'My father is now reading the Midnight Bell, which he has got from the library, and mother sitting by the fire.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: George Austen Print: Book
'Pray tell him [Mr Kinglake] that I have been an admirer of his for - Heaven knows how long! - since the days when I was shocked and delighted by "Eothen." I remember being very much amused by the opening out of two old neighbours of mine at Ealing, after a discussion of his first volume. In the enthusiasm created by it one of them, an old Peninsular officer, instructed me carefully how to make a pontoon bridge and get my (!) troops over it; while the other, Admiral Collinson, burst forth into naval experiences.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Oliphant Print: Book
'There is a novel not very long published by a Mr Allardyce called the "City of Sunshine", entirely about Indian (not Anglo-Indian) life, which gives a very fine picture of an old Mohammedan officer in the old sepoy army. It is a very clever book. I don't know if it would interest you, who have the real thing under your eyes, as much as it interests us, or I would put it into the next box that is sent.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Oliphant Print: Book
'I think very highly of Daudet as a novelist, but I know nothing of him personally.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Oliphant Print: Book
'Austen read especially novels by women, including Mary Brunton, Frances and Sarah Harriet Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Charlotte Lennox, Lady Morgan, Ann Radcliffe, Regina Maria Roche, Charlotte Smith, Jane West, Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins and Hannah More. She also, apparently, read the fiction of the Lady's Magazine, deriving names, Willoughby, Brandon, Knightley, from it, but correcting its "monological" discourse'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Book
'She enjoyed comic didactic novels, with Lennox's "The Female Quixote" and Barrett's "The Heroine" being especially admired..., both satires on female misreading which shaped her fullest treatment of the subject in "Northanger Abey".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Book
'Susan Sibbald knew Scottish shepherd Wully Carruthers who was a fellow-subscriber to the circulating library at Melrose, but while she borrowed Ann Radcliffe, he read "Ancient and Modern History", though he did sometimes read a "novel or nonsense buke", like "Sir Charles Grandison". He had also read Alan Ramsay's "The Gentle Shepherd", and contrasted it ironically with the life of a real shepherd.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Wully Carruthers Print: Book
'Susan Sibbald knew Scottish shepherd Wully Carruthers who was a fellow-subscriber to the circulating library at Melrose, but while she borrowed Ann Radcliffe, he read "Ancient and Modern History", though he did sometimes read a "novel or nonsense buke", like "Sir Charles Grandison". He had also read Alan Ramsay's "The Gentle Shepherd", and contrasted it ironically with the life of a real shepherd.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Susan Sibbald Print: Book
'Princess Charlotte wrote of reading as a "great passion"; in a poignant attempt to construct bourgeois domestic intimacy in the dysfunctional household of the divorced Prince Regent she discussed and exchanged books with her friend Margaret Mercer Elphinstone, including memoirs and recent history, Byron's poems, and novels including Gothic fiction and works by Anne Plumptre and Jane Austen. (The perceptive Charlotte especially enjoyed "Sense and Sensibility" because she discerned in herself"the same imprudence" as Marianne's).'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Princess Charlotte Print: Book
'Weeton's reading becomes important in communication with friends, but also a point of conflict: when she visits her brother and his wife, they complain that she spends all her time reading, though she insists that she read very little ("only... Gil Blas, now and then a newspaper, two or three of Lady M. W. Montagu's letters, and few pages in a magazine'), and only because her hosts rose so late. Since her literacy is important as a sign of status, she repeatedly presents herself not as a reader of low status texts like novels but of travels, education works, memoirs and letters, including Boswell's "Tour of the Hebrides", the Travels of Mungo Park, and Mme de Genlis' work. She approves some novels, like Hamilton's "The Cottagers of Glenburnie", but generally finds them a "dangerous, facinating kind of amusement" which "destroy all relish for useful, instructive studies'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Ellen Weeton Print: Book
'Weeton's reading becomes important in communication with friends, but also a point of conflict: when she visits her brother and his wife, they complain that she spends all her time reading, though she insists that she read very little ("only... Gil Blas, now and then a newspaper, two or three of Lady M. W. Montagu's letters, and few pages in a magazine'), and only because her hosts rose so late. Since her literacy is important as a sign of status, she repeatedly presents herself not as a reader of low status texts like novels but of travels, education works, memoirs and letters, including Boswell's "Tour of the Hebrides", the Travels of Mungo Park, and Mme de Genlis' work. She approves some novels, like Hamilton's "The Cottagers of Glenburnie", but generally finds them a "dangerous, facinating kind of amusement" which "destroy all relish for useful, instructive studies'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Ellen Weeton Print: Book
'Yesterday my Elizabeth and I went to the most remarkable poets' Reading I have ever attended. It was held at Lord Byron's beautiful house in Piccadilly... I was moved by Mr de la Mare reading five poems of great beauty. Elizabeth was thrilled at seeing for the first time W.H. Davies, a strange tiny poet. He read "Love's Silent Hour" and three others. Hilary [Hilaire Belloc] read "The Poor of London" and "the Dons". He got a big reception'.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Davies
