' (circa 325–320 BC) have survived. In the 1st century BC, Diodorus used the Latin form, Πρεττανία (''Prettania'') from Πρεττανική (''Prettanike''), Strabo used Βρεττανία (''Brettania''), and Marcian of Heraclea, in his ''Periplus maris exteri'', used αἱ Πρεττανικαί νῆσοι (''the Prettanic Isles'') to refer to the islands. Historians today, though not in absolute agreement, largely agree that these Greek and Latin names were probably drawn from native Celtic-language names for the archipelago. Along these lines, the inhabits of the islands of ''Pretanike'' were called the Πρεττανοί (''Priteni'' or ''Pretani''). The shift from the "P" of ''Pretannia'' to the "B" of ''Britannia'' by the Romans occurred during the time of Julius Caesar.

The classical writer, Ptolemy, referred to the larger island as ''Great Britain'' (''Megale Britannia'') and to Ireland as ''Little Britain'' (''Mikra Brettania'') in his work, ''Almagest'' (147–148 AD). In his later work, ''Geography'' (c. 150 AD), he gave these islands the names ''Albion'', ''Iwernia'', and ''Mona'' (the Isle of Man), suggesting these may have been native names of the individual islands not known to him at the time of writing ''Almagest''. The name ''Albion'' appears to have fallen out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Great Britain, after which ''Britain'' became the more common-place name for the island called Great Britain. ''Great Britain'' would return to use a millennium later, in the Middle Ages. At that time, it was used to distinguish the island of Britain from the peninsula of Brittany, in northern-western France that had been settled by Britons, which was confusingly similar to the medieval writers. ''Great Britain'' and ''Britain'' later became synonymous with the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom.

The earliest known use of the phrase ''Brytish Iles'' in the English language is dated 1577 in a work by John Dee. Today, this name is seen by some as carrying imperialist overtones although it is still commonly used. Other names used to describe the islands aside from ''British Isles'', include the ''Anglo-Celtic Isles'', ''British-Irish Isles'', ''Britain and Ireland'', ''UK and Ireland'', and ''British Isles and Ireland''. Owing to political and national associations with the word ''British'', the Government of Ireland does not use the term ''British Isles'' and its embassy in London discourages its use. In documents drawn up jointly between the British and Irish governments, the archipelago is referred to simply as "these islands".

Some publishers' style guides, such as the Economic History Society's and the Guardian newspaper's, suggest that use of the term ''British Isles'' should be avoided and, in early 2008, it was reported that ''National Geographic'' said it would use the wording ''British and Irish Isles'' instead. In 2006, Folens, an Irish publisher of school text books, decided to stop using the term in Ireland and in 2001 the rugby union team the ''British Isles'' (or ''British Lions'') was renamed the ''British and Irish Lions''.

Geography

The British Isles lie at the juncture of several regions with past episodes of tectonic mountain building. These orogenic belts form a complex geology which records a huge and varied span of earth history. Of particular note was the Caledonian Orogeny during the Ordovician Period, c. 488–444 Ma and early Silurian period, when the craton Baltica collided with the terrane Avalonia to form the mountains and hills in northern Britain and Ireland. Baltica formed roughly the north western half of Ireland and Scotland. Further collisions caused the Variscan orogeny in the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, forming the hills of Munster, south-west England, and south Wales. Over the last 500 million years the land which forms the islands has drifted northwest from around 30°S, crossing the equator around 370 million years ago to reach its present northern latitude.

The islands have been shaped by numerous glaciations during the Quaternary Period, the most recent being the Devensian. As this ended, the central Irish Sea was de-glaciated and the English Channel flooded, with sea levels rising to current levels some 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, leaving the British Isles in their current form. Whether or not there was a land bridge between Great Britain and Ireland at this time is somewhat disputed, though there was certainly a single ice sheet covering the entire sea.

The islands' geology is highly complex, though there are large numbers of limestone and chalk rocks that formed in the Permian and Triassic periods. The west coasts of Ireland and northern Great Britain that directly face the Atlantic Ocean are generally characterised by long peninsulas, and headlands and bays; the internal and eastern coasts are "smoother".

There are about 136 permanently inhabited islands in the group, the largest two being Great Britain and Ireland. Great Britain is to the east and covers 216,777 km² (83,698 square miles), over half of the total landmass of the group. Ireland is to the west and covers 84,406 km² (32,589 square miles). The largest of the other islands are to be found in the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland to the north, Anglesey and the Isle of Man between Great Britain and Ireland, and the Channel Islands near the coast of France.

The islands are at relatively low altitudes, with central Ireland and southern Great Britain particularly low lying: the lowest point in the islands is Holme, Cambridgeshire at . The Scottish Highlands in the northern part of Great Britain are mountainous, with Ben Nevis being the highest point on the islands at . Other mountainous areas include Wales and parts of Ireland, however only seven peaks in these areas reach above . Lakes on the islands are generally not large, although Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland is an exception, covering . The largest freshwater body in Great Britain is Loch Lomond at . There are a number of major rivers within the British Isles. The longest is the Shannon in Ireland at . The river Severn at is the longest in Great Britain. The isles have a temperate marine climate. The North Atlantic Drift ("Gulf Stream") which flows from the Gulf of Mexico brings with it significant moisture and raises temperatures 11 °C (20 °F) above the global average for the islands' latitudes. Winters are cool and wet, with summers mild and also wet. Most Atlantic depressions pass to the north of the islands, combined with the general westerly circulation and interactions with the landmass, this imposes an east-west variation in climate.

Flora and fauna

The islands enjoy a mild climate and varied soils, giving rise to a diverse pattern of vegetation. Animal and plant life in the archipelago is similar to that of the northwestern European continent. However, there are few numbers of species with Ireland having even less. All native flora and fauna in Ireland, for example, is made up of species that migrated from the elsewhere in Europe, and Great Britain in particular. However, the only window during which this could occur was between the end of the last Ice Age (about 12,000 years ago) and when the land bridge connecting the two islands was flooded by sea (about 8,000 years ago).

As with most of Europe, prehistoric Britain and Ireland were covered with forest and swamp. Clearing began around 6000 BC and accelerated in medieval times. Despite this, Britain retained its primeval forests longer than most of the mainland due to a small population and later development of trade and industry and wood shortages were not a problem until the 17th century. By the 18th century, most of Britain's forests were consumed for shipbuilding or manufacturing charcoal and the nation was forced to import lumber from Scandinavia, North America, and the Baltic. Most forest land in Ireland are maintained by state forestation programmes. Almost all land outside of urban areas is farmland. However, relatively large areas of forest remain in east and north Scotland and in southeast England. Oak, elm, ash and beech are amongst the most common trees in England. In Scotland, pine and birch are most common. Natural forests in Ireland are mainly oak, ash, wych elm, birch and pine. Beech and lime, though not native to Ireland, are also common there. Farmland hosts a variety of semi-natural vegetation of grasses and flowering plants. Woods, hedgerows, mountain slopes and marshes host heather, wild grasses, gorse and bracken.

Larger animals, such as wolf, bear and reindeer are today extinct. However, some species such as red deer are protected. Other small mammals, such as foxes, badgers, hares, hedgehogs, and stoats, are very common. Many rivers contain otters and seals are common on coasts. Over 200 species of bird reside permanently on the islands and another 200 migrate to them. Common types are the chaffinch, blackbird, sparrow and starling, all small birds. Large birds are declining in number, except for those kept for game such as pheasant, partridge, and red grouse. Fish are abundant in the rivers and lakes of the islands, in particular salmon, trout, perch and pike. Dogfish, cod, sole, pollock and bass are among the sea fish as well as mussels, crab and oysters on the coastline. There are more than 21,000 species of insects found on the islands.

Neither Great Britain nor Ireland are inhabited by many reptiles or amphibians. Only three snakes are native to Great Britain: the common European adder, the grass snake and the smooth snake; none are native to Ireland. In general, Great Britain has slightly more variation and native wild life, with weasels, polecats, wildcats, most shrews, moles, the water voles, roe deer and common toads also being absent in Ireland. This patterns in true also for birds and insects. However, notable reversals of this theme include the Kerry slug and certain species of wood lice, which are native to Ireland but not found on Great Britain.

Domestic animals native to the islands include the Connemara pony, Shetland pony, Irish wolfhound and several types of cattle and sheep.

Demographics

The demographics of the British Isles today are characterised by a generally high density of population in England, which accounts for almost 80% of the total population of the islands. In elsewhere on Great Britain and on Ireland, high density of population is limited to areas around, or close to, a few large cities. The largest urban area by far is the London metropolitan area with 12–14 million inhabitants. Other major populations centres include Greater Manchester Urban Area (2.5 million), West Midlands conurbation (2.3 million), West Yorkshire Urban Area (2.1 million) in England, Greater Glasgow (1.7 million) in Scotland and Greater Dublin Area (1.6 million) in Ireland.

The population of England rose rapidly during the 19th and 20th centuries whereas the populations of Scotland and Wales have shown little increase during the 20th century, with the population of Scotland remaining unchanged since 1951. Ireland for most of its history comprised a population proportionate to its land area (about one third of the total population). However, since the Great Irish Famine, the population of Ireland has fallen to less than one tenth of the population of the British Isles. The famine, which caused a century-long population decline, drastically reduced the Irish population and permanently altered the demographic make-up of the British Isles. On a global scale, this disaster led to the creation of an Irish diaspora that numbers fifteen times the current population of the island.

The linguistic heritage of the British Isles is rich, with twelve languages from six groups across four branches of the Indo-European family. The Insular Celtic languages of the Goidelic sub-group (Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic) and the Brythonic sub-group (Cornish, Welsh and Breton, spoken in north-western France) are the only remaining Celtic languages—the last of their continental relations becoming extinct before the 7th century. The Norman languages of Guernésiais, Jèrriais and Sarkese spoken in the Channel Islands are similar to French. A cant, called Shelta, is a language spoken by Irish Travellers, often as a means to conceal meaning from those outside the group. However, English, sometimes in the form of Scots, is the dominant language, with few monoglots remaining in the other languages of the region. The Norn language of Orkney and Shetland became extinct around 1880.

