Walter Scott Research Centre
The Walter Scott Research Centre exists to conduct and to promote research into Scott and his works, the intellectual world in which he grew up and on which he drew, the contexts in which he worked, and the ways in which his work was used by other writers, other arts, business and politics, particularly in the nineteenth century. Its interests are interdisciplinary and its scope is international. The Walter Scott Research Centre is primarily engaged in project research, but also supports the research activity of its individual members and facilitates the study of Scott at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
The Walter Scott Research Centre is located within the School of Language & Literature at the University of Aberdeen.
You can contact us:
By Post:
Walter Scott Research Centre,
School of Language & Literature,
University of Aberdeen,
King’s College,
Aberdeen.
AB24 3UB
By Telephone: 01224 273925
By Email: a.lumsden@abdn.ac.uk or david.hewitt@abdn.ac.uk
Background
The Walter Scott Research Centre was established in 1991 in order to facilitate the work of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels. This edition was completed in 28 volumes in November 2009 (the final two volumes of Magnum Notes will appear in 2011). In its time it was the biggest literary project in the UK and was directed and organised from Aberdeen. Several members of staff at Aberdeen (Dr J. H. Alexander, Professor David Hewitt, and Dr Alison Lumsden) were then engaged on it but it was international in its scope. Some fifteen editors have been involved, three research fellows, eight consultants, ten research students, and many editorial assistants. Over £350,000 was raised in research grants. To date around 70,000 volumes of Scott’s fiction have been purchased in Edinburgh Edition texts. For more information about individual volumes see http://www.euppublishing.com/series/EEWN
The Bernard C. Lloyd Collection of Scott Materials
The Bernard C. Lloyd Collection of Scott Materials was purchased with a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund of £209,000 in 2002. Assembled over many years by Bernard Lloyd it is possibly the finest collection of print materials related to Scott in the world. It contains nearly every edition of every work written, edited or contributed to by Scott and many materials which reflect Scott’s impact on other art forms such as drama, opera and graphic novels. All items in the collection can be found with the shelf mark WS in the Library Catalogue: http://abdn.ac.uk/library/catalogue.shtml
Events at the Centre
Although the Centre is largely project based from time to time it holds events. In recent years these have included a textual editing symposium, focussing on Irish and Scottish critical editions and co-hosted with the AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, and a two day postgraduate symposium on Scott and his contemporaries.
The Lady of the Lake Celebrates 200 Years
In May 2010 the Centre curated an exhibition to mark the bicentenary of Scott’s most influential and successful narrative poem The Lady of the Lake. Members of the Centre also participated in events to mark this occasion organised during the University’s annual Word Festival and by the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. The Lady of the Lake was hugely influential in bringing tourist to the Trossachs, in which it is set, and to reflect this a number of events were held at Loch Katrine.
The Centre’s director, Dr Alison Lumsden, and Research Fellow, Dr Ainsley McIntosh, at Loch Katrine in the Trossachs during The Lady of the Lake celebrations in May 2010.
Forthcoming Events
Textual Editing Workshops
As part of the preliminary investigation into critical edition of Walter Scott’s poetry the Centre is hosting a number of textual editing workshops. These workshops, funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, are in collaboration with the Centre for Robert Burns Studies, located at the University of Glasgow and the New Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, located at the University of Edinburgh.
The first of these workshops took as its theme the treatment of Scots by nineteenth-century publishers and the issues this raises for editors. The second was on the theme of electronic edition tools and web-sites to accompany editions. The final workshop will be in October. For information contact a.lumsden@abdn.ac.uk
Places at these events are free but very limited. For more information contact a.lumsden@abdn.ac.uk
Joint Events with SWINC (Scottish Writing in the Nineteenth Century)
The Walter Scott Research Centre has entered into a collaboration with the University of Edinburgh’s SWINC group. So far a number of events have been held, including a symposium on Secret Scotland in Glasgow in autumn 2010. A parallel symposium on Civic Scotland will take place in Aberdeen in autumn 2011. For more information about this event and SWINC visit http://www.englit.ed.ac.uk/SWINC/ or contact a.lumsden@abdn.ac.uk
What Are You Reading?
In autumn 2011 SWINC will hold a series of 3 lectures and workshops at the National Library of Scotland to introduce and discuss ideas about scholarly editing. One of these will be led by Dr Alison Lumsden and will include discussion of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels and the proposed poetry edition.
Opportunities to Study Scott in the School of Language & Literature
Dedicated courses on Walter Scott are offered at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Scott appears on courses at both second and third year and there is a senior honours course dedicated to Scott called Walter Scott and the Development of the Novel Form. Details of all undergraduate courses can be found at http://www.abdn.ac.uk/registry/courses/display.php?Subject=EL.
The postgraduate course Walter Scott and his World is supported by the work of the Centre and may be taken as part of the M.Litt Programmes in Creative Writing, English Literary Studies, Irish and Scottish Studies and The Novel. For more information about these programmes see http://www.abdn.ac.uk/english/prospective/mlitt.php.There are also several PhD students working on Scott in the School.
Doctoral students who wish to work on Scott may also be interested in funding available via the Memory, Commemoration and Community Research Project Award Scheme. For more information see http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cass/graduate/funding/research/memory/
For details of how to apply for postgraduate study at Aberdeen and funding opportunities visit http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cass/graduate/
Current Projects
With the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels now complete the Centre has begun work on a scholarly edition of Scott’s Poetry. A preliminary project funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Scottish Universities and the British Academy began in September 2010. The findings of this investigation were presented at the International Scott Conference in Wyoming in July 2011, and the main editorial work will begin in autumn of this year.
For more information about events that took place at the Wyoming conference visit http://www.uwyo.edu/scottconf2011/. Plans for the 2014 conference are underway. This will be held in Aberdeen in July 2014 and will be on the theme Activating the Archive. Its aim is to explore the richness of the Bernard C. Lloyd Collection and to celebrate its relocation to the University of Aberdeen’s new library, which will open in autumn 2011.
About Us
The Directors
Professor David Hewitt
Dr Alison Lumsden
Staff Associated with the Centre
Dr Timothy Baker
Dr Catherine Jones
Dr Ainsley McIntosh
Dr John Morrison
Dr Matthew Wickman
For more information on staff research interests see http://www.abdn.ac.uk/english/staff/index.php
Recent and Current PhD students
Ainsley McIntosh
Sally Newsome
Dan Wall
Anna Fancett