'The son of a Methodist farm worker, he studied Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and "The Two Covenants".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Mayett Print: Book
transcript of the poem headed 'to mary'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Groom
transcript of the poem headed 'winter / bernard barton'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Groom
transcript of the poem headed 'the joy / addressed to a young friend / by bernard barton'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Groom
'To Time' 'In Fancy's eye, what an extended span / ...' 'Clare'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: E.E.R. Print: Book
'On Taste' 'Taste is from Heaven /...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: E.E.R. Print: Book
'On Taste' 'Taste is from Heaven /...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: E.E.R. Print: Book
'Life' 'Life thou art misery, or as such to me...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: E.E.R. Print: Book
'Sorrows for a Friend' 'O ye brown old oaks that spread the silent wood...' 'Clare'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: E.E.R. Print: Book
'I have cast up my reading account, and brought it to the end of the year 1835. [?] During the last thirteen months I have read Aeschylus twice; Sophocles twice; Euripides once; Pindar twice; Callimachus; Apollonius Rhodius; Quintus Calaber; Theocritus twice; Herodotus; Thucydides; almost all Xenophon?s works; almost all Plato; Aristotle?s Politics, and a good deal of his Organon, besides dipping elsewhere in him; the whole of Plutarch?s Lives; about half of Lucian; two or three books of Athenaeus; Plautus twice; Terence twice; Lucretius twice; Catullus; Tibullus; Propertius; Lucan; Statius; Silius Italicus; Livy; Velleius Paterculus; Sallust; Caesar; and, lastly, Cicero. I have, indeed, still a little of Cicero left; but I shall finish him in a few days. I am now deep in Aristophanes and Lucian.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
'Lines written in the first leaf of a friends Album' 'Bernard Barton' 'The Warrior is[pleased?] when the war is won ....'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Dugdale
'Remember Me! By Bernard Barton Esq' ' "Remember me!" However brief / Those simple words... [transcribes text]'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Dugdale
'Farewell' 'Nay [shy] not from the word "Farewell"! / As if twer friendships knell ...' 'Bernard Barton' [transcribes text]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Dugdale
'Early Rising' 'Just at the early peep of dawn...' [transcribes text] 'Clare'.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Dugdale
'The Heaven was Cloudless' [transcript of poem, no author given]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Groom
'Violets. a Sonnet / Bernard Barton' 'Beautiful are you in your lowliness/...[transcript of poem]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Groom
Read with much delight and instruction the Baroness De Stael's Germany
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: I.G. Print: Book
'Our parents had accumulated a large number of books, which we were allowed to browse in as much as we liked.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Vivian (Molly) Hughes Print: Book
'Our parents had accumulated a large number of books, which we were allowed to browse in as much as we liked.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Vivian (Molly) Hughes Print: Book
'Charles was reading Hans Andersen: I wanted the book, asked for it, fussed for it, and finally broke into tears.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Thomas Print: Book
After dinner, summerhouse, read the Life of Count Venivill - silly.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Read after supper the contempt of the clergy.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Summerhouse reading 'contempt of the clergy' till 1/2 past 5.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Summerhouse and garden till past 8, cutting shift neck and reading 'The Grounds of the Contempt of the Clergy' by Eachard; a book with much truth and much witt, but too ludicrase I think for the subject. It belongs to our [Quaker] Landlady.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
After dinner 1 hour reading 'Contempt of the Clergy'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Mary read to me a little before dinner, (which she does tolerable); 'Cyrus' a Romance. I wound silk.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Stancliff Print: Book
Lay till near 11. Mary read 'cyrus', I winding silk.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Stancliff Print: Book
Sup'd alone. Read 'The Sophy', a play of Sir J Deham's.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Read 'The travells of Cyrus' after supper.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Din'd in own room alone... Read 'A Journy to London', Sir J Vanburg's -part of what is made 'The Provoked Husband' by Cibber, vastly mended by him I think.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Play'd tunes in 'The Beggars Opera' 2 hours after dinner.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Home past 9. Supper alone, Read 'Cyrus', Bed 12.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Rise at 10. Mary read 'Cyrus'. Knited [knitted] till 7.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Stancliff Print: Book
Took Phisick. Rise at 10. Mary read Cyrus.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Stancliff Print: Book
Took phisick. Mary read Cyrus.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Stancliff Print: Book
Tuned harpsichord and play'd some of Beggars Opera songs after supper alone.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Mrs Newton, Lady Palmerston, Lady Clavering and 2 daughters (great fortunes), and 3 Mrs Fox's here. While the last 2 were here, and Mrs D'Enly alone in Mother's room, I read 'The Beggar's Opera' to them in intervals before and after supper.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Read... "The Beautifull Pyrate".
