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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

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[Anon] [Anon]

  

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[Anon] [Anon] : story books

'Zoe Proctor [sic] (b. 1867) describes how, during the 1870s, when her father was governor of the County Gaol at Bury St Edmunds, she "could not gain sufficient solitude for reading my little story books and was obliged to use the only secure retreat—the long, narrow W.C."'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Zoe Procter      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'We are to make roads for the next few days. Out occasionally on work parties. Those officers not on duty all stayed in bed (valises!) and so did the men. We ate, slept, read in our valises. It was so cold outside. We had no fires, absolutely nothing, yet I really believed we enjoyed ourselves. There was practically no shelling.'

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Lindsay Mackay      

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'I wish you would send me the Daily Mail every other day, & also magazines (Pearsons etc) would be immensely appreciated. I see by a paper of the 18th that Whitby and Scarborough have been bombarded. The photographs in it are very similar to sights very common here.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson      Print: Newspaper

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'The newspapers amuse us here immensely — we read of the Ger[mans] being driven back by our chaps — in reality he is walking away of his own free will, as slowly and as fast as he likes to.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson      Print: Newspaper

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'I received on the 3rd a parcel from you with biscuits and bulls eyes, and same time books and jersey with letter. The books are very welcome. I shall enjoy reading what I read before the war, but no matter.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'Still, it is a very fine tragedy. So is the Greek play that we are doing. It is quite unlike all that stiff bombast which we are accustomed to associate with Greek tragedy. There is life and character in it.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : The Nietzschean Way

'I wonder did you notice the article on Nietzsche in last Sunday's Times Literary Supplement, which demonstrates that although we have been told to regard Nietzsche as the indirect author of this war, nothing could be farther removed from the spirit and letter of his teaching? It just shows how we can be duped by an ignorant and loud mouthed cheap press. Kirk, who knows something about N., had anticipated that article with us, and is in high glee at seeing the blunder "proclaimed on the housetops".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis      Print: Newspaper, Serial / periodical

  

[Anon] [Anon] : Laxdaela Saga

'Last week I got a copy of that little book of yours on Icelandic Sagas, which I found very interesting, and as a result I have now bought a translation of the "Laxdaela Saga" in the Temple Classics edition.... they are tip top and justify the boast of 'elegance' made in their advertisements.... As to the Saga itself I am very pleased with it indeed: if the brief, simple, nervous style of the translation is a good copy of the original it must be very fine. The story, tho', like most sagas, it loses unity, by being spread over two or three generations, is thoroughly interesting.... after the "Roots" a real saga is interesting. I must admit that ... the primitive type is far better than Morris's reproduction.'I

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'I have been reading nothing since Othello but a translation from the Icelandic'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : 'At the Play: "Disraeli"'

'I went to a play that would have appealed to you — "Disraeli", which you will remember to have seen reviewed in Punch's "At the play". If the real man was at all like the character in the piece he certainly must have been a prince of cards. I suppose that most of the bons mots that I heard at the Royalty are actual historic ones, preserved in his letters and so forth.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis      Print: Serial / periodical

  

[Anon] [Anon] : 'Edgar Allan Poe'

'I hope you noticed the leader in this week's Literary Supplement — on Edgar Allan Poe? I never heard such affectation and preciosity; the man who thinks the "Raven" tawdry just because it is easily appreciated, and says that in "The choice of words Poe has touched greater heights than De Quincy" ought — well, what can we say of him?'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis      Print: Serial / periodical

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'Besides this [i.e. Sidney's "Arcadia"] I have read nothing lately, except a foolish modern novel which I read at one sitting — or rather one lying on the sofa, this afternoon in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm. I think, that if modern novels are to be read at all, they should be taken like this, at one gulp, and then thrown away — preferably into the fire (that is if they are not in one's own edition). Not that I despise them because they are modern, but really most of them are pretty sickly with their everlasting problems.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : Beowulf