Government

There are two sovereign states in the isles: Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Ireland, sometimes called ''the Republic of Ireland'', governs five sixths of the island of Ireland, with the remainder of the island forming Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, usually shortened to simply ''the United Kingdom'', which governs the remainder of the archipelago with the exception of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The Isle of Man and the two states of the Channel Islands, the Jersey and the Guernsey, are known as the Crown Dependencies. They exercise constitutional rights of self-government and judicial independence; responsibility for international representation rests largely upon the UK (in consultation with the respective governments); and responsibility for defence is reserved by the UK. The United Kingdom is made up of four constituent parts: England, Scotland and Wales, forming Great Britain, and Northern Ireland in the north-east of the island of Ireland. Of these, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have "devolved" governments meaning that they have their own parliaments/assemblies and are self-governing with respect to certain areas set down by law. For judicial purposes, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales (the latter being one entity) form separate legal jurisdiction, with there being no single law for the UK as a whole.

All of the states in the isles are parliamentary democracies with their own separate parliaments. All parts of the United Kingdom return members to parliament in London. In addition to this, voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland return members to a parliament in Edinburgh and to assemblies in Cardiff and Belfast respectively. Governance in the norm is by majority rule, however, Northern Ireland uses a system of power sharing whereby unionists and nationalists share executive posts proportionately and where the assent of both groups are required for the Northern Ireland Assembly to make certain decisions. (In the context of Northern Ireland, unionists are those who want Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom and nationalists are those who want Northern Ireland join with the rest of Ireland.) The British monarch is the head of state for all parts of the isles except for the Republic of Ireland, where the head of state is the President of Ireland.

Ireland and the United Kingdom are part of the European Union (EU). The Crown Dependencies are not a part of the European Union but have certain limited privileges and obligations that were negotiated as a part of the UK's accession to the EU. Neither the United Kingdom or Ireland area part of the Schengen area, that allow passport-free travel between EU members states. However, since the partition of Ireland, an informal free-travel area had existed across the region. In 1997, this area required formal recognition during the course of negotiations for the Amsterdam Treaty of the European Union and is now known as the Common Travel Area.

Reciprocal arrangements allow British and Irish citizens to full voting rights in the two states. Exceptions to this are presidential elections and constitutional referendums in the Republic of Ireland, for which there is no comparable franchise in the other states. In the United Kingdom, these pre-date European Union law, and in both jurisdictions go further than that required by European Union law. Other EU nationals may only vote in local and European Parliament elections while resident in either the UK or Ireland. In 2008, a UK Ministry of Justice report investigating how to strengthen the British sense of citizenship proposed to end this arrangement arguing that, "the right to vote is one of the hallmarks of the political status of citizens; it is not a means of expressing closeness between countries."

The Northern Ireland Peace Process has led to a number of unusual arrangements between the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. For example, citizens of Northern Ireland are entitled to the choice of Irish or British citizenship or both and the Governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom consult on matters not devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive. The Northern Ireland Executive and the Government of Ireland also meet as the North/South Ministerial Council to develop policies common across the island of Ireland.

These arrangements were made following the 1998 Belfast Agreement. Another body established under that agreement, the British-Irish Council, is made up of the major political entities governing the islands. The British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body () predates the British-Irish Council and was established in 1990. Originally it comprised 25 members of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament, and 25 members of the parliament of the United Kingdom, with the purpose of building mutual understanding between members of both legislature. Since then the role and scope of the body has been expanded to include representatives from the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the States of Jersey, the States of Guernsey and the High Court of Tynwald (Isle of Man).

The British-Irish Council does not have executive powers but meets biannually to discuss issues of mutual importance. Similarly, the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body has no legislative powers but investigates and collects witness evidence from the public on matters of mutual concern to its members. Reports on its findings are presented to the Governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom. During the February 2008 meeting of the British-Irish Council, it was agreed to set up a standing secretariat that would serve as a permanent 'civil service' for the Council. Leading on from developments in the British-Irish Council, the chair of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary, Niall Blaney, has suggested that the body should shadow the British-Irish Council's work.

Many civil bodies are organised throughout the islands as a whole. For example the Samaritans, which is deliberately organised without regard to national boundaries on the basis that a service which is not political or religious should not recognise sectarian or political divisions. The RNLI, the life boats service, is also organised throughout the islands as a whole, covering both the United Kingdom and Ireland.

History

At the end of the last ice age, what are now the British Isles were joined to the European mainland as a mass of land extending north west from the modern-day northern coastline of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Ice covered almost all of what is now Ireland and Great Britain with the exception of most of modern-day Munster and much of what we now call England. Between 14,000 to 10,000 years ago, as the ice melted, sea levels rose separating Ireland from the mainland, creating also the Isle of Man. About two to four millennia later, Great Britain became separated from the mainland. Britain probably became repopulated with people before the ice age ended and certainly before it became separated from the mainland. It is likely that Ireland became settled by sea after it had already become an island.

At the time of the Roman Empire, about two thousand years ago, various tribes were inhabiting the islands. The Romans expanded their civilisation to control southern Great Britain but were impeded in advancing any further, building Hadrian's Wall to mark the northern frontier of their empire in 122 AD. At that time, Ireland was populated by a people known as Scots, the northern part of Great Britain by a people known as Picts and the southern half by Britons. Anglo-Saxons arrived as Roman power waned in the 5th century AD. Initially, their arrival seems to have been at the invitation of the Britons as mercenaries to repulse incursions by the Scots and Picts. In time, Anglo-Saxon demands on the British became so great that they came to culturally dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain, though recent genetic evidence suggests Britons still formed the bulk of the population. This dominance creating what is now England and leaving culturally British enclaves only in the north of what is now England, in Cornwall and what is now known as Wales. Ireland had been unaffected by the Romans except, significantly, having been Christianised, traditionally by the Romano-Brition, Saint Patrick. As Europe, including Britain descended turmoil following in the collapse of Roman civilisation, an era known as the Dark Ages, Ireland entering a golden age and responded with missions, first to Great Britain and then to the continent, founding monasteries and universities and were later joined by Anglo-Saxon missions of the same nature.

Viking invasions began in the 9th century, followed by more permanent settlements, particularly along the east coast of Ireland, the west coast of modern-day Scotland and the Isle of Man. Though the Vikings were eventually neutralised in Ireland, their influence remained in the cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Wexford. England however was slowly conquered around the turn of the first millennium AD, and eventually became a feudal possession of Denmark. The relations between the descendants of Vikings in England and counterparts in Normandy, in northern France, lay at the heart of a series of events that led to the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The remnants of the Duchy of Normandy, which conquered England, remain associated to the English Crown as the Channel Islands to this day. A century later the marriage of the future Henry II of England to Eleanor of Aquitaine created the Angevin Empire, partially under the French Crown. At the invitation of a provincial king and under the authority of Pope Adrian IV (the only Englishman to be elected pope), the Angevins invaded Ireland in 1169. Though initially intended to be kept as an independent kingdom, the failure of the Irish High King to ensure the terms of the Treaty of Windsor led Henry II, as King of England, to rule as effective monarch under the title of Lord of Ireland. This title was granted to his younger son but when Henry's heir unexpectedly died the title of King of England and Lord of Ireland became entwined in one person.

By the Late Middle Ages, Great Britain was separated into the Kingdoms of England and Scotland. Power in Ireland fluxed between Gaelic kingdoms, Hiberno-Norman lords and the English-dominated Lordship of Ireland. A similar situation existed in the Principality of Wales, which was slowly being annexed into the Kingdom of England by a series of laws. During the course of the 15th century, the Crown of England would assert a claim to the Crown of France, thereby also releasing the King of England as from being vassal of the King of France. In 1534, King Henry VIII, at first having been a strong defender of Roman Catholicism in the face of the Reformation, separated from the Roman Church after failing to secure a divorce from the Pope. His response was to place the King of England as "the only Supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England", thereby removing the authority of the Pope from the affairs of the English Church. Ireland, which had been held by the King of England as Lord of Ireland, but which strictly speaking had been a feudal possession of the Pope since the Norman invasion invasion was declared a separate kingdom in personal union with England.

Scotland, meanwhile had remained an independent Kingdom. In 1603, that changed when the King of Scotland inherited the Crown of England, and consequently the Crown of Ireland also. The subsequent 17th century was one of political upheaval, religious division and war. English colonialism in Ireland of the 16th century was extended by large-scale Scottish and English colonies in Ulster. Religious division heightened and the King in England came into conflict with parliament. A prime issue was, inter alia, over his policy of tolerance towards Catholicism. The resulting English Civil War or War of the Three Kingdoms led to a revolutionary republic in England. Ireland, largely Catholic was mainly loyal to the king. Following defeat to the parliaments army, large scale land distributions from loyalist Irish nobility to English commoners in the service of the parliamentary army created the beginnings a new Ascendancy class which over the next hundred years would obliterated the English (Hiberno-Norman) and Gaelic Irish nobility in Ireland. The new class was Protestant and British the common people were, largely Catholic and Irish. This theme would influence Irish politics for centuries to come. When the monarchy was restored in England, the king found it politically impossible to restore all the lands of former land-owners in Ireland. The "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 repeated similar themes: a Catholic king pushing for religious tolerance in opposition to a Protestant parliament in England. The king's army was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne and at the militarily crucial Battle of Aughrim in Ireland. Resistance held out, and a guarantee of religious tolerance was a cornerstone of the Treaty of Limerick. However, in the evolving political climate, the terms of Limerick were superseded, a new monarchy was installed, and the new Irish parliament was packed with the new elite which legislated increasing intolerant Penal Laws, which discommoded both Dissenters and Catholics.

