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John Ballantyne (1774–1821) was a Scottish publisher notable for his work with Walter Scott, a pre-eminent author of the time.
Ballantyne, younger brother of James Ballantyne the printer of Walter Scott's works, was born at Kelso in 1774. After spending a short time in the banking house of Currie & Co., London, he returned, in 1795, to Kelso, and became partner in his father's business as general merchant. On his marriage in 1797 the partnership was dissolved, one principal part of the business being resigned to him. Gradually he got into money difficulties, and, having disposed of his goods to pay his debts, went to Edinburgh in January 1806, to become clerk in his brother's printing establishment at a salary of £200 a year.
When Scott in 1808, on the ostensible ground of a misunderstanding with Messrs. Constable & Hunter, established the firm of John Ballantyne & Co. , John Ballantyne was appointed manager at a salary of £300 a year and one-fourth of the profits. The private memorandum-book of Ballantyne records that already in 1809 the firm was getting into difficulties; and during the next three years their general speculations continued so uniformly unsuccessful, that in May 1813 Scott opened negotiations with Constable for pecuniary assistance in return for certain stock and copyright, including a share in some of Scott's own poems, and on a pledge of winding up the concerns of the firm as soon as possible.
Although Waverley was published by Constable in 1814, Scott, owing either, as stated by Lockhart, to the misrepresentations of John Ballantyne regarding Constable, or to the urgent necessity for more ready money than Constable was willing to advance, made arrangements in 1815 for the publication of Guy Mannering by Longman, and in the following year of the Tales of my Landlord by Murray. Lockhart states that Ballantyne, in negotiating with Constable in 1817 regarding a second series of Tales of my Landlord, so wrought on his jealousy by hinting at the possibility of dividing the series with Murray, that he 'agreed on the instant to do all that John shrank from asking, and at one sweep cleared the Augean stable in Hanover Street of unsaleable rubbish to the amount of £5,270'; but from a passage in the Life of Archibald Constable it would appear that this was not effected till a later period.
John Ballantyne, whom Scott continued to employ in all the negotiations regarding the publication of his works, had in 1813, on the advice of Constable, started as an auctioneer chiefly of books and works of art, an occupation well suited to his peculiar idiosyncrasies. As he had also made a stipulation with Constable that he was to have a third share in the profits of the Waverley Novels, he suffered no pecuniary loss by the dissolution of the old publishing firm. In addition to this, Scott, in 1820, gratuitously offered his services as editor of a Novelist's Library, to be published for his sole benefit. His easily won gains were devoted to the gratification of somewhat expensive tastes. At his villa on the Firth of Forth, which he had named ‘Harmony Hall’, and had 'invested with an air of dainty, voluptuous finery', he gave frequent elaborate Parisian dinners, among the guests at which was sure to be found 'whatever actor or singer of eminence visited Edinburgh'. He frequented foxhunts and race-meetings, and even at his auction 'appeared uniformly, hammer in hand, in the half-dress of some sporting club'. His imprudent pursuit of pleasure told gradually on his constitution, and after several years of shattered health he died at his brother's house in Edinburgh 16 June 1821.
Ballantyne is the author of a novel — The Widow's Lodgings — which, though stated by Lockhart to be 'wretched trash', reached a second edition. In his will he bequeathed to Sir Walter Scott a legacy of £2,000; but after his death it was found that his affairs were hopelessly bankrupt. In the antics and eccentricities of Ballantyne Scott discovered an inexhaustible fund of amusement; but he also cherished towards him a deep and sincere attachment. Standing beside his newly closed grave in Canongate churchyard, he whispered to Lockhart, 'I feel as if there would be less sunshine for me from this day forth'.
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, poet, playwright, and historian. Many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and Scottish literature. Famous titles include The Lady of the Lake and the novels Waverley, Old Mortality, Rob Roy, The Heart of Mid-Lothian, The Bride of Lammermoor, and Ivanhoe.
John Gibson Lockhart was a Scottish writer and editor. He is best known as the author of a biography of his father-in-law Sir Walter Scott, which has been called the second most admirable biography in the English language, after Boswell's Life of Johnson.
Archibald David Constable was a Scottish publisher, bookseller and stationer.
James Hogg was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many of the great writers of his day, including Sir Walter Scott, of whom he later wrote an unauthorised biography. He became widely known as the "Ettrick Shepherd", a nickname under which some of his works were published, and the character name he was given in the widely read series Noctes Ambrosianae, published in Blackwood's Magazine. He is best known today for his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. His other works include the long poem The Queen's Wake (1813), his collection of songs Jacobite Relics (1819), and his two novels The Three Perils of Man (1822), and The Three Perils of Woman (1823).