'... remember that nearly all your reading is confined to about 150 years of one particular country.... And so, if you suddenly go back to an Anglo-Saxon gleeman's lay, you come up against something absolutely different — a different world. If you are to enjoy it, you must forget your previous ideas of what a book should be and try and put yourself back in the position of the people for whom it was first made. When I was reading it I tried to imagine myself as an old Saxon thane sitting in my hall of a winter's night, with the wolves & storm outside and the old fellow singing his story. In this way you get the atmosphere of terror that runs through it — the horror of the old barbarous days when the land was all forests and when you thought that a demon might come to your house any night & carry you off. The description of Grendel stalking up from his "fen and fastness" thrilled me. Besides, I loved the simplicity of the old life it represents: it comes as a relief to get away from all complications about characters & "problems" to a time when hunting, fighting, eating, drinking & loving were all a man had to think of it. And lastly, always remember it's a translation which spoils most things.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : The High History of the Holy Graal

'As a matter of fact I am at present reading a real "old french" romance "The High History of the Holy Graal" translated in the lovely "Temple Classics". If I dared to advise you any longer -. It is absolute heaven: it is more mystic and eerie than the "Morte" & has [a] more connected plot. I think there are parts of it even you'd like.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : Gesta Romanorum

'After wandering about the place and buying a second-hand copy of the "Gesta Romanorum" (of which more anon) I took my courage in both hands and knocked up the Master of University.... The "Gesta Romanorum" ... is a collection of mediaeval tales with morals attached to them: they are very like the Arabian Nights, tho' of course the characters and setting are chivalric instead of Eastern. It is not a first class book but it only cost me 1/- and helps to while away an hour or so between serious things.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'Thou kindly asks whether I am pursuing my favourite reading. To this I must return a decided no — several books from our Book Society having come upon us suddenly, and one which I particularly wish to read, has prevented my exclusive reading on Geology.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Ellis      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'I have scarcely read anything except an occasional short pity article in some review, on looked within the pages of some book, and turned away with an oppressed heart when I recollected, that at least for the present, books are a hidden treasure beyond my reach.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Ellis      Print: Serial / periodical

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'I have scarcely read anything except an occasional short pity article in some review, on looked within the pages of some book, and turned away with an oppressed heart when I recollected, that at least for the present, books are a hidden treasure beyond my reach.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Ellis      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : 'Female Education. The Positive-the Possible'

'Do you take Chambers's Journal? The opening article I like very much, on that beautiful line from Keats, 'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever'; another of the leading articles pleased me greatly, as it so precisely coincides with my view of the question; it is on Female Education, and is really excellent and full of truth.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Ellis      Print: Serial / periodical

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'Off parade there was little enough to do. La Thieuloye was a desolate hole, a mere hamlet with hardly a shop for miles ... Our barn was a fine roomy one and we were quite comfortable there ... leaving our rifles and bulkier equipment in our places in the barn, we pitched a sort of camp in a field or orchard at the back of the barn and mainly lived out there ... the Bachelor's Debating Society continued to be in very good form and our time off parade was a jolly one. "G.R." [unidentified] was at this time supplying us with reading matter in the shape of Sheffield Telegraph threepenny novelettes, some of which caused considerable hilarity. Billy was much amused, in his perusal of one, to find the following brilliant epigram put in the mouth of one of the characters: "Misogyny covers a multitude of past indiscretions". As "G.R." had been giving vent to certain anti-feminist sentiments lately it pleased Billy to apply this saying to him and we pulled his leg by inventing a fairly lurid, Don Juan-ish past for our friend.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Geoffrey Ratcliff Husbands      Print: Newspaper

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [letters]

'When we returned to Mukalla from the East Indies there was more work than ever; the war meant a number of new regulations which had to be enforced including the censorship of letters. Every morning Muhammad Ba Matraf, the Residency interpreter, and I sat down to large batches of letters addressed to East Africa, India, Aden, or the East Indies. They were sad letters, mostly written on behalf of women whose husbands had left them penniless and to soften the heart of an errant husband they often included the footprint of a child he had perhaps never seen; but the letters were unlikely to be of interest to an enemy, though just occasionally there were remarks about local events which had to be cut out.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Doreen Ingrams      Manuscript: Letter

