‘HUMANUM EST ERRARE’

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In your position as editors you must be more aware than most of the truth of the old adage ‘to err is human’. It is most unfortunate that this tag more than once has been demonstrated in the article ‘The Bard of the Borders: Sir Walter Scott’ (April/May, page 51).

You most thoughtfully suggested to the Borders Tourist Board that they ‘vet’ this article, and they in turn asked me, as honorary secretary of The Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club, to verify the accuracy of the article. It is so much easier for one born and bred in Edinburgh and educated at a time when we were educated to spot inaccuracies in an article on a subject near to one’s heart and one’s knowledge. Unfortunately, many of my suggestions in regard to the manuscript were misdirected and therefore did not reach you, and as a result several errors remained.

Purely to ensure that your readers are not misinformed about Sir Walter and the history of the Borders, I list below the salient errors.

The article describes Scott as a Victorian and Abbotsford as a Victorian building. Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, by which time Scott had been dead for five years. Abbotsford was built in the early 1800s.

The Heart of Midlothian is not a good example of a novel with Border background. Edinburgh is the Heart of Midlothian and that is where most of the action occurs. Better examples are The Black Dwarf and St. Ronan’s Well.

College Wynd, where Scott was born, was many hundreds of yards from the High Street, and I do not think he ever lived in the Royal Mile.

The caption under the photograph of the house in Castle Street describes it as his ‘childhood home’. The plaque on the outside of the building states that he lived there beginning in 1802, at which time he was already more than 30 years old.

Finally, the article stated that all Scott’s early work was published anonymously. This is quite mistaken. The only writings whose authorship was kept secret were the Waverly Novels, although it was generally accepted in literary circles that Scott was the author long before the name was revealed in 1826.

I would very much appreciate it if you found it possible to bring these points to the notice of your readers.

Fraser Elgin,
Peebles, Scotland

Editor’s Note: Of course, we are happy to oblige. Mr. Elgin’s letter illustrates two additional important points that readers should note. First, we go out of our way to strive for accuracy. Each article published in BRITISH HERITAGE is routinely fact-checked, usually by an acknowledged expert, but occasionally by one of the editorial staff. Second, despite these efforts errors still do escape our attention from time to time. When they do, we invite readers to let us know. When appropriate, and as space permits, we’ll share your insights in a subsequent issue.

BRILLIANT BRANAGH

I have been hoping you would feature an article on Kenneth Branagh, and your lively profile of his fellow actor Sir Derek Jacobi (April/May, page 36) came close. Now I have just received the June/July issue in the mail and see that you have published two photographs of Mr. Branagh in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet. I travelled to England in 1993 to see this performance and was amply rewarded. Mr. Branagh was brilliant as the Prince–it was a terrific warm-up for his 1996 film of the play. Both the RSC stage version and the film gave us the entire text of Shakespeare’s greatest play, and having seen these uncut presentations, I am convinced this is the only way to truly experience the complexities of this immortal drama.

Thank you for Matt Wolfe’s article on the RSC–I’m seeing them at the Brooklyn Academy this month.

Virginia Wilhelm,
New York, New York

Editor’s note: We’re sure that many of our readers share Virginia’s desire for a profile of Kenneth Branagh. We have, in fact, been attempting to arrange an interview. So far, Mr. Branagh’s travel schedule has prevented us from linking up, but we hope to catch up with him in the future and have a chat.

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