Author: Ballantyne, Hermione
Biography:
BALLANTYNE, Hermione (d 1854: RPW)
She was born Hermione Parker, daughter of George Parker, a London merchant. After her father’s death and her mother’s remarriage, her step-father was the Rev. William Rutherford, assistant to the minister of Kelso. In 1797 she married John Ballantyne (ODNB) but his death in 1821 left her in poverty. A second marriage, to John Glover of Kendal, seems to have made her financial situation only more dire; she supported the family by teaching French and music. Walter Scott helped her financially by directing to her the payments for his contributions to Ballantyne’s Novelists’ Library. Through John Ballantyne, she owned the manuscript of Scott’s Lady of the Lake, and she sold it to the publisher Robert Cadell for £10. Other publications include a two-volume novel, Seymour, or the Man of Mystery (Jedburgh, 1835); a book of verse, Birds, British and Foreign (Berwick, 1843); and contributions to Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, “Rambling Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott” (1843-44). (RPW; James C. Corson, Notes and Index to Sir Herbert Grierson’s Edition of The Letters of Sir Walter Scott [1979])
Other Names:
- Mrs. Ballantyne