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Tent all day light. Read Ugania [?] and Bajesett. Bed past 11.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Read after supper 'The Noble Slaves'. Bed 12.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
'Life of Count De Venivill' after supper. Bed near 12.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Home past 9 almost starv'd to death...Read 'Gill Blas'. Bed 12.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Home near 11. 'Gil Blass'. Bed past 12.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Home past 10. 'Noble Slaves'. Bed past 12.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Made an end of 'Gil Blas'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Read 'travells of Cyrus' alone 2 1/2 hours. A fine book. Bed near 12.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
I finished Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd", and with some parts have been much pleased - the Scotch is interesting to me from not being acquainted with it.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Horrocks Ainsworth Print: Book
'Laurence Oliphant's sketches of the Druse villages are delightful, but his philosophy is something too tremendous. I am making the most prodigious effort to understand his book, but I have to catch hold of the furniture after a few pages to keep myself from turning round and round, and yet the absorption of such a man of the world as he is in a religious idea has something very fine in it.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Oliphant Print: Book
Mr Lang sent me several chapters to read in the early summer, which I thought were rather dull - tell it not in Gath - with much virtuous indignation about 'Maga's' personalities.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Oliphant Print: Serial / periodicalManuscript: MS chapters of a book
Manuscript list of 'The Proverbs & c in this Book' (in Dawson's hand) has been bound into the rear of the book.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Dawson Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
'And besides she [Mrs Cliffe] wd. lend me the first two vols of the mysteries of Udolpho before she had finished them herself ? a kind of generosity which quite dazzled my weak moral sense. I have read the mysteries; but am anxious to read them again ? being a worshipper of Mrs. Radcliffe.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Went into the library to try to rationalize my mind about the deathwatch, - by reading the Cyclopaedia. Feel very unwell today, & nervous. Read the mysteries of Udolpho ? by way of quieting my imagination? & heard the boys read Homer & Zenophon - & read some of Victor Hugo?s & Lamartine?s poetry ? his last song of Childe Harold. Miss Steers kindly sent a packet of French poetry to Mr. Boyd?s for me yesterday. Le dernier chant wants the Byronic character (- an inevitable want for a French composition ? ) and is not quite equal even to Lamartine.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
At breakfast, my parcel of books from Eaton came up the road. Fresh from the carrier. Unpacked it eagerly, & read the title pages of Barnes?s Euripides, Marcus Antoninus, Callimachus, the Anthologia, Epictetus, Isocrates, & Da Vinci?s Painting. The last I had sent for, for Eliza Cliffe, but the externals are so shabby that I have a mind to send it back again. Finished my dream about Udolpho; - & began Destiny, a novel by the author of the Inheritance [Susan Ferrier] which Miss Peyton lent me. I liked the Inheritance so much that my desires respecting this book were ?all alive?. I forgot to say that I don?t like the conclusion of the Mysteries. It is ?long drawn out? & not ?in linked sweetness?. Read some of the Alcestis. Mr. Boyd wishes me to read it; & I wished so too.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
"[William and Dorothy Wordsworth] probably read [the Decameron] together as he tutored her in Italian [1796] ... " This "consistent" with W[ordsworth]'s remark in Nov. 1805 to Walter Scott (followed by reference to Fourth "Day" of the Decameron): "'It is many years since I saw Boccae ...' Later in the letter W[ordsworth] quotes Boccacio from memory, showing that he knew the Decameron well."
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William and Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
[Permitted Sunday reading for the children of the family].
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Vivian (Molly) Hughes Print: Book
[Permitted Sunday reading for the children of the family].
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Vivian (Molly) Hughes Print: Book
I finished Keats?s Lamia, Isabella, Eve of St Agnes & Hyperion, before breakfast. The three first disappointed me. The extracts I had seen of them, were undeniably the finest things in them. But there is some surprising poetry ? poetry of wonderful grandeur, in the Hyperion. The effect of the appearance of Hyperion, among the ruined Titans, is surpassingly fine. Poor poor Keats. His name shall be in my ?Poets Record.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
I finished Keats?s Lamia, Isabella, Eve of St Agnes & Hyperion, before breakfast. The three first disappointed me. The extracts I had seen of them, were undeniably the finest things in them. But there is some surprising poetry ? poetry of wonderful grandeur, in the Hyperion. The effect of the appearance of Hyperion, among the ruined Titans, is surpassingly fine. Poor poor Keats. His name shall be in my ?Poets Record.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
I finished Keats?s Lamia, Isabella, Eve of St Agnes & Hyperion, before breakfast. The three first disappointed me. The extracts I had seen of them, were undeniably the finest things in them. But there is some surprising poetry ? poetry of wonderful grandeur, in the Hyperion. The effect of the appearance of Hyperion, among the ruined Titans, is surpassingly fine. Poor poor Keats. His name shall be in my ?Poets Record.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