The Kingdoms of England and Scotland were unified in 1707 creating the Kingdom of Great Britain. Following an attempted republican revolution in Ireland in 1798, the Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain were unified in 1801, creating the United Kingdom. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands remaining outside of the United Kingdom but with their ultimate good governance being the responsibility of the British Crown (effectively the British government). Although, the colonies of North American that would become the United States of America were lost by the start of the 19th century, the British Empire expanded rapidly elsewhere. A century later it would cover one thirds of the globe. Poverty in Ireland remained desperate however and industrialisation in England led to terrible condition for the working class. Mass migrations following the Irish Famine and Highland Clearances resulted in the distribution of the islands' population and culture throughout the world and a rapid de-population of Ireland in the second-half of the 19th century. Most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom after the Irish War of Independence and the subsequent Anglo-Irish Treaty (1919–1922), with six counties that form Northern Ireland remaining as an autonomous region of the UK.

Culture

The United Kingdom and Ireland have separate media, although British television, newspapers and magazines are widely available in Ireland, giving people in Ireland a high level of familiarity with cultural matters in Great Britain. A few cultural events are organised for the island group as a whole. For example, the Costa Book Awards are awarded to authors resident in the UK or Ireland. The Man Booker Prize is awarded to authors from the Commonwealth of Nations and Ireland. The Mercury Music Prize is handed out every year to the best album from a British or Irish musician or group.

Many globally popular sports had modern rules codified in the ''British Isles'', including golf, association football, cricket, rugby, snooker and darts, as well as many minor sports such as croquet, bowls, pitch and putt, water polo and handball. A number of sports are popular throughout the British Isles, the most prominent of which is association football. While this is organised separately in different national associations, leagues and national teams, even within the UK, it is a common passion in all parts of the islands. Rugby union is also widely enjoyed across the islands. The British and Irish Lions is a team made up of players from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales that undertakes tours of the southern hemisphere rugby playing nations every four years. This team was formerly known as the ''British Isles'' and the ''British Lions'', but has been called the ''British and Irish Lions'' since 2001. Ireland play as a united team, represented by players from both Northern Ireland and the Republic. The four national rugby teams from Great Britain and Ireland play each other each year for the Triple Crown as part of the Six Nations Championship. Also since 2001 the professional club teams of Ireland, Scotland and Wales have competed together in the Magners League.

The Ryder Cup in golf was originally played between a United States team and a team representing Great Britain and Ireland. From 1979 onwards this was expanded to include the whole of Europe.

Transport

London Heathrow Airport is Europe's busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic and the Dublin-London route is the busiest air route in Europe. The English Channel and the southern North Sea are the busiest seaways in the world. The Channel Tunnel, opened in 1994, links Great Britain to France and is the second-longest rail tunnel in the world.

The idea of building a tunnel under the Irish Sea has been raised since 1895, when it was first investigated. Several potential Irish Sea tunnel projects have been proposed, most recently the ''Tusker Tunnel'' between the ports of Rosslare and Fishguard proposed by The Institute of Engineers of Ireland in 2004. A rail tunnel was proposed in 1997 on a different route, between Dublin and Holyhead, by British engineering firm Symonds. Either tunnel, at , would be by far the longest in the world, and would cost an estimated €20 billion. A proposal in 2007, estimated the cost of building a bridge from County Antrim in Northern Ireland to Galloway in Scotland at £3.5bn (€5bn).

See also

Extreme points of the British Isles

British Islands

References

Further reading

A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World, 3500 B.C. – 1603 A.D. by Simon Schama, BBC/Miramax, 2000 ISBN 978-0786866755

A History of Britain—The Complete Collection on DVD by Simon Schama, BBC 2002

Shortened History of England by G. M. Trevelyan Penguin Books ISBN 978-0140233230

External links

An interactive geological map of the British Isles.

Category:Geography of Europe

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Coordinates	33°51′35.9″N151°12′40″N
name	Jane Austen
birth date	December 16, 1775
birth place	Steventon Rectory, Hampshire
death date	July 18, 1817
death place	Winchester, Hampshire
resting place	Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire
period	1787 to 1809-1811
genre	Romance
notableworks	Pride and PrejudiceSense and Sensibility
signature	Jane Austen signature from her will.svg|200px|Signature from Austen's 1817 will.
portaldisp	y }}

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.

Austen lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry. She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to her development as a professional writer. Her artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years until she was about 35 years old. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she tried then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of ''Sense and Sensibility'' (1811), ''Pride and Prejudice'' (1813), ''Mansfield Park'' (1814) and ''Emma'' (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, ''Northanger Abbey'' and ''Persuasion'', both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled ''Sanditon'', but died before completing it.

Austen's works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century realism. Her plots, though fundamentally comic, highlight the dependence of women on marriage to secure social standing and economic security. Her work brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews during her lifetime, but the publication in 1869 of her nephew's ''A Memoir of Jane Austen'' introduced her to a wider public, and by the 1940s she had become widely accepted in academia as a great English writer. The second half of the 20th century saw a proliferation of Austen scholarship and the emergence of a Janeite fan culture.

Biography

Biographical information concerning Jane Austen is "famously scarce", according to one biographer. Only some personal and family letters remain (by one estimate only 160 out of Austen's 3,000 letters are extant), and her sister Cassandra (to whom most of the letters were originally addressed) burned "the greater part" of the ones she kept and censored those she did not destroy. Other letters were destroyed by the heirs of Admiral Francis Austen, Jane's brother. Most of the biographical material produced for fifty years after Austen's death was written by her relatives and reflects the family's biases in favour of "good quiet Aunt Jane". Scholars have unearthed little information since.

Family

Austen's parents, George Austen (1731–1805), and his wife Cassandra (1739–1827), were members of substantial gentry families. George was descended from a family of woollen manufacturers, which had risen through the professions to the lower ranks of the landed gentry. Cassandra was a member of the prominent Leigh family; they married on 26 April 1764 at Walcot Church in Bath. From 1765 until 1801, that is, for much of Jane's life, George Austen served as the rector of the Anglican parishes at Steventon, Hampshire and a nearby village. From 1773 until 1796, he supplemented this income by farming and by teaching three or four boys at a time who boarded at his home.

Austen's immediate family was large: six brothers—James (1765–1819), George (1766–1838), Edward (1767–1852), Henry Thomas (1771–1850), Francis William (Frank) (1774–1865), Charles John (1779–1852)—and one sister, Cassandra Elizabeth (Steventon, Hampshire, 9 January 1773–1845), who, like Jane, died unmarried. Cassandra Elizabeth was Austen's closest friend and confidante throughout her life. Of her brothers, Austen felt closest to Henry, who became a banker and, after his bank failed, an Anglican clergyman. Henry was also his sister's literary agent. His large circle of friends and acquaintances in London included bankers, merchants, publishers, painters, and actors: he provided Austen with a view of social worlds not normally visible from a small parish in rural Hampshire. George was sent to live with a local family at a young age because, as Austen biographer Le Faye describes it, he was "mentally abnormal and subject to fits". He may also have been deaf and mute.

Early life and education

Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon rectory and publicly christened on 5 April 1776. After a few months at home, her mother placed Austen with Elizabeth Littlewood, a woman living nearby, who nursed and raised Austen for a year or eighteen months. In 1783, according to family tradition, Jane and Cassandra were sent to Oxford to be educated by Mrs. Ann Cawley and they moved with her to Southampton later in the year. Both girls caught typhus and Jane nearly died. Austen was subsequently educated at home, until leaving for boarding school with her sister Cassandra early in 1785. The school curriculum probably included some French, spelling, needlework, dancing and music and, perhaps, drama. By December 1786, Jane and Cassandra had returned home because the Austens could not afford to send both of their daughters to school.

Austen acquired the remainder of her education by reading books, guided by her father and her brothers James and Henry. George Austen apparently gave his daughters unfettered access to his large and varied library, was tolerant of Austen's sometimes risqué experiments in writing, and provided both sisters with expensive paper and other materials for their writing and drawing. According to Park Honan, a biographer of Austen, life in the Austen home was lived in "an open, amused, easy intellectual atmosphere" where the ideas of those with whom the Austens might disagree politically or socially were considered and discussed. After returning from school in 1786, Austen "never again lived anywhere beyond the bounds of her immediate family environment".

Private theatricals were also a part of Austen's education. From when she was seven until she was thirteen, the family and close friends staged a series of plays, including Richard Sheridan's ''The Rivals'' (1775) and David Garrick's ''Bon Ton''. While the details are unknown, Austen would certainly have joined in these activities, as a spectator at first and as a participant when she was older. Most of the plays were comedies, which suggests one way in which Austen's comedic and satirical gifts were cultivated.

Juvenilia

Perhaps as early as 1787, Austen began to write poems, stories, and plays for her own and her family's amusement. Austen later compiled "fair copies" of 29 of these early works into three bound notebooks, now referred to as the ''Juvenilia'', containing pieces originally written between 1787 and 1793. There is manuscript evidence that Austen continued to work on these pieces as late as the period 1809–11, and that her niece and nephew, Anna and James Edward Austen, made further additions as late as 1814. Among these works are a satirical novel in letters titled ''Love and Freindship'' [''sic''], in which she mocked popular novels of sensibility, and ''The History of England'', a manuscript of 34 pages accompanied by 13 watercolour miniatures by her sister Cassandra.

Austen's ''History'' parodied popular historical writing, particularly Oliver Goldsmith's ''History of England'' (1764). Austen wrote, for example: "Henry the 4th ascended the throne of England much to his own satisfaction in the year 1399, after having prevailed on his cousin & predecessor Richard the 2nd, to resign it to him, & to retire for the rest of his Life to Pomfret Castle, where he happened to be murdered." Austen's ''Juvenilia'' are often, according to scholar Richard Jenkyns, "boisterous" and "anarchic"; he compares them to the work of 18th-century novelist Laurence Sterne and the 20th century comedy group Monty Python.

