THE poetry of Sir Walter Scott will be brought to new audiences through a £1 million research project to help preserve his legacy.
Researchers at the University of Aberdeen have been awarded funding by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to revisit the author’s manuscripts and create a new edition of his poems.
While his novels, which include Waverley, Ivanhoe and Rob Roy, have never been out of print, there are very few editions of his poetry.
Those that exist are blighted by errors due to a combination of the writer’s notoriously spidery handwriting and the speed of the publishing process which was driven by the demand for his work in his day.
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AHRC funding will enable researchers at the University of Aberdeen’s Walter Scott Research Centre to return Scott’s poetry to a form which more closely reflects his original intentions and to create five volumes of what will eventually be a complete 10-volume edition of his verse published by Edinburgh University Press.
They will also bring to life the extensive notes that Scott added to his poems to offer readers a deeper insight and understanding of the meaning behind them.
This year marks the 250th anniversary of Scott’s birth in 1771.
Professor Alison Lumsden, who will lead the project, said: “Unlike Walter Scott’s novels, which have never been out of publication since they were released, there are very few editions of his poetry and those which do exist are severely compromised by 19th century editing practices.
“Scott was a prolific writer and, as well as the poems themselves, he produced long notes which are almost like alternative stories … but these almost always disappeared in modern printed versions.
“We want to reinstate Scott’s notes as part of the reading experience and to establish texts as close as possible to the author’s wishes.”
AHRC has awarded £815,794 towards the £1 million cost of the project with the rest coming from the university.
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