I finished Keats?s Lamia, Isabella, Eve of St Agnes & Hyperion, before breakfast. The three first disappointed me. The extracts I had seen of them, were undeniably the finest things in them. But there is some surprising poetry ? poetry of wonderful grandeur, in the Hyperion. The effect of the appearance of Hyperion, among the ruined Titans, is surpassingly fine. Poor poor Keats. His name shall be in my ?Poets Record.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
I finished the Endymion today. I do not admire it as a fine poem; but I do admire many passages of it, as being very fine poetry. As a whole, it is cumbrous & unwieldy. You don?t know where to put it. Your imagination is confused by it: & your feelings uninterested. And yet a poet wrote it. When I had done with Keats, I took up Theophrastus. Theophrastus has a great deal of vivacity, & power of portraiture about him; & uplifts that veil of distance ? veiling the old Greeks with such sublime mistiness; & shows you how they used to spit & take physic & wear nailed shoes tout comme un autre?Theophrastus does me no good just now: & as I can?t laugh with him, I shall be glad when I have done hearing him laugh.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'The mother of Joseph Wright, the millworker-philologist, did not learn to read until age forty-eight, and then apparently never ventured beyond the New Testament, Pilgrim's Progress and a translation of Klopstock's Messiah'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: mother of Joseph Wright Print: Book
'Farell Lee Bevan's Peep of Day (759,000 copies in print by 1888) supplied him with the frame of a totalistic religious ideology: "It was from these pages that I got my first idea of the moral foundations of the universe, was handed the first key with which to unlock the mysteries of the world in which I found myself. These little books served the purpose of an index or filing system; a framework of iron dogma, if you like, providing an orderly arrangement of the world and its history for the young mind, under two main categories, Good and Evil". But Jones also attended a board school, where he found "salvation" in an old cupboard of books presented by the local MP. They were mainly volumes of voyages and natural history, "which took a Rhymney boy away into the realms of wonder over the seas to the Malay Archipelago, to Abyssinia, to the sources of the Nile and the Albert Nyanza, to the curiosities of natural history, piloted by James Bruce, Samuel Baker and Frank Buckland".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Jones Print: Book
'While he read little but the Bible and religious periodicals, his son was working his way through the Rhymney Workmen's Institute Library and Cassell's National Library of 3d paperbacks. MacAulay's essays, Goldsmith's History of England, Far from the Madding Crowd, Self-Help, Josephus, Plutarch, Shakespeare, Pepys, Johnson's Lives of the Poets, and The Sorrows of Young Werther were among the books Jones read, often on his employer's time. (He hid them under the ledger at the Rhymney Iron Works, where he worked a thirteen hour day as a timekeeper for 9s. a week.)'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Jones Print: Book
"Of my earliest days at school I have little to say, but that they were very happy ones, chiefly because I was left at liberty, and in the vacations, to read whatever books I liked ... I read all Fielding's works, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and any part of Swift that I liked." (Wordsworth, Prose Works vol. 3 p.372).
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
"On 21 March 1796, [Wordsworth] told [William] Mathews that D[orothy] W[ordsworth] 'has already gone through half of Davila.'"
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book, Serial / periodical
"As [S. T. Coleridge] recalled in the Friend, 'I had [when composing The Three Graves in 1798] been reading Bryan Edwards's account of the effects of the Oby Witchcraft on the Negroes in the West Indies, and Hearne's deeply interesting Anecdotes of similar workings on the imagination of the Copper Indians ...'"
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
"W[ordsworth]'s note to Guilt and Sorrow 81 acknowledges a borrowing 'From a short MS. poem read to me when an under-graduate, by my schoolfellow and friend Charles Farish, long since deceased. The verses were by a brother of his [John Bernard Farish], a man of promising genius, who died young.'"
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Manuscript: Unknown
"W[ordsworth]'s note to Guilt and Sorrow 81 acknowledges a borrowing 'From a short MS. poem read to me when an under-graduate, by my schoolfellow and friend Charles Farish, long since deceased. The verses were by a brother of his [John Bernard Farish], a man of promising genius, who died young.'"
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Farish Manuscript: Unknown
'Garratt escaped [from factory life] to an evening course in English literature, where he felt "like a child that becomes ecstatic with a fireworks display". Keats, Shelley, and Tennyson "swamped the trivialities of life and gave my ego a fulness and strength in the lustre of which noble conceptions were born and flourished'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: V.W. Garratt 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 undemined 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
"Attacking W[ordsworth]'s 'one-sidedness' in 1840, De Quincey records: 'One of Mrs Radcliffe's romances, viz. 'The Italian,' he had, by some strange accident, read, - read, but only to laugh at it ... '"
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
"[Thomas] Poole read the Appeal in March 1796; writing to Henrietta Warwick on 2 April, he revealed that 'I have lately perused with much delight La Citoyenne Roland.'"
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Poole Print: Book
" ... in March 1796 D[orothy] W[ordsworth] reported that 'I have also read lately Madame Roland's Memoirs, Louvet and some other french things - very entertaining.'"
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
" ... in March 1796 D[orothy] W[ordsworth] reported that 'I have also read lately Madame Roland's Memoirs, Louvet and some other french things - very entertaining.'"