Adulthood

As Austen grew into adulthood, she continued to live at her parents' home, carrying out those activities normal for women of her age and social standing: she practised the fortepiano, assisted her sister and mother with supervising servants, and attended female relatives during childbirth and older relatives on their deathbeds. She sent short pieces of writing to her newborn nieces Fanny Catherine and Jane Anna Elizabeth. Austen was particularly proud of her accomplishments as a seamstress. She also attended church regularly, socialized frequently with friends and neighbours, and read novels—often of her own composition—aloud with her family in the evenings. Socializing with the neighbours often meant dancing, either impromptu in someone's home after supper or at the balls held regularly at the assembly rooms in the town hall. Her brother Henry later said that "Jane was fond of dancing, and excelled in it".

In 1793, Austen began and then abandoned a short play, later entitled ''Sir Charles Grandison or the happy Man, a comedy in 6 acts'', which she returned to and completed around 1800. This was a short parody of various school textbook abridgments of Austen's favourite contemporary novel, ''The History of Sir Charles Grandison'' (1753), by Samuel Richardson. Honan speculates that at some point not long after writing ''Love and Freindship'' [sic] in 1789, Austen decided to "write for profit, to make stories her central effort", that is, to become a professional writer. Whenever she made that decision, beginning in about 1793, Austen began to write longer, more sophisticated works. It is unlike any of Austen's other works. Austen biographer Claire Tomalin describes the heroine of the novella as a sexual predator who uses her intelligence and charm to manipulate, betray, and abuse her victims, whether lovers, friends or family. Tomalin writes: "Told in letters, it is as neatly plotted as a play, and as cynical in tone as any of the most outrageous of the Restoration dramatists who may have provided some of her inspiration....It stands alone in Austen's work as a study of an adult woman whose intelligence and force of character are greater than those of anyone she encounters."

Early novels

After finishing ''Lady Susan'', Austen attempted her first full-length novel—''Elinor and Marianne''. Her sister Cassandra later remembered that it was read to the family "before 1796" and was told through a series of letters. Without surviving original manuscripts, there is no way to know how much of the original draft survived in the novel published in 1811 as ''Sense and Sensibility''.

When Austen was twenty, Tom Lefroy, a nephew of neighbours, visited Steventon from December 1795 to January 1796. He had just finished a university degree and was moving to London to train as a barrister. Lefroy and Austen would have been introduced at a ball or other neighbourhood social gathering, and it is clear from Austen's letters to Cassandra that they spent considerable time together: "I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together." The Lefroy family intervened and sent him away at the end of January. Marriage was impractical, as both Lefroy and Austen must have known. Neither had any money, and he was dependent on a great-uncle in Ireland to finance his education and establish his legal career. If Tom Lefroy later visited Hampshire, he was carefully kept away from the Austens, and Jane Austen never saw him again.

Austen began work on a second novel, ''First Impressions'', in 1796. She completed the initial draft in August 1797 when she was only 21 (it later became ''Pride and Prejudice''); as with all of her novels, Austen read the work aloud to her family as she was working on it and it became an "established favourite". At this time, her father made the first attempt to publish one of her novels. In November 1797, George Austen wrote to Thomas Cadell, an established publisher in London, to ask if he would consider publishing "a Manuscript Novel, comprised in three Vols. about the length of Miss Burney's Evelina" (''First Impressions'') at the author's financial risk. Cadell quickly returned Mr. Austen's letter, marked "Declined by Return of Post". Austen may not have known of her father's efforts. Following the completion of ''First Impressions'', Austen returned to ''Elinor and Marianne'' and from November 1797 until mid-1798, revised it heavily; she eliminated the epistolary format in favour of third-person narration and produced something close to ''Sense and Sensibility''.

During the middle of 1798, after finishing revisions of ''Elinor and Marianne'', Austen began writing a third novel with the working title ''Susan''—later ''Northanger Abbey''—a satire on the popular Gothic novel. Austen completed her work about a year later. In early 1803, Henry Austen offered ''Susan'' to Benjamin Crosby, a London publisher, who paid £10 for the copyright. Crosby promised early publication and went so far as to advertise the book publicly as being "in the press", but did nothing more. The manuscript remained in Crosby's hands, unpublished, until Austen repurchased the copyright from him in 1816.

Bath and Southampton

In December 1800, Mr Austen unexpectedly announced his decision to retire from the ministry, leave Steventon, and move the family to Bath. While retirement and travel were good for the elder Austens, Jane Austen was shocked to be told she was moving from the only home she had ever known. An indication of Austen's state of mind is her lack of productivity as a writer during the time she lived at Bath. She was able to make some revisions to ''Susan'', and she began and then abandoned a new novel, ''The Watsons'', but there was nothing like the productivity of the years 1795–99. Tomalin suggests this reflects a deep depression disabling her as a writer, but Honan disagrees, arguing Austen wrote or revised her manuscripts throughout her creative life, except for a few months after her father died.

In December 1802, Austen received her only proposal of marriage. She and her sister visited Alethea and Catherine Bigg, old friends who lived near Basingstoke. Their younger brother, Harris Bigg-Wither, had recently finished his education at Oxford and was also at home. Bigg-Wither proposed and Austen accepted. As described by Caroline Austen, Jane's niece, and Reginald Bigg-Wither, a descendant, Harris was not attractive—he was a large, plain-looking man who spoke little, stuttered when he did speak, was aggressive in conversation, and almost completely tactless. However, Austen had known him since both were young and the marriage offered many practical advantages to Austen and her family. He was the heir to extensive family estates located in the area where the sisters had grown up. With these resources, Austen could provide her parents a comfortable old age, give Cassandra a permanent home and, perhaps, assist her brothers in their careers. By the next morning, Austen realised she had made a mistake and withdrew her acceptance. No contemporary letters or diaries describe how Austen felt about this proposal. In 1814, Austen wrote a letter to her niece, Fanny Knight, who had asked for advice about a serious relationship, telling her that "having written so much on one side of the question, I shall now turn around & entreat you not to commit yourself farther, & not to think of accepting him unless you really do like him. Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection".

In 1804, while living in Bath, Austen started but did not complete a new novel, ''The Watsons''. The story centres on an invalid clergyman with little money and his four unmarried daughters. Sutherland describes the novel as "a study in the harsh economic realities of dependent women's lives". Honan suggests, and Tomalin agrees, that Austen chose to stop work on the novel after her father died on 21 January 1805 and her personal circumstances resembled those of her characters too closely for her comfort.

Mr Austen's final illness had struck suddenly, leaving him, as Austen reported to her brother Francis, "quite insensible of his own state", and he died quickly. Jane, Cassandra, and their mother were left in a precarious financial situation. Edward, James, Henry, and Francis Austen pledged to make annual contributions to support their mother and sisters. For the next four years, the family's living arrangements reflected their financial insecurity. They lived part of the time in rented quarters in Bath and then, beginning in 1806, in Southampton, where they shared a house with Frank Austen and his new wife. A large part of this time they spent visiting various branches of the family.

On 5 April 1809, about three months before the family's move to Chawton, Austen wrote an angry letter to Richard Crosby, offering him a new manuscript of ''Susan'' if that was needed to secure immediate publication of the novel, and otherwise requesting the return of the original so she could find another publisher. Crosby replied he had not agreed to publish the book by any particular time, or at all, and that Austen could repurchase the manuscript for the £10 he had paid her and find another publisher. However, Austen did not have the resources to repurchase the book.

Chawton

Around early 1809, Austen's brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a more settled life—the use of a large cottage in Chawton village that was part of Edward's nearby estate, Chawton House. Jane, Cassandra, and their mother moved into Chawton cottage on 7 July 1809. In Chawton, life was quieter than it had been since the family's move to Bath in 1800. The Austens did not socialise with the neighbouring gentry and entertained only when family visited. Austen's niece Anna described the Austen family's life in Chawton: "It was a very quiet life, according to our ideas, but they were great readers, and besides the housekeeping our aunts occupied themselves in working with the poor and in teaching some girl or boy to read or write." Austen wrote almost daily, but privately, and seems to have been relieved of some household responsibilities to give her more opportunity to write. In this setting, she was able to be productive as a writer once more.

Published author

During her time at Chawton, Jane Austen successfully published four novels, which were generally well-received. Through her brother Henry, the publisher Thomas Egerton agreed to publish ''Sense and Sensibility'', which appeared in October 1811. Reviews were favourable and the novel became fashionable among opinion-makers; the edition sold out by mid-1813. Austen's earnings from ''Sense and Sensibility'' provided her with some financial and psychological independence. Egerton then published ''Pride and Prejudice'', a revision of ''First Impressions'', in January 1813. He advertised the book widely and it was an immediate success, garnering three favourable reviews and selling well. By October 1813, Egerton was able to begin selling a second edition. ''Mansfield Park'' was published by Egerton in May 1814. While ''Mansfield Park'' was ignored by reviewers, it was a great success with the public. All copies were sold within six months, and Austen's earnings on this novel were larger than for any of her other novels.

Austen learned that the Prince Regent admired her novels and kept a set at each of his residences. In November 1815, the Prince Regent's librarian invited Austen to visit the Prince's London residence and hinted Austen should dedicate the forthcoming ''Emma'' to the Prince. Though Austen disliked the Prince, she could scarcely refuse the request. She later wrote ''Plan of a Novel, according to hints from various quarters'', a satiric outline of the "perfect novel" based on the librarian's many suggestions for a future Austen novel.

In mid-1815, Austen moved her work from Egerton to John Murray, a better known London publisher, who published ''Emma'' in December 1815 and a second edition of ''Mansfield Park'' in February 1816. ''Emma'' sold well but the new edition of ''Mansfield Park'' did not, and this failure offset most of the profits Austen earned on ''Emma''. These were the last of Austen's novels to be published during her lifetime.

