'Milton established a habit of serious reading, which brought Bamford to Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, the great poets, classic histories and voyages, and ultimately William Cobbett's Political Register'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'[Garratt] spent his free evenings in Birmingham's Central Free Library reading Homer, Epitectus, Longius and Plato's Dialogues, a classical education which further undermined his confidence in the status quo: "I began to wonder in what way we had advanced from the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome". In the First World War, he took Palgrave's Golden Treasury with him to France and wrote his own verses in the trenches'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: V.W. Garratt Print: Book
'As a boy, stonemason Hugh Miller first learned to appreciate the pleasures of literature in the "most delightful of all narratives - the story of Joseph. Was there ever such a discovery made before! I actually found out for myself that the art of reading is the art of finding stories in books, and from that moment reading became one of the most delightful of my amusements". Once Miller had learned to read Scripture as a story, he soon found similar and equally gripping tales in chapbooks of Jack the Giant Killer, Sinbad the Sailor, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. And then, he recalled, from fairy tales "I passed on, without being conscious of break or line of division, to books on which the learned are content to write commentaries and dissertations, but which I found to be quite as nice children's books as any of the others": Pope's Iliad and Odyssey. "With what power, and at how early an age, true genius impresses!"'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hugh Miller Print: Book
'As a boy, stonemason Hugh Miller first learned to appreciate the pleasures of literature in the "most delightful of all narratives - the story of Joseph. Was there ever such a discovery made before! I actually found out for myself that the art of reading is the art of finding stories in books, and from that moment reading became one of the most delightful of my amusements". Once Miller had learned to read Scripture as a story, he soon found similar and equally gripping tales in chapbooks of Jack the Giant Killer, Sinbad the Sailor, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. And then, he recalled, from fairy tales "I passed on, without being conscious of break or line of division, to books on which the learned are content to write commentaries and dissertations, but which I found to be quite as nice children's books as any of the others": Pope's Iliad and Odyssey. "With what power, and at how early an age, true genius impresses!"'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hugh Miller Print: Book
" ... it was whilst at a frivolous, rote-learning girls' school that ... [Frances Power Cobbe] developed her determined, methodical aproach [to reading] ... She read all the Faerie Queene, all of Milton's poetry, the Divina Commedia and Gerusalemme Liberata in the originals, and in translation the Iliad, Odyssey, Aenied, Pharsalia, and ... [nearly all] of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes, Ovid, Tacitus, Xenophon, Herodotus and Thucydides."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Power Cobbe Print: Book
" ... it was whilst at a frivolous, rote-learning girls' school that ... [Frances Power Cobbe] developed her determined, methodical aproach [to reading] ... She read all the Faerie Queene, all of Milton's poetry, the Divina Commedia and Gerusalemme Liberata in the originals, and in translation the Iliad, Odyssey, Aenied, Pharsalia, and ... [nearly all] of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes, Ovid, Tacitus, Xenophon, Herodotus and Thucydides."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Power Cobbe Print: Book
"Emmeline Pankhurst (b. 1858) emphasized the value of her childhood reading in forming her guiding principles. Uncle Tom's Cabin fused with talk of bazaars, relief funds, and subscriptions in her Manchester home to awaken first an admiration for fighting spirit and heroic sacrifice, and then an appreciation of a gentler, restorative spirit ... other favourite childhood books which remained a lifelong source of inspiration ... [were]: Pilgrim's Progress and The Holy War, the Odyssey, and Carlyle's French Revolution. Her interest in politics she traced to reading the paper aloud to her father."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emmeline Pankhurst Print: Book
'Stella Davies's father would read to his children from the Bible, "Pilgrim's Progress", Walter Scott, Longfellow, Tennyson, Dickens, "The Cloister and the Hearth", and Pope's translation of the "Iliad", though not in their entirety: "Extracts suitable to our ages were read and explained and, when we younger ones had been packed off to bed, more serious and inclusive reading would begin... We younger ones often dipped into books farf beyond our understanding. It did us no harm, I believe, for we skipped a lot and took what we could from the rest".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Stella Davies Print: Book
'The essays of Steele and Addison, whose prose has so greatly influenced his own, seem to have impressed but, at this time, not moved him. Likewise, Pope, whose translation of the Odyssey found the young reader "by no means skilled enough to perceive the perfection of much of the verse" - "But I found the story worth the trouble", Masefield adds'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Masefield Print: Book
'[Uncle William] read everything: all the classic works in all the languages he had ever known, or not quite forgotten: Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian; a bit of each every day; and when he was late for dinner, it was always because he was "just finishing a paragraph". He was very shy about it, and would be caught hiding Homer under a pile of papers, and have to be gently coaxed out into the open to talk about him. "Fine fellow, old Homer", he would say; or "Fine fellow, old Go-eethe"'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Darwin Print: Book
