on Toshareproject.it - curated by Bruce Sterling
Sir Walter Scott is said to be the creator of “historical fiction,” “historical romance” or “romantic nationalism,” a literary innovation so popular that Scott became the world’s first international bestselling author.
In this letter to one of his many aristocratic cronies, Scott seems to anticipate, and recommend, the invention of “heritage tourism.” You may see in this letter that, although Scott himself writes and sells history books (both fiction and nonfiction), Scott does not believe that the written story of history is the be-all and end-all of history. Scott thinks that books are an adjunct to history and that people are better off immersing themselves in historical images and especially historical landscapes.
According to Scott, a wealthy young aristocrat who can afford to travel should go a carefully planned tourist circuit of historic sites. Instead of being drily lectured at, with mere lists of people and places, the naive history-tourist should be encouraged to physically engage with places and scenes of historic interest and to speculate for himself as to what happened there.
Walter Scott applied this experiential history method to himself. When he became a wealthy author he devoted most of his money to the creation of a grand manor-house and landscape he called “Abbotsford.” Scott designed and built Abbotsford in a spirit of historical pastiche, often using chunks of historical demolished buildings that he had appropriated and rebuilt into his own home. Scott also re-planted extensive forests on his property, claiming that the trees would last for centuries and outlive his literary reputation and his books.
Scott’s home “Abbotsford” still exists and has become a monumental site of contemporary historical tourism.
(8-100)ABBOTSFORD 3 October [1823]
TO LORD MONTAGU, DITTON PARK, WINDSOR, BERKS.
I have been thinking a great deal about the plan of reading history in the most useful manner. The great preliminary matter is if possible to create a taste for the study which cannot be done by imposing a course ofreading as mere task work.
The sight of “Rollins Ancient History” 1 makes me yawn as I see it upon the shelves from the recollection of the weary hours I spent when my excellent mother coursed me through it-there are in particular a set of Shepherd Kings whose existence is a matter of very little consequence whom I recollect with a peculiar disposition towards slumber. And I believe in general that most boys have a right to say to their tutor “You cram these words into my ear against the stomach of my sense.”
To continue the allusion it seems clear that the instruction like the aliment which we receive only does us good when we have such a degree of appetite as enables us to digest it. But the great question is-cannot this appetite for knowlege be sharpend or even entirely created.
I think in most cases it may and our young friend is precisely one of those favourable subjects to whom I think during the next three or four years of his life the desire of acquiring information might be renderd habitual-He is intelligent and light hearted, nothing dull about him and yet I think without the high flow of spirits that amounts to levity. This is a favourable soil to cultivate even if there should be a little indolence.
If I had such a youth under my charge I would I think endeavour to interest him in British history by mingling as far as I could without affectation or boring its most interesting events in general conversation. I would visit as a party of pleasure remarkable scenes-talk over what had happend at such & such places-endeavour to guess or make him guess the manner in which the actors lookd and try to estimate the changes which must have taken place in the scenery around.
Pictures and prints I have found in my family lectures a very good mode of fixing attention-indeed I am so convinced of this that I would have a gallery of portraits annexd to every great school-it is not to children alone that such illustrations are useful. I think for example he would be a dull man who should walk once a day in the gallery of historical portraits at Knowle without becoming well acquainted with the characters & principal occurrences in the lives of the personages there represented.
I dare say your Lordship remembers the humbug of the Prussian lecturer on memory who taught folks to remember what they had a mind by forming an association between the thing to be rememberd and some fantastic combination which bore an allusion to it. As usually happens in such cases the professor was a charlatan but his art had a deep foundation in human nature. For after the events which we have actually seen those which dwell deepest in our mind are such as are connected with scenes which we have visited or actors whose features are familiar to us-If therefore I wanted to study the history of Richard III with a young friend I would go to see the play and I would visit Crossby house in the City where he resided and so forth.
I think I said before that I would be much more anxious to create the taste for the science of history in the outset than that my pupil should go through many books-in fact I would defer to the very last what is always taught first namely the philosophy as it has been termd of history-Let a youth get the leading and interesting facts fixd in his mind and the philosophy will come afterwards both with ease and pleasure.
At the same time whenever the youth himself showd curiosity that way by comparing different natures or different stages in society it will be a precious opportunity and not to be omitted by a tutor.
Your Lordship observes my plan would include a good deal of travelling both in Scotland and England which may be united with many objects of entertainment & interest. I do not so much approve of one great tour as of several limited excursions-in the former case the knowlege acquired is huddled together confusedly-If the Duke shews an inclination to draw to which art he has a family claim it should be anxiously encouraged.
The best antiquarian engravings by Strutt 1 & others should be collected they will always be ornamental & useful additions to the library & it is a point on which no expence should be spared.
Were I to begin my experimental course of history I would for example take Stoddarts engraving of the tapestry at Bayeux which shows the whole progress of the Norman invasion and conquest-then I should be apt if I saw the investigation gave interest to take a trip down to Dover and Hastings, reading at the same time the best accounts of the events and comparing them with each other. In short I would endeavour if possible to create a strong interest in )historical events by combining them with every external circumstance which could give interest-The taste for history being once acquired the course of reading becomes a subsequent and easier subject of consideration.
I have already said in a former letter that I would take the outline from one historian of more modern date and resort to the old chronicles for illustrations of such facts as are told with more naivete or piquancy of detail bycontemporaries. But I have for the present sufficiently bored your lordship and laid a handsome foundation for boring my young & friendly Chief.