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [letter of introduction]

'The chief of the post, pushing his long hair out of his eyes and leaning on his gun, slowly read the address of my letter of introduction to the Governor at Alishtar. This letter was an "Open Sesame": its quite insignificant contents were luckily sealed up but the name on the envelope had already served to get me through the entanglements of the Nihavend police.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Manuscript: Letter

  

[Anon] [Anon] : The History of Alexander

'The Squire of Bijeno was a reader. We spent the evening over the history of Alexander and over '"Memoirs of the Boxer Rising", translated into Persian from the French - a strange waif of a book that I came upon again in a wild part of Luristan, amusing the leisure hours of a tribal chief.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : Memoirs of the Boxer Rising

'The Squire of Bijeno was a reader. We spent the evening over the history of Alexander and over "Memoirs of the Boxer Rising", translated into Persian from the French - a strange waif of a book that I came upon again in a wild part of Luristan, amusing the leisure hours of a tribal chief.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [notices posted on walls]

'Rutba is the palace planted in the wilderness when Aladdin's uncle rubbed the lamp; how else can it have got there? It is 200 empty miles from anywhere. It has beds to sleep in and waiters who spontaneously think of hot water. You walk into a room and dine on salmon mayonnaise and other refinements and read notices on the walls like those of an English club house in the country. The British, returning from summer leave, are all talking shop or shootings and look nice and clean.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Manuscript: Sheet, notices on walls

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'He had the daily paper folded under his arm with his forage cap or sidara, and his latchkey, as long and as heavy, and in fact an exact duplicate of mine, in his hand. Having climbed to my room, smoked a cigarette, drunk a cup of coffee and exchanged the news of the day, he would open the paper out upon my table and lead me, with many halts and interruptions, through the Baghdad journalist' flowers of invective, chiefly directed against our British crimes. It was the fashionable thing to be anti-British in Baghdad at the time.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Print: Newspaper

  

[Anon] [Anon] : Life of the Prophet Muhammad

'I lie contentedly enough, and amuse myself with a book which Qasim, seeing me in pain, has brought me in his kindness. It is his most treasured possession, a life of the Prophet in big lettering on rough paper, brown-black on brown-white, with flowered borders and headlines with the name of Allah, the author's name in a lunette at the top of every page, and the number of the page in a little flowered frame of its own on the margin. It gives one pleasure to handle anything done, even by mechanical means, with so much loving care. The book itself is written guilelessly, and tells the legends of Muhammad; how Amina, his mother, bore him without weight or discomfort, and in sleep saw the prophets month by month in turn, and in the last month the Prophet Jesus - for the substance of Muhammad, a drop from the River of Paradise, had been in the bodies of all the Prophets before him, beginning with Adam.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'In the evenings, if I have no one else below, I climb upstairs to sit in comfort except for mosquitoes - enormous creatures with white rings round their legs - that infest this region. Alinur, now recovered, is by the table with a book, in a comfortable domestic atmosphere; the Archaeologist is on a terrace in the distance, with 'Time and Tide' and the 'Spectator' (very old) strewn about her. A lantern on her right hand and the moon on her left illuminate the neat blouse, and grey hair whose brushed waves still keep a faint rebellious grace of girlhood.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Elinor Wight Gardner      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : Sirat al Mutawakkiliya

'I have a copyist now - a thin-faced student in a long gown who writes out for me the manuscript of the Sultan of Qatn for which I have no time: it is six hundred pages and tells, under red and green headings, the history of sixteenth century in Yemen. It is called the Sirat al Mutawakkiliya and was written in A.D. 1600, and in it are described scraps with the Ferangi (probably the Dutch) in the Red Sea, and a mission from Yemen to Abyssinia and news too of this land. Whether it is known or not in Europe I have no means of telling, but it is good enough in itself to be worth the copying, and it is a pleasure to perpetuate learning by this slow and ancient means. It is very expensive, for every two sheets of paper cost a quarter of a dollar (4 1/2d.), apart from the scribe's time; and it is difficult too to deal with, for none of the pages are numbered.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Manuscript: Codex, Arabic history of Yemen

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [inscriptions]

'In the evening all the boys came rushing excited to my terrace with baskets full of pots. They are rough and ugly, but they have pre-Islamic letters scratched on them, which will presumably help to date them: one has the word "mat" (he died), incised upon its edge.'