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
'I cannot express how much pleasure my Brother has already received from Dr. Whitaker's Books, though they have been only two days in his possession - Almost the whole time he has been greedily devouring the History of Craven ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
William Wordsworth to Francis Wrangham: 'I have read your sermon [Human Laws best supported by the Gospel] (which I lately received from Longman) with much pleasure. I only gave it a cursory perusal, for since it arrived my family has been in great confusion, we having removed to another House, in which we are not yet half settled. The Appendix I had received before in a frank, and of that I feel more entitled to speak, because I had read it more at leisure [goes on to discuss this in detail].'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth
' ... I have lately read Dr. Whitaker's history of ... Whalley both with profit and pleasure.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
William Wordsworth to Francis Wrangham: 'Your sermon [The Gospel best promulgated by National Schools] did not reach me till the night before last. I believe we all have read it, and are much pleased with it.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Wordsworth Family
William Wordsworth to Thomas De Quincey, regarding editing of The Convention of Cintra: 'I have alluded to the blasphemous address to Buonaparte made by some Italian deputies, which you remember we read at Grasmere some time ago, and his answer; I should like to have referred to the very words in the Appendix ... If ... you could find it in the file of Couriers at the office, I should exceedingly like such parts as you might approve of ... to be inserted ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth and Thomas De Quincey Print: Serial / periodical
'I have read Cevallos; also I have read Miss Smith's Translation of Klopstock's and Mrs. K's letters [goes on to express preference for Mrs Klopstock's letters over those of her husband].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
As I have no people to tell you of, so have I very few books, and know nothing of what is stirring in the literary world. I have read the Life of Arnold of Rugby, who was a noble fellow; and the letters of Burke, which do not add to, or detract from, what I knew and liked in him before. I am meditating to begin Thucydides one day; perhaps this winter. . .
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Fitzgerald Print: Book
Henry Mayhew interviews a crossing sweeper:
"Sometimes, after I get home, I read a book, if I can borrow one. What do I read? Well, novels, when I can get them. What did I read last night? Well, Reynolds's Miscellany; before that I read the Pilgrim's Progress. I have read it three times over; but there's always something new in it."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Print: Book
Henry Mayhew interviews a 'vagrant' of 18 years of age:
"Of a night ...we'd read stories about Jack Sheppard and Dick Turpin, and all through that set. They were large thick books, borrowed from the library. They told how they used to break open the houses, and get out of Newgate, and how Dick got away to York. We used to think Jack and them very fine fellows. I wished I could be like Jack (I did then), about the blankets in his escape, and that old house in West-street -it is a ruin still."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
Henry Mayhew interviews a 'vagrant' of 18 years of age:
"Of a night ...we'd read stories about Jack Sheppard and Dick Turpin, and all through that set. They were large thick books, borrowed from the library. They told how they used to break open the houses, and get out of Newgate, and how Dick got away to York. We used to think Jack and them very fine fellows. I wished I could be like Jack (I did then), about the blankets in his escape, and that old house in West-street -it is a ruin still."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
Henry Mayhew interviews a boy of 16, a vagrant and inmate of a casual ward of a London workhouse:
"My father had no books but religious books; they were all of a religious turn, and what people might think dull. But they never made me dull. I read Wesley's and Watt's hymns, and religious magazines of different connexions. I had a natural inclination for the sae, and would like to get to it now. I've read a good deal about it since -Clark's 'Lives of Pirates', 'Tales of Shipwrecks', and other things in penny numbers (Clark's I got out of the library though). I was what people called a deep boy for a book; and am still. Whenever I had a penny, after I got a bellyful of victuals, it went for a book, but I haven't bought many lately. I did buy one yesterday -the 'Family Herald' -one I often read when I can get it. There's good reading in it; it elevates your mind -anybody that has a mind for studying. It has good tales in it... I've read "Windsor Castle" and "The Tower", -they're by the same man. I Liked "Windsor Castle" and all about Henry VIII and Herne and Hunter. It's a book that's connected with history, and that's a good thing. I like adventurous tales."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book, Serial / periodical, unsure if penny numbers or book
Henry Mayhew interviews a boy of 16, a vagrant and inmate of a casual ward of a London workhouse:
"My father had no books but religious books; they were all of a religious turn, and what people might think dull. But they never made me dull. I read Wesley's and Watt's hymns, and religious magazines of different connexions. I had a natural inclination for the sae, and would like to get to it now. I've read a good deal about it since -Clark's 'Lives of Pirates', 'Tales of Shipwrecks', and other things in penny numbers (Clark's I got out of the library though). I was what people called a deep boy for a book; and am still. Whenever I had a penny, after I got a bellyful of victuals, it went for a book, but I haven't bought many lately. I did buy one yesterday -the 'Family Herald' -one I often read when I can get it. There's good reading in it; it elevates your mind -anybody that has a mind for studying. It has good tales in it... I've read "Windsor Castle" and "The Tower", -they're by the same man. I Liked "Windsor Castle" and all about Henry VIII and Herne and Hunter. It's a book that's connected with history, and that's a good thing. I like adventurous tales."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book, Serial / periodical, unsure if penny numbers or book
