The Abbotsford Trust has announced the opening of a special new exhibition at Abbotsford this spring in partnership with the National Library of Scotland. The exhibition – Rave Reviewer: Scott on Frankenstein, Emma and Childe Harold – tells the story of Walter Scott's engagement and interaction with some of the most famous literature of the early nineteenth century: the works of Mary Shelley, Jane Austen and Lord Byron.
Scott achieved this through penning some of the most insightful, sympathetic and outstanding literary reviews of the age – a time when reviews on all manner of subjects were often more widely read than the original publications. Walter Scott was central to the launch and subsequent popularity of John Murray’s Quarterly Review, and remained a key contributor throughout his years as the most famous and prolific novelist of the time.
With novelists and reviewers often writing anonymously, the story behind the exhibition is one where appearances can be deceiving. Few were as capable at playing this elaborate game as Scott – he even anonymously reviewed his own novels in 1816. This was without doubt, the harshest review these works received.
Two hundred years from the time that Mary Shelley first began work on Frankenstein, in the company of her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, visitors will be able to see a very rare first edition of the gothic novel belonging to Walter Scott, one of only 500 copies originally circulated, along with his first edition of Jane Austen’s Emma. Visitors will also be able to view a selection of letters and manuscript reviews that bring to life the story behind preparing a work for publication and review, including original documents in the hand of the poet Percy Byssche Shelley, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott, on loan from the National Library of Scotland. Many of these items will be on display to the public for the first time. There will also be original artwork on display from accomplished artist Hugh Buchanan, inspired by Scott's review of Byron’s famous poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
"We are delighted to be collaborating with the National Library of Scotland to tell this fascinating story about a community of readers and writers shaping the present, and indeed future, impact of what we now consider to be classic works of literature,” commented Kirsty Archer-Thompson, Collections and Interpretation Manager for the Abbotsford Trust. “Novels such as Frankenstein did not fare well with the reviewing community as a whole and Scott’s acknowledgement of Shelley’s genius ran very much against the grain. This exhibition is a wonderful platform to show that Scott was just as capable of looking to the future as he was to the past.”
The exhibition will be on display at Abbotsford House from Saturday 2 April and run until the end of the season in November. Entry is included as part of the admission ticket to the house.
For more information, visit www.scottsabbotsford.com