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown romance novel]

I was also pained but amused at the pink, paper- bound novels that went about: I asked my neighbour to read me a paragraph, and this was it: "'Good God,' said Susanna: 'what will my mother say when she hears that I have dropped my new eyelashes into the champagne?'"

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [book on South Arabia]

The people in the beds near me also kept quiet during the days before the operation, when I lay busily reading about South Arabia, and this delicacy I have always remembered with gratitude.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown book about Arabia]

I have been rather feeble and depressed all summer, and it will probably do a lot of good to walk about the hills of Arabia. I have been reading books about it and it sounds a good country though uncomfortable.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : Periplus of the Erythrean Sea

I am reading the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea (how much prettier a name than Red Sea): it was an old commercial chart by an unknown Greek of Alexandria in the first century - the first account of these shores, which the Arabian traders tried to keep wrapped in mystery so that Roman commerce should not enter. It is very pleasant to sit and read it on deck while the gulfs and bays unroll before one.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'Last night I sent a field service card just to let you know that I received the parcel alright on Sunday. It was packed very well. There was a lot of stuff in it, and it was quite exciting exploring it, which I did just before going to Church ... Now I must thank you for all the good things you have sent ... It is quiet here now. Not many patients in. One in our ward was shot in the side below the ribs, and the bullet is up in his neck. He was digging at the time in the dark. He is propped up in bed and quite cheerful, eating, reading and sleeping ... The Advertisers were interesting. I read them both yesterday afternoon, and all of young Corbishley's letters.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Anon Anon      Print: Unknown

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'Well, I have got another change. Am on night duty again, but among the officers. Have been doing it just a week ... It is 5.45 now and I will soon take a cup of tea to each patient. Then take water round for them to wash. At seven I finish. In the night I get an easy chair out of the sitting room and a book, and sit here in the small kitchen till a bell rings for me. Two Australian officers came in a night or two ago. One is a chaplain and now dangerously ill with bronchitis. I have to wear a clean white coat and look as clean as possible ... This job is all very well for a change, but I don't think I shall be satisfied with it for too long.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'This letter will probably not be finished this evening, for I am writing it in the YMCA hut at 6 o'clock and there is such a noise of chairs and tables being moved in preparation for a concert by men from a neighbouring hospital ... The piano is now playing and the hut is full. Am writing this on a book. The concert has begun ... Do you read much? I have taken it up a bit since I was sick and I've read some nice stories. It helps one forget troubles.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'Yesterday I was given half the day off. In the afternoon I went to my tent and lay down to read and sleep. In the evening I sat in the Salvation Army room and read, for it was raining, and being on "Fire Picket" this week, I am not allowed to leave the hospital vicinity.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'This afternoon I was off duty so got into my blankets at 1.45 and read a book until I fell asleep, and woke at 4.30.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'I would not, I could not, give up the rides and rambles that took up so much of my time, but I would try to overcome my disinclination to serious reading. There were plenty of books in the house — it was always a puzzle to me how we came to have so many. I was familiar with their appearance on the shelves — they had been before me since I first opened my eyes — their shape, size, colours, even their titles, and that was all I knew about them. A general Natural History and two little works by James Rennie on the habits and faculties of birds was all the literature suited to my wants in the entire collection of three or four hundred volumes. For the rest I had read a few story-books and novels: but we had no novels; when one came into the house it would be read and lent to our next neighbour five or six miles away, and he in turn would lend to another twenty miles further on, until it disappeared into space'. I made a beginning with Rollin's "Ancient History" in two huge quarto volumes; I fancy it was the large clear type and numerous plates [...] that determined my choice. Rollin the good old priest, opened a new, wonderful world to me, and instead of the tedious task I feared the reading would prove,it was as delightful as it had formerly been to listen to my brother's endless histories of imaginary heroes and their wars and adventures. Still athirst for history, after finishing Rollin I began fingering other works of that kind: there was Whiston's "Josephus", too ponderous a book to be held in the hands when read out of doors; and there was Gibbon in six stately volumes. I was not yet able to appreciate the lofty artificial style, and soon fell upon something better suited to my boyish taste in letters - a "History of Christianity" in, I think, sixteen or eighteen volumes of a convenient size. [...] These biographies sent me to another old book, "Leland on Revelation", which told me much I was curious to know about the mythologies and systems of philosophy of the ancients [...]. Next came Carlyle's "French Revolution", and at last Gibbon, and I was still deep in the "Decline and Fall" when disaster came to us, my father was practically ruined.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [An Answer to the Infidel]

