Abstrakt
We often tend to put authors into groups or pairs, Wordsworth and Coleridge, Shelley and Byron, Dickens and Collins... In all these cases, stacks of analytical articles concerning their relationship have been written, and their collaboration and possible rivalry is still being discussed.
One such literary pair was formed by a link between two authors from the Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Wilson and Lockhart. The journal, led by an anonymous editor, has always taken pride in a diverse editorial staff.
Lockhart and Wilson are associated with each other primarily as potential authors of the best-known critical articles published in the "Maga". They are often referred to almost interchangeably as identical persons and represented nearly as Siamese twins with the same blood in their veins.
It is rarely mentioned how different they were, different in origin, character, interests, and career development. It is often forgotten that Wilson was very close to the Lake Poets in his youth, among whom he is sometimes counted, while Lockhart was closer to the descendants of the Lake Poets.
When Lockhart and Wilson first met, Wilson was already quite experienced in the literary world, Lockhart a complete novice, a recent university graduate. Lockhart's attachment to Scott and a certain subservience to him is well known, but the beginning of his career was heavily influenced by Wilson; he may be said to have introduced Lockhart to the literary world, but he also set the price for it very high.
Lockhart did not shake off Wilson's influence over his own persona even after Wilson's death. A much-needed analysis of their professional and personal relationship over time sheds somewhat a new light on the many events that have taken place in the literary world in the meantime.