John gibson lockhart biography definition
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Sir Walter Scott died in September 1832 as the leading man of letters in Europe. Yet for all his fame few particulars of his life could be gleaned from memoirs published during his lifetime. This was partly because Scott was largely successful in avoiding scandal and the attention it brought, and partly because denying his authorship of the Waverley Novels had kept biographers at bay. Driven from cover by his financial woes, Scott began relating his literary life in annotations to the collected editions published to relieve his debts. Following his death memoirs began to appear, some hostile, anticipating the official biography to be written by Scott’s son-in-law John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854)—the proceeds of which were to go towards paying off the remaining debts on the Scott estate. There would be a long wait as Lockhart sorted through the voluminous papers Scott left behind and solicited materials from Scott’s friends and correspondents. The biography was written while Lockhar
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LOCKHART, JOHN GIBSON.—This distinguished miscellaneous writer, who occupied so high a station in the tribunal of literary criticism, was born at Glasgow, and, as is generally supposed, in the year 1793. His father, the Rev. Dr. John Lockhart, who, for nearly fifty years, was minister of the College or Blackfriar’s Church, Glasgow, will not soon be forgot by the denizens of that good city, not only on account of his piety and worth, but also his remarkable wit and extreme absence of mind—two qualities which are seldom found united in the same character. The stories with which Glasgow is still rife, of the worthy doctor’s occasional obliviousness, and the amusing mistakes and blunders it occasioned, are even richer than those of Dominie Samson; for, when he awoke from his dream, he could either laugh with the laughers, or turn the laugh against them if necessary. But his remarkable powers of sarcasm, as well as his creative talents in embellishing an amusing
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John Gibson Lockhart
Scottish writer and editor (1794–1854)
John Gibson Lockhart (12 June 1794 – 25 November 1854) was a Scottish writer and editor. He is best known as the author of the seminal, and much-admired, seven-volume biography of his father-in-law Sir Walter Scott: Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.[1] He produced four novels in the early 1820s including Adam Blair and Reginald Dalton.
Early years
[edit]Lockhart was born on 12 June 1794[2][3] in the manse of Cambusnethan House in Lanarkshire to Dr John Lockhart, who transferred in 1796 to Glasgow, and was appointed minister in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and his second wife Elizabeth Gibson (1767–1834), daughter of Margaret Mary Pringle and Reverend John Gibson, minister of St Cuthbert's, Edinburgh.[4][5]
He was the younger paternal half-brother of the politician William Lockhart.
Lockhart attended Glasgow High School, where he showe