'It was not strange in these circumstances [suffering from cardiac complications of rheumatic fever] that I became more and more absorbed in the religious literature of which we had a good deal on our bookshelves — theology, sermons, meditations for every day in the year, "The Whole Duty of Man", "A Call to the Unconverted", and many other old works of a similar character. Among these I found one entitled, if I remember rightly,"An Answer to the Infidel", and this work, which I took up eagerly in the expectation that it would allay those maddening doubts perpetually arising in my mind [...] reading one of the religious books entitled "The Saints Everlasting Rest" in which the pious author, Richard Baxter expatiates on and labours to make his readers realize the condition of the eternally damned [....]'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [Yemeni legends and tales]

I am reading some Yemeni legends and tales. One nice one about two rival doctors, a good and a bad one: the King said he would take as his family physician the one who succeeded in poisoning the other [summary of the tale follows]

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [British propaganda pamphlet (anti-Italian) in Arabic for distribution in Yemen]

I have been studying the little pamphlet [on the Arabs] in the train and feel that, though you have improved the language, the whole thing is so ineffective that it is not worth bothering about.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unidentified manuscript belonging to Saladin]

A delightful Persian in Basra, Mirza Muhammed, keeps — entirely for his own pleasure — a priceless collection of Persian and Arabian MSS. I can't tell you what a lovely morning I spent there. An MS. belonging to Saladin, with his name in it, an MS. of the 8th century A.D., and one stamped by the 4th Sultan of the family of Tamerlane — and such lovely illuminated pages in the later ones — treasures beyond price.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Manuscript: Codex

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unidentified manuscript of the 8th century A.D.]

A delightful Persian in Basra, Mirza Muhammed, keeps — entirely for his own pleasure — a priceless collection of Persian and Arabian MSS. I can't tell you what a lovely morning I spent there. An MS. belonging to Saladin, with his name in it, an MS. of the 8th century A.D., and one stamped by the 4th Sultan of the family of Tamerlane — and such lovely illuminated pages in the later ones — treasures beyond price.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Manuscript: Codex

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unidentified manuscript stamped by the 4th Timurid Sultan, Shahrukh Mirza (1377-1447)]

A delightful Persian in Basra, Mirza Muhammed, keeps — entirely for his own pleasure — a priceless collection of Persian and Arabian MSS. I can't tell you what a lovely morning I spent there. An MS. belonging to Saladin, with his name in it, an MS. of the 8th century A.D., and one stamped by the 4th Sultan of the family of Tamerlane — and such lovely illuminated pages in the later ones — treasures beyond price.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Manuscript: Codex, illuminated manuscript

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [intelligence reports from Abyssinia]

We went to St. Tropez to see my Alsatian friends and pushed on to lunch at Paradou, and found A. Besse very cheerful with 7 ladies (including ourselves) around him, therefore fully in his element [...] spent the afternoon reading accounts from his agents in Abyssinia which made me quite sick almost physically.