'I admire you for what you say of the fierce fighting "Iliad"... I am afraid this poem, noble as it truly is, has done infinite mischief for a series of ages; since to it, and its copy the "Eneid", is owing, in a great measure, the savage spirit that has actuated, from the earliest ages to this time, the fighting fellows that, worse than lions or tigers, have ravaged the earth, and made it a field of blood'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Richardson Print: Book
'We are reading in the evenings now, Sydney Smith's letters, Boswell, Whewell's History of Inductive Sciences, the Odyssey and occasionally Heine's Reisebilder. I began the second Book of the Iliad in Greek this morning'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'We are reading in the evenings now, Sydney Smith's letters, Boswell, Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences", "the Odyssey" and occasionally Heine's "Reisebilder". I began the second Book of "the Iliad" in Greek this morning'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
Mary Berry to Mrs Cholmeley, Thursday 23 May 1799: 'I began Homer's Iliad on Wednesday last, to my no small delight, and felt no particular difficulty in the comprehension of the first doz. lines'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Print: Book
Mary Berry, Journal, 14 March 1808: 'Began reading the "Odyssey" of Homer in Pope's translation. Delighted with it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Print: Book
'The marginalia [dating from late 1570s-c.1608] on fol.3v [of Lodovico Domenichi, "Facetie, motti et burle, di diversi signori et persone private" (1571)] record Eutrapelus's [i.e Gabriel Harvey's] reading:
'"What kinds of unique authors does Eutrapelus read daily? Eunapius, with Tacitus, Philostratus with Julian, Zwinger's "Theatre" with Gandino, Bartas with Rabelais, Theocritus's "Idyll I" with the epitaphs of Bion and Adonis. Three heroic shields (Homer, Hesiod, Virgil) with the "seventh day" of Bartas, Solomon's "Song of Songs" with the Behemoth of Job and the Leviathan"' (translated from Latin).
Century: 1500-1599 / 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
'Wednesday July 26th. [...] Read 1 Book of Pope's Homer's Iliad.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Friday July 28th. [...] Read 2 Books of Pope's Homer's Iliad.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday July 29th. [...] Read Book IV of Iliad.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday July 30th. [...] read [...] half the V Book of the Iliad.
[...]
'Monday [...] July 31st. [...] Finish the V Book of the Iliad.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday August 19th. [...] Do a Latin exercise from the Odyssey.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
Edward Moulton-Barrett to his sister Elizabeth Barrett, letter postmarked 8 March 1823:
'We are now doing Cicero in the evening instead of doing Homer both morning and evening.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Moulton-Barrett and boys at Charterhouse Print: Book
'Homer I adore as more than human and I never read Popes fine translation without feeling exalted above my self'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'At 7 [...] I read the History of England and Rome -- at 8 I perused the History of Greece and
it was at this age that I first found real delight in poetry -- "The Minstrel" Popes "Iliad"[,]
some parts of the "Odyssey" passages from "Paradise lost" selected by my dearest Mama and
some of Shakespeares plays among which were "The Tempest," "Othello," and a few historical
dramatic pieces constituted my studies!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'At 7 [...] I read the History of England and Rome -- at 8 I perused the History of Greece and
it was at this age that I first found real delight in poetry -- "The Minstrel" Popes "Iliad"[,]
some parts of the "Odyssey" passages from "Paradise lost" selected by my dearest Mama and
some of Shakespeares plays among which were "The Tempest," "Othello," and a few historical
dramatic pieces constituted my studies!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'During these eight months [of striving for literary fame, aged eleven] I never felt myself of
ore consequence or had a better opinion of my own talents -- In short I was in infinite danger
of being as vain as I was inexperienced! During this dangerous period I was from home & the
fever of a heated imagination was perhaps increased by the intoxicating gai[e]ties of a
watering place Ramsgate where we then were and where I commenced my poem "The Battle
of Marathon" [...] When we came home one day after having written a page of poetry which I
considered models of beauty I ran downstairs to the library to seek Popes Homer in order to
compare them that I might enjoy my OWN SUPERIORITY [...] I brought Homer up in triumph &
read first my own Poem & afterwards began to compare -- I read fifty lines from the glorious
Father of the lyre -- It was enough -- I felt the whole extent of my own immense & mortifying
inferiority --
'My first impulse was to throw with mingled feelings of contempt & anguish my composition on
the floor -- my next to burst into tears! & I wept for an hour and then returned to reason and
humility [...] From this period for a twelvemonth I could find no pleasure in any book but
Homer. I read & longed to read again and tho I had it nearly by heart I still found new
beauties & fresh enchantments'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'During these eight months [of striving for literary fame, aged eleven] I never felt myself of ore consequence or had a better opinion of my own talents -- In short I was in infinite danger of being as vain as I was inexperienced! During this dangerous period I was from home & the fever of a heated imagination was perhaps increased by the intoxicating gai[e]ties of a watering place Ramsgate where we then were and where I commenced my poem "The Battle of Marathon" [...] When we came home one day after having written a page of poetry which I
