Sir Walter Scott: Genre Jumper?
The author of Ivanhoe (1820), Sir Walter Scott is generally credited with originating the historical novel genre. Because his first novels were set in Scotland, he was known forever after as the “Author of the Scottish Novels.” He called Ivanhoe “an experiment on a subject purely English” and offered it forth with some trepidation, knowing that his shift in subjects might meet with disapproval. “The public are, in general,” he wrote, “very ready to adopt the opinion that he who has pleased them in one peculiar mode of composition is, by means of that very talent, rendered incapable of venturing upon other subjects. The effect of this disinclination, on the part of the public, towards the artificers of their pleasures, when they attempt to enlarge their means of amusing, may be seen in the censures usually passed by vulgar criticism upon … artists who venture to change the character of their efforts, that, in so doing, they may enlarge the scale of their art.” Scott rejected the notio