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unidentified Yemeni manuscripts]

I sat on my roof and went on with my manuscripts, distracted by bevies of women wanting medicines for what they call 'wind', i.e. pains from sitting in their perpetual draughts with no clothes under their gowns. The manuscripts are pleasant to read here: all the raids and battles, talk of the places I know, and the turbulent medieval life rises vivid before one.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Manuscript: Unknown

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unidentified Yemen manuscript]

I am getting hold of a copyist as there are various exciting manuscripts here and I can't deal with all myself. I have nearly finished one and it is full of useful information — for instance it gives the date when the old Himyaritic ruin we went to see east of Tarim was renovated by the Arabs and finally ruined.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Manuscript: Unknown

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'By the time my wife goes to bed at 9 or soon after, I feel too tired to do anything except sit by the fire and read a little poetry, then go to bed myself—without doing any work or answering a letter.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'...and in the little bays I have damaged myself on rocks. I had been reading there on a cliff seat I constructed for about 5 hours on Sunday afternoon, when I woke up to the knowledge that the tide had cut me off; of course I had chosen a place where the cliff was climable (?), but it took rather long with all my books in my hand.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edward Lawrence      Print: Book, 'books' 'with all my books in my hand'

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'To fill up this rather mixed letter I will give you a sketch of one of my days here. I wake at 7. and get up at 7.30. At eight I take "petit dejuner", and after inspecting my bicycle I read and write till a few minutes to twelve'.

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edward Lawrence      

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'"The day was fair and sunny, sea and sky "Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind "Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves." I went to my seat on the cliff and read; beneath this projecting rock the sea "On bare black pointed islets ever beats "With heaving surge."' [The quotation however is 'On black bare pointed islets ever beat / With sluggish surge']. 'As I have started giving quotations you will have to endure more, or burn the letter [...] I reached there before two today and stayed till seven. I think an August afternoon is the best time of the year...'

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edward Lawrence      

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'While walking about there before continuing my reading I fell into a little lake, between two rocks, and I wet all my legs. It was "A still salt pool, locked in with bars of sand "Left on the shore." [Quoted from "The Palace of Art", Tennyson] From my reading desk "I see the waves upon the shore "Like Light dissolved in star-showers thrown."'[Quoted from "Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples", Shelley]. '...I have got into the habit of quoting any appropriate lines to myself, and this time I thought I would put them on record'.

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edward Lawrence      

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [guide book]

'I rode to Montbard...and thence here, which is a tiny village about 15 miles from Vezelay "the grandest Norman church in Europe" (or outside it I presume) the guide-books all sing in chorus. I'll let you know tomorrow about that'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edward Lawrence      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown Arabic language primer]

I sat at my table and studied verbs and nouns, wrapped in more clothes than I wore to climb the Matterhorn, and looked with a wary eye at the sunshine outside, dazzling and hard, and able to freeze one to the bone. In spite of this inclemency, I flourished, attended to by Mlle Rose with the same care as that which she devoted to her begonias; they flowered in the middle of the winter on her marble floor.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

I am grateful for the leisure of my years, whether voluntary or enforced — for long stretches of sickness or of holiday, and also for small snippets like those produced by the habit of dressing for the evening. It meant a casting away as it were of the day's business. After dinner, in Asolo, Herbert Young would read aloud while we embroidered; later on, he and my mother took to bridge; and in any case all solitary activities were laid aside and a sort of emptiness built around the folding of the day.

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

I am grateful for the leisure of my years, whether voluntary or enforced — for long stretches of sickness or of holiday, and also for small snippets like those produced by the habit of dressing for the evening. It meant a casting away as it were of the day's business. After dinner, in Asolo, Herbert Young would read aloud while we embroidered; later on, he and my mother took to bridge; and in any case all solitary activities were laid aside and a sort of emptiness built around the folding of the day.