While Murray prepared ''Emma'' for publication, Austen began to write a new novel she titled ''The Elliots'', later published as ''Persuasion''. She completed her first draft in July 1816. In addition, shortly after the publication of ''Emma'', Henry Austen repurchased the copyright for ''Susan'' from Crosby. Austen was forced to postpone publishing either of these completed novels by family financial troubles. Henry Austen's bank failed in March 1816, depriving him of all of his assets, leaving him deeply in debt and losing Edward, James, and Frank Austen large sums. Henry and Frank could no longer afford the contributions they had made to support their mother and sisters.

Illness and death

Early in 1816, Jane Austen began to feel unwell. She ignored her illness at first and continued to work and to participate in the usual round of family activities. By the middle of that year, her decline was unmistakable to Austen and to her family, and Austen's physical condition began a long, slow, and irregular deterioration culminating in her death the following year. The majority of Austen biographers rely on Dr. Vincent Cope's tentative 1964 retrospective diagnosis and list her cause of death as Addison's disease. However, her final illness has also been described as Hodgkin's lymphoma. Recent work by Katherine White of Britain's Addison’s Disease Self Help Group suggests that Austen likely died of bovine tuberculosis, a disease (now) commonly associated with drinking unpasteurized milk. One contributing factor or cause of her death, discovered by Linda Robinson Walker and described in the Winter 2010 issue of Persuasions on-line, might be Brill-Zinsser disease, a recurrent form of typhus, which she had as a child. Brill-Zinsser disease is to typhus as shingles is to chicken pox; when a victim of typhus endures stress, malnutrition or another infection, typhus can recur as Brill-Zinsser.

Austen continued to work in spite of her illness. She became dissatisfied with the ending of ''The Elliots'' and rewrote the final two chapters, finishing them on 6 August 1816. In January 1817, Austen began work on a new novel she called ''The Brothers'', later titled ''Sanditon'' upon its first publication in 1925, and completed twelve chapters before stopping work in mid-March 1817, probably because her illness prevented her from continuing. Austen made light of her condition to others, describing it as "Bile" and rheumatism, but as her disease progressed she experienced increasing difficulty walking or finding the energy for other activities. By mid-April, Austen was confined to her bed. In May, their brother Henry escorted Jane and Cassandra to Winchester for medical treatment. Austen died in Winchester on 18 July 1817, at the age of 41. Through his clerical connections, Henry arranged for his sister to be buried in the north aisle of the nave of Winchester Cathedral. The epitaph composed by her brother James praises Austen's personal qualities, expresses hope for her salvation, mentions the "extraordinary endowments of her mind", but does not explicitly mention her achievements as a writer.

Posthumous publication

After Austen's death, Cassandra and Henry Austen arranged with Murray for the publication of ''Persuasion'' and ''Northanger Abbey'' as a set in December 1817. Henry Austen contributed a ''Biographical Note'' which for the first time identified his sister as the author of the novels. Tomalin describes it as "a loving and polished eulogy". Sales were good for a year—only 321 copies remained unsold at the end of 1818—and then declined. Murray disposed of the remaining copies in 1820, and Austen's novels remained out of print for twelve years. In 1832, publisher Richard Bentley purchased the remaining copyrights to all of Austen's novels and, beginning in either December 1832 or January 1833, published them in five illustrated volumes as part of his ''Standard Novels'' series. In October 1833, Bentley published the first collected edition of Austen's works. Since then, Austen's novels have been continuously in print.

Reception

Contemporary responses

Austen's works brought her little personal renown because they were published anonymously. Although her novels quickly became fashionable among opinion-makers, such as Princess Charlotte Augusta, daughter of the Prince Regent, they received only a few published reviews. Most of the reviews were short and on balance favourable, although superficial and cautious. They most often focused on the moral lessons of the novels. Sir Walter Scott, a leading novelist of the day, contributed one of them, anonymously. Using the review as a platform from which to defend the then disreputable genre of the novel, he praised Austen's realism. The other important early review of Austen's works was published by Richard Whately in 1821. He drew favourable comparisons between Austen and such acknowledged greats as Homer and Shakespeare, praising the dramatic qualities of her narrative. Whately and Scott set the tone for almost all subsequent 19th-century Austen criticism.

Nineteenth century

Because Austen's novels failed to conform to Romantic and Victorian expectations that "powerful emotion [be] authenticated by an egregious display of sound and colour in the writing", 19th-century critics and audiences generally preferred the works of Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Though Austen's novels were republished in Britain beginning in the 1830s and remained steady sellers, they were not bestsellers.

Austen had many admiring readers in the 19th century who considered themselves part of a literary elite: they viewed their appreciation of Austen's works as a mark of their cultural taste. Philosopher and literary critic George Henry Lewes expressed this viewpoint in a series of enthusiastic articles published in the 1840s and 1850s. This theme continued later in the century with novelist Henry James, who referred to Austen several times with approval and on one occasion ranked her with Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Henry Fielding as among "the fine painters of life".

The publication of James Edward Austen-Leigh's ''A Memoir of Jane Austen'' in 1869 introduced Austen to a wider public as "dear aunt Jane", the respectable maiden aunt. Publication of the ''Memoir'' spurred the reissue of Austen's novels—the first popular editions were released in 1883 and fancy illustrated editions and collectors' sets quickly followed. Author and critic Leslie Stephen described the popular mania that started to develop for Austen in the 1880s as "Austenolatry". Around the turn of the century, members of the literary elite reacted against the popularization of Austen. They referred to themselves as ''Janeites'' in order to distinguish themselves from the masses who did not properly understand her works. For example, James responded negatively to what he described as "a beguiled infatuation" with Austen, a rising tide of public interest that exceeded Austen's "intrinsic merit and interest".

During the last quarter of the 19th century, the first books of criticism on Austen were published. In fact, after the publication of the ''Memoir'', more criticism was published on Austen in two years than had appeared in the previous fifty.

Twentieth century and beyond

Several important works paved the way for Austen's novels to become a focus of academic study. The first important milestone was a 1911 essay by Oxford Shakespearean scholar A. C. Bradley, which is "generally regarded as the starting-point for the serious academic approach to Jane Austen". In it, he established the groupings of Austen's "early" and "late" novels, which are still used by scholars today. The second was R. W. Chapman's 1923 edition of Austen's collected works. Not only was it the first scholarly edition of Austen's works, it was also the first scholarly edition of any English novelist. The Chapman text has remained the basis for all subsequent published editions of Austen's works. With the publication in 1939 of Mary Lascelles's ''Jane Austen and Her Art'', the academic study of Austen took hold. Lascelles's innovative work included an analysis of the books Jane Austen read and the effect of her reading on her work, an extended analysis of Austen's style, and her "narrative art". At the time, concern arose over the fact that academics were taking over Austen criticism and it was becoming increasingly esoteric—a debate that has continued to the beginning of the 21st century. In a spurt of revisionist views in the 1940s, scholars approached Austen more sceptically and argued that she was a subversive writer. These revisionist views, together with F. R. Leavis's and Ian Watt's pronouncement that Austen was one of the great writers of English fiction, did much to cement Austen's reputation amongst academics. They agreed that she "combined [Henry Fielding's and Samuel Richardson's] qualities of interiority and irony, realism and satire to form an author superior to both". The period since World War II has seen more scholarship on Austen using a diversity of critical approaches, including feminist theory, and perhaps most controversially, postcolonial theory. However, the continuing disconnection between the popular appreciation of Austen, particularly by modern Janeites, and the academic appreciation of Austen has widened considerably. Jane Austen was the favourite novelist of political philosopher Leo Strauss.

Sequels, prequels, and adaptations of almost every sort have been based on the novels of Jane Austen, from soft-core pornography to fantasy. Beginning in the middle of the 19th century, Austen family members published conclusions to her incomplete novels, and by 2000 there were over 100 printed adaptations. The first film adaptation was the 1940 MGM production of ''Pride and Prejudice'' starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. BBC television dramatisations, which were first produced in the 1970s, attempted to adhere meticulously to Austen's plots, characterisations, and settings. In 1995 a great wave of Austen adaptations began to appear, with Ang Lee's film of ''Sense and Sensibility'', for which screenwriter and star Emma Thompson won an Academy Award, and the BBC's immensely popular TV mini-series ''Pride and Prejudice'', starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth.

Books and scripts that use the general storyline of Austen's novels but change or otherwise modernise the story also became popular at the end of the 20th century. For example, ''Clueless'' (1995), Amy Heckerling's updated version of ''Emma'', which takes place in Beverly Hills, became a cultural phenomenon and spawned its own television series. In a 2002 vote to determine whom the UK public considers the greatest British people in history, Austen was ranked number 70 in the list of the "''100 Greatest Britons''". In 2003, Austen's ''Pride and Prejudice'' came second in the BBC's Big Read, a national poll to find the "Nation's best-loved book."

List of works

Novels

''Sense and Sensibility'' (1811)

''Pride and Prejudice'' (1813)

''Mansfield Park'' (1814)

''Emma'' (1815)

''Northanger Abbey'' (1818) (posthumous)

''Persuasion'' (1818) (posthumous)

Short fiction

''Lady Susan'' (1794, 1805)

Unfinished fiction

''The Watsons'' (1804)

''Sanditon'' (1817)

Other works ''Sir Charles Grandison'' (1793, 1800)

''Plan of a Novel'' (1815)

Poems

Prayers

Letters

Juvenilia – Volume the First

Frederic & Elfrida

Jack & Alice

Edgar & Emma

Henry and Eliza

The Adventures of Mr. Harley

Sir William Mountague

Memoirs of Mr. Clifford

The Beautifull Cassandra

Amelia Webster

The Visit

The Mystery

The Three Sisters

A beautiful description

The generous Curate

Ode to Pity

Juvenilia – Volume the Second Love and Freindship

Lesley Castle

The History of England

A Collection of Letters

The female philosopher

The first Act of a Comedy

A Letter from a Young Lady

A Tour through Wales

A Tale

Juvenilia – Volume the Third

Evelyn

Catharine, or the Bower

See also

Family tree showing Jane Austen, her parents and her siblings

Family tree showing Jane Austen's siblings and her nephews and nieces

Timeline of Jane Austen

Styles and themes of Jane Austen

Notes

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References

Bibliography

Primary works

Austen, Jane. ''Catharine and Other Writings''. Ed. Margaret Anne Doody and Douglas Murray. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-19-282823-1.