Henry Mayhew interviews a boy of 17, an inmate of a London workhouse:
"I've read 'Jack Sheppard' through, in three volumes; and I used to tell stories out of that sometimes."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
Henry Mayhew interviews a 'London sneak or common thief':
"On Sunday evenings the only books read were such as 'Jack Sheppard', 'Dick Turpin' and the 'Newgate Calendar', they got out of the neighbouring libraries by depositing 1s. These were read with much interest; the lodgers would sooner have these than any other books."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
Henry Mayhew interviews a 'London sneak or common thief':
"On Sunday evenings the only books read were such as 'Jack Sheppard', 'Dick Turpin' and the 'Newgate Calendar', they got out of the neighbouring libraries by depositing 1s. These were read with much interest; the lodgers would sooner have these than any other books."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'[Muir's] account of his reading material as a young man in Glasgow points to an involvement with poems of the Romantic and post-Romantic periods which were concerned both with visionary experience and with the need to transcend human suffering. He tells us: I was enchanted by The Solitary Reaper, the Ode to a Nightingale, the Ode to the West Wind, The Lotus Eaters, and the chorus from Atalanta in Calydon'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Muir Print: Unknown
Henry Mayhew holds meeting with a group of the lowest class of male juvenile thieves and vagabonds; during the meeting they tell him what they have read/ read regularly and Mayhew records this:
"Respecting their education, according to the popular meaning of the term, 63 of the 150 were able to read and write, and they were principally thieves. Fifty of this number said they had read 'Jack Sheppard' and the lines of Dick Turpin, Claude du Val, and all the other popular thieves' novels, as well as the Newgate Calendar and Lives of Robbers and Pirates. Those who could not read themselves, said they'd had 'Jack Sheppard' read to them at the lodging houses. Numbers avowed that they had been induced to resort to an abandoned course of life from reading the lives of notorious thieves and novels about highway robbers."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book, Serial / periodical, either in penny numbers or as volume
Henry Mayhew holds meeting with a group of the lowest class of male juvenile thieves and vagabonds; during the meeting they tell him what they have read/ read regularly and Mayhew records this:
"Respecting their education, according to the popular meaning of the term, 63 of the 150 were able to read and write, and they were principally thieves. Fifty of this number said they had read 'Jack Sheppard' and the lines of Dick Turpin, Claude du Val, and all the other popular thieves' novels, as well as the Newgate Calendar and Lives of Robbers and Pirates. Those who could not read themselves, said they'd had 'Jack Sheppard' read to them at the lodging houses. Numbers avowed that they had been induced to resort to an abandoned course of life from reading the lives of notorious thieves and novels about highway robbers."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book, Serial / periodical, either in penny numbers or as volume
Henry Mayhew holds meeting with a group of the lowest class of male juvenile thieves and vagabonds; during the meeting they tell him what they have read/ read regularly and Mayhew records this:
"Respecting their education, according to the popular meaning of the term, 63 of the 150 were able to read and write, and they were principally thieves. Fifty of this number said they had read 'Jack Sheppard' and the lines of Dick Turpin, Claude du Val, and all the other popular thieves' novels, as well as the Newgate Calendar and Lives of Robbers and Pirates. Those who could not read themselves, said they'd had 'Jack Sheppard' read to them at the lodging houses. Numbers avowed that they had been induced to resort to an abandoned course of life from reading the lives of notorious thieves and novels about highway robbers."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: group of London thieves Print: Book, Serial / periodical, either as penny numbers or in volume
'Philip Inman conveyed a ... specific sense of the uses of literacy for an early Labour MP. The son of a widowed charwoman, he bought up all the cheap reprints he could afford and kept notes on fifty-eight of them... There were Emerson's essays, Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Lamb's Essays of Elia, classic biogaphies (Boswell on Johnson, Lockhart on Scott, Carlyle on Sterling), several Waverley novels, Wuthering Heights, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, The Imitation of Christ, Shakespeare's sonnets, Tennyson, Browning, William Morris and Palgrave's Golden Treasury.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Inman Print: Book
'Philip Inman conveyed a ... specific sense of the uses of literacy for an early Labour MP. The son of a widowed charwoman, he bought up all the cheap reprints he could afford and kept notes on fifty-eight of them... There were Emerson's essays, Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Lamb's Essays of Elia, classic biogaphies (Boswell on Johnson, Lockhart on Scott, Carlyle on Sterling), several Waverley novels, Wuthering Heights, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, The Imitation of Christ, Shakespeare's sonnets, Tennyson, Browning, William Morris and Palgrave's Golden Treasury.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Inman Print: Book
'Philip Inman conveyed a ... specific sense of the uses of literacy for an early Labour MP. The son of a widowed charwoman, he bought up all the cheap reprints he could afford and kept notes on fifty-eight of them... There were Emerson's essays, Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Lamb's Essays of Elia, classic biogaphies (Boswell on Johnson, Lockhart on Scott, Carlyle on Sterling), several Waverley novels, Wuthering Heights, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, The Imitation of Christ, Shakespeare's sonnets, Tennyson, Browning, William Morris and Palgrave's Golden Treasury.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Inman Print: Book
