Note 141 — Chapter XX · PALINGENESIA
Reading edition
The original of Scott’s Rebecca is said to have been a real person—Rebecca Gratz of Philadelphia. Washington Irving, who knew Miss Gratz, introduced her to Scott’s notice. She was born in 1781, and died in 1869. Her claim to have been “the original of Rebecca in Ivanhoe” is sustained in a paper with that title in the Century Magazine, 1882, pp. 679 fol.