Austen, Jane. ''The History of England''. Ed. David Starkey. Icon Books, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. ISBN 0-06-135195-4.

Le Faye, Deirdre, ed. ''Jane Austen's Letters''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-19-283297-2.

Secondary works

Biographies

Austen, Henry Thomas. "Biographical Notice of the Author". ''Northanger Abbey and Persuasion''. London: John Murray, 1817.

Austen-Leigh, James Edward. ''A Memoir of Jane Austen''. 1926. Ed. R. W. Chapman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.

Austen-Leigh, William and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh. ''Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters, A Family Record''. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1913.

Fergus, Jan. ''Jane Austen: A Literary Life''. London: Macmillan, 1991. ISBN 0-333-44701-8.

Honan, Park. ''Jane Austen: A Life''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987. ISBN 0-312-01451-1.

Le Faye, Deirdre. ''Jane Austen: A Family Record''. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-53417-8.

Nokes, David. ''Jane Austen: A Life''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. ISBN 0520216067.

Tomalin, Claire. ''Jane Austen: A Life''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. ISBN 0-679-44628-1.

Essay collections

''A Jane Austen Devotional''. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4003-1953-4.

Alexander, Christine and Juliet McMaster, eds. ''The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-81293-3.

Copeland, Edward and Juliet McMaster, eds. ''The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-521-49867-8.

Grey, J. David, ed. ''The Jane Austen Companion''. New York: Macmillan, 1986. ISBN 0-02-545540-0.

Lynch, Deidre, ed. ''Janeites: Austen's Disciples and Devotees''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-691-05005-8.

Southam, B. C., ed. ''Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1812–1870''. Vol. 1. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968. ISBN 0-7100-2942-X.

Southam, B. C., ed. ''Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1870–1940''. Vol. 2. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987. ISBN 0-7102-0189-3.

Todd, Janet, ed. ''Jane Austen In Context''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-82644-6.

Watt, Ian, ed. ''Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays''. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963. ISBN 9780-130-53769-0.

Monographs and articles

Armstrong, Nancy. ''Desire and Domestic Fiction''. London: Oxford University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-19-506160-8.

Butler, Marilyn. ''Jane Austen and the War of Ideas''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. ISBN 0-19-812968-8.

Byrne, Paula. ''Jane Austen and the Theatre''. London and New York: Continuum, 2002. ISBN 978-1847250476.

Collins, Irene. ''Jane Austen and the Clergy''. London: The Hambledon Press, 1994. ISBN 1-85285-114-7.

Devlin, D. D. ''Jane Austen and Education''. London: Macmillan, 1975. ISBN 0-333-14431-7.

Duckworth, Alistair M. ''The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971. ISBN 0-8018-1269-0.

Fergus, Jan. ''Jane Austen and the Didactic Novel''. Totowa: Barnes & Noble, 1983. ISBN 0-389-20228-2.

Ferguson, Moira. "''Mansfield Park'', Slavery, Colonialism, and Gender". ''Oxford Literary Review'' 13 (1991): 118–39.

Galperin, William. ''The Historical Austen''. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. ISBN 0-812-23687-4.

Gay, Penny. ''Jane Austen and the Theatre''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-521-65213-8.

Gubar, Susan and Sandra Gilbert. ''The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination''. 1979. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-300-02596-3.

Harding, D. W., "Regulated Hatred: An Aspect of the Work of Jane Austen". ''Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays''. Ed. Ian Watt. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.

Jenkyns, Richard. ''A Fine Brush on Ivory: An Appreciation of Jane Austen''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-19-927661-7.

Johnson, Claudia L. ''Jane Austen: Women, Politics and the Novel''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. ISBN 0-226-40139-1.

Kirkham, Margaret. ''Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction''. Brighton: Harvester, 1983. ISBN 0-710-80468-7.

Koppel, Gene. ''The Religious Dimension in Jane Austen's Novels''. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1988.

Lascelles, Mary. ''Jane Austen and Her Art''. Original publication 1939. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966.

Leavis, F. R. ''The Great Tradition: George Eliot, Henry James, Joseph Conrad''. London: Chatto & Windus, 1960.

Litz, A. Walton. ''Jane Austen: A Study of Her Development''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Lynch, Deidre. ''The Economy of Character''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN 0-226-49820-4.

MacDonagh, Oliver. ''Jane Austen: Real and Imagined Worlds''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-300-05084-4.

Miller, D. A. ''Jane Austen, or The Secret of Style''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-691-12387-X.

Mudrick, Marvin. ''Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952.

Page, Norman. ''The Language of Jane Austen''. Oxford: Blackwell, 1972. ISBN 0-631-08280-8.

Poovey, Mary. ''The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. ISBN 0-226-67528-9.

Raven, James. ''The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. ISBN 0-300-12261-6.

Said, Edward W. ''Culture and Imperialism''. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. ISBN 0-679-75054-1.

Todd, Janet. ''The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-521-67469-7.

Waldron, Mary. ''Jane Austen and the Fiction of Her Time''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-521-00388-1.

Wiltshire, John. ''Recreating Jane Austen''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-521-00282-6.

Wiltshire, John. ''Jane Austen and the Body: The Picture of Health''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-521-41476-8.

External links

Online works

Works by Jane Austen – etexts by Electronic Literature Foundation

E-books of Austen's work in ePub, mobipocket, and pdf. Includes the complete ''Juvenilia''.

Jane Austen's work in Kindle format.

Works by Jane Austen – e-books in HTML

Works by Jane Austen – printable PDF ebooks

''A Memoir of Jane Austen'' by James Edward Austen-Leigh

Museums

Jane Austen's House Museum in Chawton

The Jane Austen Centre in Bath

Special Collections

Jane Austen Collections at Goucher College

Fan sites and societies

The Republic of Pemberley: the largest Jane Austen site on the web.

The Jane Austen Society of Australia

The Jane Austen Society of North America

The Jane Austen Society of the United Kingdom

Other

Category:1775 births Category:1817 deaths Category:18th-century English people Category:19th-century English people Category:Culture in Bath, Somerset Category:Burials at Winchester Cathedral Category:Deaths from tuberculosis Category:English Anglicans Category:English novelists Category:English romantic fiction writers Category:English women writers Category:History of Bath, Somerset Category:History of Winchester Category:Infectious disease deaths in England Category:People from Hampshire Category:People from Reading, Berkshire Category:Women novelists Category:Women of the Regency era

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Coordinates	33°51′35.9″N151°12′40″N
name	Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet
birth date	15 August 1771
birth place	Edinburgh, Scotland
death date	September 21, 1832
death place	Melrose, Scotland
occupation	Historical novelist, Poet, Lawyer, Sheriff of Selkirkshire
nationality	Scottish
movement	Romanticism
spouse	Charlotte Carpenter (Charpentier)
religion	Episcopalian
influences	Shakespeare, King James Bible, Edmund Spenser, John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, chronicle
influenced	The Brontë Sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell, G.P.R. James, James Hogg, Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, James Fenimore Cooper, historical novel
website	}}

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832) was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time.

Scott was the first English-language author to have a truly international career in his lifetime, with many contemporary readers in Europe, Australia, and North America. His novels and poetry are still read, and many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature. Famous titles include ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy'', ''The Lady of The Lake'', ''Waverley'', ''The Heart of Midlothian'' and ''The Bride of Lammermoor''.

Biography

Early days

Born in College Wynd in the Old Town of Edinburgh in 1771, the son of a solicitor, Scott survived a childhood bout of polio in 1773 that left him lame. To cure his lameness he was sent in 1773 to live in the rural Borders region at his grandparents' farm at Sandyknowe, adjacent to the ruin of Smailholm Tower, the earlier family home. Here he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny, and learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends that characterised much of his work. In January 1775 he returned to Edinburgh, and that summer went with his aunt Jenny to take spa treatment at Bath in England, where they lived at 6 South Parade. In the winter of 1776 he went back to Sandyknowe, with another attempt at a water cure at Prestonpans during the following summer. In 1778 Scott returned to Edinburgh for private education to prepare him for school, and in October 1779 he began at the Royal High School of Edinburgh. He was now well able to walk and explore the city and the surrounding countryside. His reading included chivalric romances, poems, history and travel books. He was given private tuition by James Mitchell in arithmetic and writing, and learned from him the history of the Kirk with emphasis on the Covenanters. After finishing school he was sent to stay for six months with his aunt Jenny in Kelso, attending the local Grammar School where he met James and John Ballantyne who later became his business partners and printed his books.

Scott's meeting with Blacklock and Burns

Scott began studying classics at the University of Edinburgh in November 1783, at the age of only 12, a year or so younger than most of his fellow students. In March 1786 he began an apprenticeship in his father's office to become a Writer to the Signet. While at the university Scott had become a friend of Adam Ferguson, the son of Professor Adam Ferguson who hosted literary salons. Scott met the blind poet Thomas Blacklock who lent him books as well as introducing him to James Macpherson's Ossian cycle of poems. During the winter of 1786–87 the 16-year-old Scott saw Robert Burns at one of these salons, for what was to be their only meeting. When Burns noticed a print illustrating the poem "The Justice of the Peace" and asked who had written the poem, only Scott knew that it was by John Langhorne, and was thanked by Burns. When it was decided that he would become a lawyer, he returned to the university to study law, first taking classes in Moral Philosophy and Universal History in 1789–90.