'[Philip Inman] loved everything by Charlotte Bronte, partly for what she had to say about the class system: "Characters like Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe were humble individuals in the eyes of the world, with only their dogged determination and lack of 'frills' as weapons against the dash and arrogance of those haughty and wealthy rivals among whom their lot was cast". Yet he admired Jane Austen for an equal but opposite reason: "The world of which she wrote, in which elegant gentlemen of fortune courted gentle, punctilliously correct ladies in refined drawing rooms, was a remote fairy-tale country to me. Some day, I thought, perhaps I would get to know a world in which voices were always soft and modulated and in which lively and witty conversation was more important than 'brass'."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Inman Print: Book
'Percy Wall, jailed for defying draft notices in the First World War, was inspired in part by a copy of Queen Mab owned by his father, a Marxist railway worker. But neither father nor son applied ideological tests to literature. In the prison library - with some guidance from a fellow conscientious objector who happened to be an important publishing executive - Percy discovered Emerson, Macaulay, Bacon, Shakespeare and Lamb. It was their style rather than their politics he found liberating: from them "I learned self-expression and acquired or strengthened standards of literature".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Wall Print: Book
'Percy Wall, jailed for defying draft notices in the First World War, was inspired in part by a copy of Queen Mab owned by his father, a Marxist railway worker. But neither father nor son applied ideological tests to literature. In the prison library - with some guidance from a fellow conscientious objector who happened to be an important publishing executive - Percy discovered Emerson, Macaulay, Bacon, Shakespeare and Lamb. It was their style rather than their politics he found liberating: from them "I learned self-expression and acquired or strengthened standards of literature".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Wall Print: Book
'On the facing verso of the MS [of Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff], [Wordsworth] ... copies out Athalie I.ii.278-82, 292-94 ... '
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth
Thomas Moore on encountering W[ordsworth] in Paris on 24 Oct. 1820: 'A young Frenchman called in, and it was amusing to hear him and Wordsworth at cross purposes on the subject of "Athalie"; Wordsworth saying that he did not wish to see it acted, as it would never come up to the high imagination he had formed in reading it ... '
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth
'[Emrys Hughes] read the social history of Macaulay, Froude, and J.R. Green; Thorold Rogers's Six Centuries of Work and Wages particularly appealed to him because it offered "not the history of kings and queens, but of the way ordinary people ha struggled to live throughout the centuries..." Hughes was one of those agitators who found a virtual Marxism in Thomas Carlyle. The French Revolution inspired the hope that a popular revolt somewhere would end the war...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Emrys Daniel Hughes Print: Book
'"I am translating the Oberon of Wieland," C[oleridge] told [Thomas] Poole, 20 Nov 1797.'
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
'[Francis] Wrangham was ... in the habit of reading MS verses to his friends: C[oleridge] heard his "Brutoniad" in Sept. 1794.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Wrangham Manuscript: Unknown
Version of Wordsworth's translation of Michaelangelo sonnet transcribed in letter to Sir George Beaumont, 8 Sept 1806.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth
'The historical classics "came as a revelation"- Macaulay, J.R. Green, Gibbon, Motley's Dutch Republic, Prescott on Peru and Mexico and The French Revolution. Academic critics today might discern ideologies in all of the above, but that was not Lawson's reading of them. "Of politics I knew nothing and cared less", he recalled, yet his purely literary readings had helped him form "some very definite opinions on the right and wrong of things social..."'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Jack Lawson Print: Book
[Alice Foley] read some Morris and less Marx, but for her a liberal education for the proletariat was not merely a means of achieving socialism: it was socialism in fact. At night school she staged a personal revolution by writing a paper on Romeo and Juliet and thriling to the "new romantic world" of Jane Eyre. She joined a Socialist Sunday School where 'Hiawatha' was recited for its "prophetic idealism", and a foundry hammerman intoned Keats's 'Eve of St Agnes and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alice Foley Print: Book
[Alice Foley] read some Morris and less Marx, but for her a liberal education for the proletariat was not merely a means of achieving socialism: it was socialism in fact. At night school she staged a personal revolution by writing a paper on Romeo and Juliet and thriling to the "new romantic world" of Jane Eyre. She joined a Socialist Sunday School where 'Hiawatha' was recited for its "prophetic idealism", and a foundry hammerman intoned Keats's 'Eve of St Agnes and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alice Foley Print: Book
'Even before [Chaim Lewis] discovered the English novelists, he was introduced to Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Pushkin by a Russian revolutionary rag merchant who studied Dickens in the Whitechapel Public Library and read aloud from Man and Superman. Another friend - the son of a widowed mother, who left school at fourteen - exposed him to Egyptology, Greek architecture, Scott, Smollett, the British Musuem and Prescott's History of the Conquest of Peru'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Chaim Lewis Print: Book