considered models of beauty I ran downstairs to the library to seek Popes Homer in order to compare them that I might enjoy my OWN SUPERIORITY [...] I brought Homer up in triumph & read first my own Poem & afterwards began to compare -- I read fifty lines from the glorious Father of the lyre -- It was enough -- I felt the whole extent of my own immense & mortifying inferiority --
'My first impulse was to throw with mingled feelings of contempt & anguish my composition on the floor -- my next to burst into tears! & I wept for an hour and then returned to reason and humility [...] From this period for a twelvemonth I could find no pleasure in any book but Homer. I read & longed to read again and tho I had it nearly by heart I still found new beauties & fresh enchantments'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'This year [when aged twelve] I read Milton for the first time [italics]thro[end italics] together
with Shakespeare & Pope's Homer [...] I now read to gain idea's [sic] not to indulge my fancy and I
studied the works of those critics whose attention was directed to my favorite authors.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'At this period [aged thirteen] I perused all modern authors who had any claim to superior merit & poetic excellence. I was familiar with Shakespeare Milton Homer and Virgil Locke Hooker Pope -- I read Homer in the original with delight inexpressible together with Virgil.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 24 March 1832:
'When I had Payne Knight here, I took the trouble of counting the number of lines he has thought
proper to leave out of his Homer. If I make no mistake, about 2500 lines are left out of his
Iliad, and 1926, out of his Odyssey. Is not this atrox [horrible]?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Friday 27 November 1936, following lunch at Claridges with others including Sir Ronald Storrs: 'Sir R. Storrs. [...] stolid, second rate, a snob, & very vain [...] Reads seasonally: Dante: Homer: Shakespeare.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'Throughout the autumn and winter evenings [of 1854] he [Alfred Tennyson] translated aloud to my mother the sixth Aeneid of Virgil and Homer's description of Hades, and they read Dante's Inferno together. Whewell's Plurality of Worlds he also carefully studied. "It is to me anything," he writes, "but a satisfactory book. It is inconceivable that the whole Universe was created merely for us who live in this third-rate planet of a third-rate sun."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'During the winter evenings of 1855 my father would translate the Odyssey aloud into Biblical prose for my mother, who writes, "Thus I get as much as it is possible to have of the true spirit of the original."'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'In the summer of 1861 we travelled in Auvergne and the Pyrenees [...] At Mont Dore, while my father was reading some of the Iliad out aloud to us, little boys came and stood outside the window in open-mouthed astonishment.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
Many MS dates of reading incl. "Began reading the Odyssey in summer of 1902, continued it during summer of 1903."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Otto Trevelyan Print: Book
From Hallam Tennyson's account of 'My Father's Illness [1888]':
'He read or had read to him at this time the following books or essays: Leaf's edition of the Iliad; the Iphigenia of Aulis, expressing "wonder at its modernness"; Matthew Arnold on Tolstoi; Fiske's Destiny of Man; Gibbon's History, especially praising the Fall of Constantinople; Keats [sic] poems; Wordsworth's "Recluse." Of this last he said: "I like the passages which have been published before, such as that about the dance of a flock of birds, driven by a thoughtless impulse [...]"
'He often looked at his Virgil, more than ever delighting in what he called "that splendid end of the second Georgic."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
From Hallam Tennyson's journal (1890-91):
'March 17th. [1890] He [Tennyson] had all but recovered from his influenza, and sat in the sun in front of the study window, and read Jebb's Homer'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Hallam Tennyson Print: Book
From F. T. Palgrave's 'Personal Recollections' of Tennyson:
'Often, I believe, as life advanced, he would renew earlier familiarity with the great poets of all time [...] Thus a portable copy of Homer which some friend had given him he had in his hands on our Cornish journey (1860), and kept sitting down to read as we wandered over a wild rock-island in the Scillies.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'Annabella was now [in 1812] reading Cowper's Iliad and annotating every second line; she was studying Alfieri with the family-solicitor's daughter; for relaxation condescending to Evelina. In Evelina she was disappointed [...] There was study of Southey, Wordsworth and Coleridge as well, for everyone was reading them'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella Milbanke Print: Book
'Every available evening I spent in the reference room [at Birmingham Central Library], searching for books which put me in company with the literary giants of the past. The Iliad and Odyssey, the advice of Epictetus, the principles of Longinus and the logic of the Dialogues of Plato I studied with particular relish for their wisdom seemed to be capable of modern application.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vero Walter Garratt Print: Book
'Every available evening I spent in the reference room [at Birmingham Central Library], searching for books which put me in company with the literary giants of the past. The Iliad and Odyssey, the advice of Epictetus, the principles of Longinus and the logic of the Dialogues of Plato I studied with particular relish for their wisdom seemed to be capable of modern application.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vero Walter Garratt Print: Book
'...what do you think Mitford's 'Greece' has made me begin, the 'Iliad' by Cowper which we were talking of.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Darwin Print: Book