After completing his studies in law, he became a lawyer in Edinburgh. As a lawyer's clerk he made his first visit to the Scottish Highlands directing an eviction. He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1792. He had an unsuccessful love suit with Williamina Belsches of Fettercairn, who married Scott´s friend Sir William Forbes, 6th Baronet.

Literary career launched

As a boy, youth and young man, Scott was fascinated by the oral traditions of the Scottish Borders. He was an obsessive collector of stories, and developed an innovative method of recording what he heard at the feet of local story-tellers using carvings on twigs, to avoid the disapproval of those who believed that such stories were neither for writing down nor for printing. At the age of 25 he began to write professionally, translating works from German, his first publication being rhymed versions of ballads by Gottfried August Bürger in 1796. He then published an idiosyncratic three-volume set of collected ballads of his adopted home region, ''The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border''. This was the first sign from a literary standpoint of his interest in Scottish history.

As a result of his early polio infection, Scott had a pronounced limp. Although a determined walker, on horseback he experienced greater freedom of movement. Unable to consider a military career, Scott enlisted as a volunteer in the 1st Lothian and Border yeomanry. On a trip to the Lake District with old college friends he met Charlotte Genevieve Charpentier (or Charpenter), daughter of Jean Charpentier of Lyon in France, and ward of Lord Downshire in Cumberland. After three weeks of courtship, Scott proposed and they were married on Christmas Eve 1797. They had five children, of whom only 4 survived by the time of Scott's death. In 1799 he was appointed Sheriff-Depute of the County of Selkirk, based in the Royal Burgh of Selkirk. In his early married days Scott had a decent living from his earnings at the law, his salary as Sheriff-Depute, his wife's income, some revenue from his writing, and his share of his father's rather meagre estate.

In 1796, Scott's friend James Ballantyne founded a printing press in Kelso, in the Scottish Borders. Through Ballantyne, Scott was able to publish his first works and his poetry then began to bring him to public attention. In 1805, ''The Lay of the Last Minstrel'' captured wide public imagination, and his career as a writer was established in spectacular fashion. He published many other poems over the next ten years, including the popular ''The Lady of the Lake'', printed in 1810 and set in the Trossachs. Portions of the German translation of this work were set to music by Franz Schubert. One of these songs, ''Ellens dritter Gesang'', is popularly labelled as "Schubert's ''Ave Maria''". ''Marmion'', published in 1808, produced some of his most memorable lines. Canto VI. Stanza 17 reads: Yet Clare's sharp questions must I shun Must separate Constance from the nun Oh! what a tangled web we weave When first we practise to deceive! A Palmer too! No wonder why I felt rebuked beneath his eye In 1809, Scott persuaded James Ballantyne and his brother to move to Edinburgh and to establish their printing press there. He became a partner in their business. As a political conservative and advocate of the Union with England, Scott helped to found the Tory ''Quarterly Review'', a review journal to which he made several anonymous contributions.

In 1813 he was offered the position of Poet Laureate. He declined, and the position went to Robert Southey.

Novels

Scott's first success was his poetry. Since childhood, he had been fascinated by stories in the oral tradition of the Scottish Borders. This drew him to explore the writing of prose. Hitherto, the novel was accorded lower (and often scandalous) social value compared to the epic poetry that had brought him public acclaim. In an innovative and astute action, he wrote and published his first novel, ''Waverley'', under the guise of anonymity. It was a tale of the Jacobite rising of 1745 in the Kingdom of Great Britain. Its English protagonist was Edward Waverley, by his Tory upbringing sympathetic to the Jacobite cause. Becoming enmeshed in events, however, he eventually chooses Hanoverian respectability. There followed a succession of novels over the next five years, each with a Scottish historical setting. Mindful of his reputation as a poet, Scott maintained the anonymity he had begun with ''Waverley'', always publishing the novels under the name Author of Waverley or attributed as "Tales of..." with no author. Even when it was clear that there would be no harm in coming out into the open, he maintained the façade, apparently out of a sense of fun. During this time the nickname The Wizard of the North was popularly applied to the mysterious best-selling writer. His identity as the author of the novels was widely rumoured, and in 1815 Scott was given the honour of dining with George, Prince Regent, who wanted to meet "the author of Waverley".

In 1819 ''Ivanhoe'', a historical romance set in 12th-century England, marked a move away from a focus on the history and society of Scotland. Ivanhoe features a sympathetic Jewish character named Rebecca, considered by many critics to be the book's real heroine. This was remarkable at a time when the struggle for the Emancipation of the Jews in England was gathering momentum, and arguably reflects Scott's deep-seated sense of natural and humanistic justice. It too was a success, and he wrote several others along similar lines.

Scott wrote ''The Bride of Lammermoor'' based on a true story of two lovers, in the setting of the Lammermuir Hills. In the novel, Lucie Ashton and Edgar Ravenswood exchange vows, but Lucie's mother discovers that Edgar is an enemy of their family. She intervenes and forces her daughter to marry Sir Arthur Bucklaw, who has just inherited a large sum of money on the death of his aunt. On their wedding night, Lucie stabs the bridegroom, succumbs to insanity, and dies. Donizetti's opera ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' was based on Scott's novel.

His fame grew as his explorations and interpretations of Scottish history and society captured popular imagination. Impressed by this, the Prince Regent (the future George IV) gave Scott permission to search for the fabled but long-lost Honours (Crown Jewels) of Scotland, which had last been used to crown Charles II and during the years of the Protectorate under Cromwell had been squirrelled away. In 1818, Scott and a small team of military men unearthed the honours from the depths of Edinburgh Castle. A grateful Prince Regent granted Scott the title of baronet. Later, after George's accession to the throne, the city government of Edinburgh invited Scott, at the King's behest, to stage-manage the King's entry into Edinburgh. With only three weeks for planning and execution, Scott created a spectacular and comprehensive pageant, designed not only to impress the King, but also in some way to heal the rifts that had previously destabilised Scots society. He used the event to contribute to the drawing of a line under an old world which pitched his homeland into regular bouts of bloody strife. He, along with his 'production team', mounted what in modern days could be termed a PR event, in which the (rather tubby) King was dressed in tartan, and was greeted by his people, many of whom were also dressed in similar tartan ceremonial dress. This form of dress, previously proscribed after the 1745 rebellion against the English, subsequently became one of the seminal, potent and ubiquitous symbols of Scottish identity.

Much of Scott's autograph work shows an almost stream-of-consciousness approach to writing. He included little in the way of punctuation in his drafts, leaving such details to the printers to supply. He eventually acknowledged in 1827 that he was the author of the Waverley novels.

Financial woes and death

In 1825 and 1826, a banking crisis swept the City of London and Edinburgh. The Ballantyne printing business, in which he was heavily invested, crashed, resulting in his being very publicly ruined. Rather than declare himself bankrupt, or to accept any kind of financial support from his many supporters and admirers (including the King himself), he placed his house and income in a trust belonging to his creditors, and determined to write his way out of debt. He kept up his prodigious output of fiction, as well as producing a biography of Napoléon Bonaparte, until 1831. By then his health was failing. Notwithstanding this, he undertook a grand tour of Europe, being welcomed and celebrated wherever he went. He returned to Scotland and, in September 1832 died (under unexplained circumstances) at Abbotsford, the home he had designed and had built, near Melrose in the Scottish Borders. Though he died owing money, his novels continued to sell and the debts encumbering his estate were eventually discharged.

His home, Abbotsford

When Scott was a boy, he sometimes travelled with his father from Selkirk to Melrose in the Border Country where some of his novels are set. At a certain spot the old gentleman would stop the carriage and take his son to a stone on the site of the Battle of Melrose (1526). Not far away was a little farm called Cartleyhole, and this Scott eventually purchased. The farmhouse developed into a wonderful home that has been likened to a fairy palace. Through windows enriched with the insignia of heraldry the sun shone on suits of armour, trophies of the chase, a library of over 9,000 volumes, fine furniture, and still finer pictures. Panelling of oak and cedar and carved ceilings relieved by coats of arms in their correct colours added to the beauty of the house.

It is estimated that the building cost him over £25,000. More land was purchased until Scott owned nearly 1,000 acres (4 km²). A neighbouring Roman road with a ford used in olden days by the abbots of Melrose suggested the name of Abbotsford. Although Scott died at Abbotsford, he was buried in Dryburgh Abbey, where nearby there is a large statue of William Wallace, one of Scotland's many romanticised historical figures.

Legacy

Later assessment

From being one of the most popular novelists of the 19th century, Scott suffered from a decline in popularity after the First World War. The tone was set in E.M. Forster's classic ''Aspects of the Novel'' (1927), where Scott was savaged as being a clumsy writer who wrote slapdash, badly plotted novels. Scott also suffered from the rising star of Jane Austen, who was considered merely an entertaining "woman's novelist" in the 19th century. But in the 20th century, Austen began to be seen as perhaps the major English novelist of the first few decades of the 19th century. As Austen's star rose, Scott's sank, although, ironically, he had been one of the few male writers of his time to recognise Austen's genius.

Scott's ponderousness and wordiness were out of step with Modernist sensibilities. Nevertheless, he was responsible for two major trends that carry on to this day. First, he essentially invented the modern historical novel; an enormous number of imitators (and imitators of imitators) appeared in the 19th century. It is a measure of Scott's influence that Edinburgh's central railway station, opened in 1854 by the North British Railway, is called Waverley. Second, his Scottish novels followed on from James Macpherson's ''Ossian'' cycle in rehabilitating the public perception of Highland culture after years in the shadows following southern distrust of hill bandits and the Jacobite rebellions. As enthusiastic chairman of the Celtic Society of Edinburgh, he contributed to the reinvention of Scottish culture. It is worth noting, however, that Scott was a Lowland Scot, and that his re-creations of the Highlands were more than a little fanciful, in spite of his extensive travels around his native country. This suggests that his motives in romanticising the nobility of Highland ways of life, lie beyond any kind of simple depiction.