William Laidlaw (1780–1845) was a Scottish poet. The son of a border farmer, he became steward and amanuensis to Walter Scott, and was the author of a well-known ballad, Lucy's Flittin.
James Ballantyne (1772–1833) was an editor and publisher who worked for his friend Sir Walter Scott. His brother John Ballantyne (1774–1821) was also with the publishing firm, which is noted for the publication of the Novelist's Library (1820), and many works edited or written by Scott.
One of the Waverley Novels by Walter Scott, The Black Dwarf was part of his Tales of My Landlord, 1st series (1816). It is set in 1708, in the Scottish Borders, against the background of the first uprising to be attempted by the Jacobites after the Act of Union.
The Waverley Novels are a long series of novels by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832). For nearly a century, they were among the most popular and widely read novels in Europe.
Tillietudlem is a fictional castle in Walter Scott's 1816 novel Old Mortality, and a modern settlement in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Castle Dangerous (1831) was the last of Walter Scott's Waverley novels. It is part of Tales of My Landlord, 4th series, with Count Robert of Paris. The castle of the title is Douglas Castle in Lanarkshire, and the action, based on an episode in The Brus by John Barbour, is set in March 1307 against the background of the First War of Scottish Independence.
The Pirate is one of the Waverley novels by Sir Walter Scott, based roughly on the life of John Gow who features as Captain Cleveland. The setting is the southern tip of the main island of Shetland, towards the end of the 17th century, with 1689 as the likely date of the main incidents.
Robert Cadell was a bookseller and publisher closely associated with Sir Walter Scott.
The Canongate Kirkyard stands around Canongate Kirk on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland. The churchyard was used for burials from the late 1680s until the mid-20th century.
Harold the Dauntless is a narrative poem in six short cantos by Walter Scott, published in 1817. It employs a variety of metres.
The Lord of the Isles is a narrative poem by Walter Scott in six cantos with substantial notes. Set in 1307 and 1314 Scotland it covers the story of Robert the Bruce from his return from exile in Ireland to the successful culmination of his struggle to secure Scottish independence from English control at the Battle of Bannockburn. Interwoven with this account is a romantic fiction centring on one of the Bruce's prominent supporters, Ronald, Lord of the Isles, involving his love for the Bruce's sister Isabel, who eventually takes the veil, and the transfer of his affections to Edith of Lorn to whom he had been betrothed at the beginning of the poem and whom he marries at the end.
The Edinburgh Encyclopædia is an encyclopaedia in 18 volumes, printed and published by William Blackwood and edited by David Brewster between 1808 and 1830. In competition with the Edinburgh-published Encyclopædia Britannica, the Edinburgh Encyclopædia is generally considered to be strongest on scientific topics, where many of the articles were written by the editor.
William Erskine, Lord Kinneder (1768–1822), was a friend and confidant of Sir Walter Scott, and a scholar and songwriter.
The Journal of Sir Walter Scott is a diary which the novelist and poet Walter Scott kept between 1825 and 1832. It records the financial disaster which overtook him at the beginning of 1826, and the efforts he made over the next seven years to pay off his debts by writing bestselling books. Since its first complete publication in 1890 it has attracted high praise, being considered by many critics one of the finest diaries in the language.
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft Addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq. (1830) was a study of witchcraft and the supernatural by Sir Walter Scott. A lifelong student of folklore, Scott was able to draw on a wide-ranging collection of primary and secondary sources. His book found many readers throughout the 19th century, and exercised a significant influence in promoting the Victorian vogue for Gothic and ghostly fiction. Though on first publication it met with mixed reviews, it is now recognised as a pioneering work of scientific anthropology, treating of its subject in an acute and analytical way which prefigures later scholarship on the subject, as well as presenting a highly readable collection of supernatural anecdotes.
The letters of Sir Walter Scott, the novelist and poet, range in date from September 1788, when he was aged 17, to June 1832, a few weeks before his death. About 7000 letters from Scott are known, and about 6500 letters addressed to him. The major repository of both is the National Library of Scotland. H. J. C. Grierson's The Letters of Sir Walter Scott (1932–1937), though it includes only about 3500, remains the standard edition.
Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1885). . Dictionary of National Biography . 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1885). "Ballantyne, John (1774-1821)". Dictionary of National Biography . 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