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Flora Stark      

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

I am grateful for the leisure of my years, whether voluntary or enforced — for long stretches of sickness or of holiday, and also for small snippets like those produced by the habit of dressing for the evening. It meant a casting away as it were of the day's business. After dinner, in Asolo, Herbert Young would read aloud while we embroidered; later on, he and my mother took to bridge; and in any case all solitary activities were laid aside and a sort of emptiness built around the folding of the day.

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Young      

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [biography of Robert E. Lee]

'I have lately re-read here the complete works of Conrad and Henry James and am engaged on reading all the books of Stephen Crane that I can lay my hands on—for the to me astounding fact is that the works of these three writers are here out of print and practically unobtainable, such being glory! I had to borrow the Conrad and James from Doubleday and Scribner's respectively and Knopf has only been able to lend me Crane’s "George's Mother". . . after ringing up more than twenty new and second hand booksellers. Of Conrad I was most re-impressed by "Under Western Eyes", "Nostromo" and the "Secret Agent"; of James the "Spoils of Poynton", the "Wings of the Dove", the "Turn of the Screw" and a dozen short stories. I have also been reading during a fortnight in Tennessee from which I have just returned, the "Agricultural Census" of the United States, several lives of Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Boone, Crockett and minor Southern Notabilities, the new (as yet unpublished) volume of poems by Allen Tate; the new (as yet unpublished) novel of Robert Penn Warren—both these admirable; and a number of other works in ms. Of lately published work I have vivid recollections of and admiration for “Aleck Maury, Sportsman”, by Caroline Gordon, “Act of Darkness” by John Peale Bishop,” Walls Against the Wind” by Frances Park, “Little Candle’s Beam” by Isa Glenn and Graham Greene’s “It’s a Battlefield” and Arnold Gingrich’s “Cast Down the Laurel”.' [Ford then indicates his intended shipboard reading between New York and Naples on the S.S. "Roma" including Crane and W. H. Hudson over the next week or so.]

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [biography of Stonewall Jackson]

'I have lately re-read here the complete works of Conrad and Henry James and am engaged on reading all the books of Stephen Crane that I can lay my hands on—for the to me astounding fact is that the works of these three writers are here out of print and practically unobtainable, such being glory! I had to borrow the Conrad and James from Doubleday and Scribner's respectively and Knopf has only been able to lend me Crane’s "George's Mother". . . after ringing up more than twenty new and second hand booksellers. Of Conrad I was most re-impressed by "Under Western Eyes", "Nostromo" and the "Secret Agent"; of James the "Spoils of Poynton", the "Wings of the Dove", the "Turn of the Screw" and a dozen short stories. I have also been reading during a fortnight in Tennessee from which I have just returned, the "Agricultural Census" of the United States, several lives of Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Boone, Crockett and minor Southern Notabilities, the new (as yet unpublished) volume of poems by Allen Tate; the new (as yet unpublished) novel of Robert Penn Warren—both these admirable; and a number of other works in ms. Of lately published work I have vivid recollections of and admiration for “Aleck Maury, Sportsman”, by Caroline Gordon, “Act of Darkness” by John Peale Bishop,” Walls Against the Wind” by Frances Park, “Little Candle’s Beam” by Isa Glenn and Graham Greene’s “It’s a Battlefield” and Arnold Gingrich’s “Cast Down the Laurel”.' [Ford then indicates his intended shipboard reading between New York and Naples on the S.S. "Roma" including Crane and W. H. Hudson over the next week or so.]