Scotland was poised to move away from an era of tribal, often sectarian and certainly socially divisive warfare, into a more contemporary diplomatic and mercantile world. Like many politically conservative thinkers in Scotland, Scott lived in mortal fear of a revolution in the French style on British soil. His organisation of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 was a pivotal event intended to inspire a view of his home country that, in his view, accentuated the 'positive' of the past whilst allowing the age of quasi-mediaeval blood-letting to be put to rest quietly to invent a more useful, perhaps peaceful future.

After being essentially unstudied for many decades, a small revival of interest in Scott's work began in the 1970s and 1980s. Postmodern tastes favoured discontinuous narratives and the introduction of the 'first person', yet they were more favourable to Scott's work than Modernist tastes. F.R. Leavis had rubbished Scott, seeing him as a thoroughly bad novelist and a thoroughly bad influence (''The Great Tradition'' [1948]); Marilyn Butler, however, offered a political reading of the fiction of the period that found a great deal of genuine interest in his work (''Romantics, Revolutionaries, and Reactionaries'' [1981]). Scott is now seen as an important innovator and a key figure in the development of Scottish and world literature.

Memorials and commemoration

During his lifetime, Scott's portrait was painted by Sir Edwin Landseer and fellow-Scots Sir Henry Raeburn and James Eckford Lauder. In Edinburgh, the 61.1 metre tall Victorian Gothic spire of the Scott Monument was designed by George Meikle Kemp. It was completed in 1844, 12 years after Scott's death, and dominates the south side of Princes Street. Scott is also commemorated on a stone slab in Makars' Court, outside The Writers' Museum, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh, along with other prominent Scottish writers; quotes from his work are also visible on the Canongate Wall of the Scottish Parliament building in Holyrood. There is a tower dedicated to his memory on Corstorphine Hill in the west of the city and as mentioned previous Edinburgh Waverley railway station takes the name of one of his novels.

In Glasgow, Walter Scott's Monument dominates the centre of George Square, the main public square in the city. Designed by David Rhind in 1838, the monument features a large column topped by a statue of Scott. There is a statue of Scott in New York City's Central Park.

The annual Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction was created in 2010 by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, whose ancestors were closely linked to Sir Walter Scott. At £25,000 it is one of the largest prizes in British literature. The award has been presented at Scott's historic home Abbotsford House.

Appearance on banknotes

Scott has been credited with rescuing the Scottish banknote. In 1826, there was outrage in Scotland at the attempt of Parliament to prevent the production of banknotes of less than five pounds. Scott wrote a series of letters to the ''Edinburgh Weekly Journal'' under the pseudonym "''Malachi Malagrowther''" for retaining the right of Scottish banks to issue their own banknotes. This provoked such a response that the Government was forced to relent and allow the Scottish banks to continue printing pound notes. This campaign is commemorated by his continued appearance on the front of all notes issued by the Bank of Scotland. The image on the 2007 series of banknotes is based on the portrait by Henry Raeburn.

References in other literature

In ''Life on the Mississippi'', Mark Twain satirised the impact of his writings, declaring that Scott "had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it existed before the [American Civil] war", that he is in great measure responsible for the war". He goes on to coin the term "Sir Walter Scott disease", which he blames for the South's lack of advancement. Twain ridiculed chivalry in ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'', in which the main character repeatedly utters "great Scott" as an oath. He also targeted Scott in ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', where he names a sinking boat the "Walter Scott".

In ''To Kill a Mockingbird'', the protagonist's brother is made to read Walter Scott's book ''Ivanhoe'', and he refers to the author as "Sir Walter Scout", in reference to his own sister's nickname.

In ''To the Lighthouse'' by Virginia Woolf a few of the characters discuss their views on Scott's Waverley Novels at dinner. Afterwards, one of the characters sits down to read and reacts to ''The Antiquary''.

In ''Mother Night'' by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., memoirist and playwright Howard W. Campbell, Jr. prefaces his text with the six lines beginning "Breathes there the man. . ."

In ''John Brown'' by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson writes, "Walter Scott would have delighted to draw his picture and trace his adventurous career."

In ''Knights of the Sea'' by Paul Marlowe, there are several quotes from and references to ''Marmion'', as well as an inn named after ''Ivanhoe'', and a fictitious Scott novel entitled ''The Beastmen of Glen Glammoch''.

Works

The Waverley Novels

''Waverley'' (1814)

''Guy Mannering'' (1815)

''The Antiquary'' (1816)

''Rob Roy'' (1817)

''The Heart of Midlothian'' (1818)

''Ivanhoe'' (1819)

''Kenilworth'' (1821)

''The Pirate'' (1822)

''The Fortunes of Nigel'' (1822)

''Peveril of the Peak'' (1822)

''Quentin Durward'' (1823)

''St. Ronan's Well'' (1824)

''Redgauntlet'' (1824)

''Tales of the Crusaders'', consisting of ''The Betrothed'' and ''The Talisman'' (1825)

''Woodstock'' (1826)

''Chronicles of the Canongate, 2nd series, The Fair Maid of Perth'' (1828)

''Anne of Geierstein'' (1829)

Tales of My Landlord

''1st series The Black Dwarf and Old Mortality'' (1816)

''2nd series, The Heart of Midlothian'' (1818)

''3rd series, The Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of Montrose'' (1819)

''4th series, Count Robert of Paris and Castle Dangerous'' (1832)

Tales from Benedictine Sources

''The Monastery'' (1820)

''The Abbot'' (1820)

Poetry

Translations and Imitations from German Ballads (1796)

''The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border'' (1802–1803)

''The Lay of the Last Minstrel'' (1805)

''Ballads and Lyrical Pieces'' (1806)

''Marmion'' (1808)

''The Lady of the Lake'' (1810)

''The Vision of Don Roderick'' (1811)

''The Bridal of Triermain'' (1813)

''Rokeby'' (1813)

''The Field of Waterloo'' (1815)

''The Lord of the Isles'' (1815)

''Harold the Dauntless'' (1817)

''Young Lochinvar''

''Bonnie Dundee'' (1830)

''Patriotism

''This Is My Own, My Native Land''

''The Lion of Scotland''

Short story collections

''Chronicles of the Canongate'', 1st series (1827). Collection of three short stories: "The Highland Widow'', "The Two Drovers" and "The Surgeon's Daughter".

''The Keepsake Stories'' (1828). Collection of three short stories: "My Aunt Margaret's Mirror", "The Tapestried Chamber" and "Death Of The Laird's Jock".

Other

Introductory Essay to ''The Border Antiquities of England and Scotland'' (1814–1817)

''The Chase'' (translator) (1796)

''Goetz of Berlichingen'' (translator) (1799)

''Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk'' (1816)

''Provincial Antiquities of Scotland'' (1819–1826)

''Lives of the Novelists'' (1821–1824)

''Essays on Chivalry, Romance, and Drama'' Supplement to the 1815–24 edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''

''Halidon Hill'' (1822)

''The Letters of Malachi Malagrowther (1826)

''The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte'' (1827)

''Religious Discourses'' (1828)

''Tales of a Grandfather, 1st series'' (1828)

''History of Scotland'', 2 vols. (1829–1830)

''Tales of a Grandfather, 2nd series'' (1829)

''The Doom of Devorgoil'' (1830)

''Wild Deception'' (1830)

''Essays on Ballad Poetry'' (1830)

''Tales of a Grandfather, 3rd series'' (1830)

''Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft'' (1830)

''The Bishop of Tyre''

See also

Jedediah Cleishbotham (fictional editor of ''Tales of My Landlord'', and Scott's ''alter ego'')

Alessandro Manzoni

Alexandre Dumas, père

Karl May

Baroness Orczy

Rafael Sabatini

Emilio Salgari

Samuel Shellabarger

Lawrence Schoonover

Jules Verne

Frank Yerby

GWR Waverley Class steam locomotives

"Famous Scots Series"

Notes

Further reading

Bautz, Annika. ''Reception of Jane Austen and Walter Scott: A Comparative Longitudinal Study''. Continuum, 2007. ISBN 082649546X, ISBN 978-0826495464.

Brown, David. ''Walter Scott and the Historical Imagination''. Routledge, 1979. ISBN 0710003013.

''Sir Walter Scott'', John Buchan, Coward-McCann Inc., New York, 1932

Duncan, Ian. ''Scott's Shadow: The Novel in Romantic Edinburgh''. Princeton UP, 2007. ISBN 978-0-691-04383-8.

Kelly, Stuart. ''Scott-Land: The Man Who Invented a Nation''. Polygon, 2010. ISBN 9781846971075

Lincoln, Andrew. ''Walter Scott And Modernity''. Edinburgh UP, 2007.

External links

Walter Scott Digital Archive at the University of Edinburgh

The Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club

Sir Walter Scott, biography by Richard H. Hutton, 1878, from Project Gutenberg

Works by or about Walter Scott at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions color illustrated)

(plain text and HTML)

University of Pennsylvania e-texts of Walter Scott's works

Walter Scott's profile and catalogue of his library at Abbotsford on LibraryThing

Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery

Category:Scottish novelists Category:Scottish historical novelists Category:Writers of historical fiction set in the Middle Ages Category:Scottish poets Category:Romanticism Category:Romantic poets Category:Scottish publishers (people) Category:Scottish translators Category:Scottish song collectors Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Category:People educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh Category:Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom Category:People from Edinburgh Category:Scottish Episcopalians Category:1771 births Category:1832 deaths Category:People illustrated on sterling banknotes Category:18th-century Scottish people Category:19th-century Scottish people Category:Presidents of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Category:Elders of the Church of Scotland Category:Principal Clerks of Session and Justiciary Category:Mythopoeic writers

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