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [biography of Davy Crockett]

'I have lately re-read here the complete works of Conrad and Henry James and am engaged on reading all the books of Stephen Crane that I can lay my hands on—for the to me astounding fact is that the works of these three writers are here out of print and practically unobtainable, such being glory! I had to borrow the Conrad and James from Doubleday and Scribner's respectively and Knopf has only been able to lend me Crane’s "George's Mother". . . after ringing up more than twenty new and second hand booksellers. Of Conrad I was most re-impressed by "Under Western Eyes", "Nostromo" and the "Secret Agent"; of James the "Spoils of Poynton", the "Wings of the Dove", the "Turn of the Screw" and a dozen short stories. I have also been reading during a fortnight in Tennessee from which I have just returned, the "Agricultural Census" of the United States, several lives of Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Boone, Crockett and minor Southern Notabilities, the new (as yet unpublished) volume of poems by Allen Tate; the new (as yet unpublished) novel of Robert Penn Warren—both these admirable; and a number of other works in ms. Of lately published work I have vivid recollections of and admiration for “Aleck Maury, Sportsman”, by Caroline Gordon, “Act of Darkness” by John Peale Bishop,” Walls Against the Wind” by Frances Park, “Little Candle’s Beam” by Isa Glenn and Graham Greene’s “It’s a Battlefield” and Arnold Gingrich’s “Cast Down the Laurel”.' [Ford then indicates his intended shipboard reading between New York and Naples on the S.S. "Roma" including Crane and W. H. Hudson over the next week or so.]

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [biography of Daniel Boone]

'I have lately re-read here the complete works of Conrad and Henry James and am engaged on reading all the books of Stephen Crane that I can lay my hands on—for the to me astounding fact is that the works of these three writers are here out of print and practically unobtainable, such being glory! I had to borrow the Conrad and James from Doubleday and Scribner's respectively and Knopf has only been able to lend me Crane’s "George's Mother". . . after ringing up more than twenty new and second hand booksellers. Of Conrad I was most re-impressed by "Under Western Eyes", "Nostromo" and the "Secret Agent"; of James the "Spoils of Poynton", the "Wings of the Dove", the "Turn of the Screw" and a dozen short stories. I have also been reading during a fortnight in Tennessee from which I have just returned, the "Agricultural Census" of the United States, several lives of Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Boone, Crockett and minor Southern Notabilities, the new (as yet unpublished) volume of poems by Allen Tate; the new (as yet unpublished) novel of Robert Penn Warren—both these admirable; and a number of other works in ms. Of lately published work I have vivid recollections of and admiration for “Aleck Maury, Sportsman”, by Caroline Gordon, “Act of Darkness” by John Peale Bishop,” Walls Against the Wind” by Frances Park, “Little Candle’s Beam” by Isa Glenn and Graham Greene’s “It’s a Battlefield” and Arnold Gingrich’s “Cast Down the Laurel”.' [Ford then indicates his intended shipboard reading between New York and Naples on the S.S. "Roma" including Crane and W. H. Hudson over the next week or so.]

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [Notes on Colossians]

'Notes on Colossians'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good      Print: Unknown

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [Notes on Thessalonians]

'Notes on Thessalonians'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good      Print: Unknown

  

[Anon] [Anon] : La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes

'David Watson, M.A. of St. Andrews University, used to spend every spare moment of his day and whole Sundays on end with this writer [Ford] standing beside him at his pulpit and construing for him every imaginable kind of book from “Ataxerxes” of Madame de Scudéry and “Les Enfants de [sic] Capitaine Grant” by Jules Verne, to ode after ode of Tibullus, Fouqué’s “Udine”, all of the “Inferno”, the greater part of “Lazarillo de Tormes” and “Don Quixote” in the original[…] In addition, Mr. Watson had this writer translate for him orally into French “The Two Admirals”, “The Deerslayer”, and “The Last of the Mohicans”—which made this writer appreciate what a magnificent prose writer Cooper was.’

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford      Print: Book

  

[Anon] [Anon] : [unknown]

'Lottie's kind of reading, though I could manage it, was not mine; it was usually fiction conducive of the domestic virtues. At the club, my father discovered a number of volumes which to me were very heaven. The author was Jules Verne. I was quite convinced that he told the truth, and in The Mysterious Island (with an organ on a submarine) I lived in perfect joy and felicity. [...] He eclipsed Marryat and Ballantyne and Kingston for me; and Henty never fully caught my attention.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Margaret Blunden      Print: Book

  

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