'George Gregory offers a case study in the importance of Self-Help. His father was an illiterate Somsert miner, his mother a servant who read nothing but the Bible... Gregory only had a few school prizes - Jack and the Ostrich, a children's story; The Crucifixion of Philip Strong, a gripping tale of labor unrest; and the verses of Cornish poet, John Harries - and the family read a weekly serial, Strongdold the Gladiator. Having left school at twelve to work in the mines, Gregory had no access to serious reading matter until mid-adolescence, when a clerk introduced him to Self-Help. That book, he recalled in old age, "has lived with me, and in me, for more than sixty years... I was impressed by its quality for I had never touched a book of such high quality; and the impression deepened and became vivid as I took it home, read the stories of men who had helped themselves, struggled against enormous difficulties, suffered privations...but went on to rise phoenix-like from the ruins of their plans... I realised that my lack of education was not decisive of what I might become, so I commenced to reach out into the future".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gregory Print: Book
William Wordsworth to Captain Charles Pasley, 28 March 1811: 'Now for your book. I had expected it with great impatience, and desired a Friend to send it down to me immediately on its appearance, which he neglected to do. On this account, I did not see it till a few days ago. I have read it through twice, with great care, and many parts three or four times over.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth to Catherine Clarkson, 4 October [1813]: 'My whole summer's reading has been a part of two volumes of Mrs Grant's American Lady, which Southey lent to be speedily returned, and a dip or two in Southey's Nelson - with snatches at the Newspaper and Sunday's readings with the Bairns.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
William Wordsworth to R. P. Gillies, 14 February 1814, 'Have you read Lucien B[onaparte]' s Epic? I attempted it, but gave in at the 6th Canto, being pressed for time. I shall however recommence the Labor if an opportunity offers. But the three first Stanzas convinced me that L.B. was no poet.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
William Wordsworth to B. R. Haydon, 21 December 1815: 'Have you read the works of the Abbe [Johann Joachim] Winkelman on the study of the Antique, in Painting and Sculpture ... His Works are unknown to me, except a short treatise entitled Reflections concerning the imitation of the Grecian Artists in Painting and Sculpture, in a series of Letters. A translation of this is all I have read having met with it the other day upon a Stal[l] at Penrith ... This Book of mine was printed at Glasgow 1766.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth to Catherine Clarkson, 10 January 1817, re visit to Mrs Threlkeld (very fond of C. Clarkson) at Halifax: 'I read her your last letter adding a few words for you, which were not there, of remembrance of her and her Daughter ... I hope my little trick ... was at the least an innocent one, and I flatter myself that, in the spirit ... what I made you say was just and true - indeed if I had not felt it to be so I should have been wounded instead of pleased by the pleasure which the dear good old lady expressed in hearing that she was remembered by you.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Manuscript: Letter
Statement of a juvenile offender:
"I have been twice in prison. I was only in Liverpool two days. I came from Manchester to the races; I had no work. I have been at all the theatres... I have robbed my parents to satisfy my desire to go to the theatres; ...I have seen 'Jack Sheppard' performed; I think it will be the means of inducing boys to copy his tricks. I have read his life; many boys have it."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: H.T. Print: Book, Serial / periodical, read as numbers or volume?
Statement of a juvenile offender:
"I have been five times in prison. I have been as the Sanspareil and at all the theatres... I am sure had I never known the theatres I should have been quite a different character at this day. I have heard 'Jack Sheppard' performed; I was very fond of it; I had his life, but some boy took it from me; most boys have his life."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: T.A Print: Book
Statement of a juvenile offender:
"I came from Manchester to the races. I was taken into custody when I had only been in Liverpool two days. I was taken up for attempting to pick pockets... Theatres are very exciting. I never saw 'Jack Sheppard' performed; I have read his history; I have seen many boys buy his history; I borrowed mine from another boy."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: G.G. Print: Book
Statement of a juvenile offender:
"I have been three times in prison and once discharged. I have been at the Sanspareil and Amphitheatre; I have also been at the penny hop... I am sure the theatres would bring any youngster to ruin: they don't care where they get their money, so that they do but get it to join their companions. I was very fond of seeing 'Jack Sheppard' performed. I have read his life; I bought it."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: J.M. Print: Book
Statement of a juvenile offender:
"I was never in prison before. I have been twice discharged, and am now waiting for trial... I have heard the 'Life of Jack Sheppard' read; it did not lead me to think of anything good, but I am sure it would lead young folks to do everything bad. The man I heard read it lived in a house in Gore-street, and sold penny-beer, asnd other things: it is a house where men and boys meet"
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
Statement of a juvenile offender:
"I have been nine times in prison and once discharged, and am now waiting trial... I never saw 'Jack Sheppard' performed. I have read his life and heard a great deal about him. I think that those who read his life are not likely to reap any good, or those that see the play performed, I am sure will get no good."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: T.E. Print: Book
Statement of juvenile offender:
"I have been six times in prison and four times discharged, and am now waiting trial... I have been to all the theatres... I never saw 'Jack Sheppard' performed. I have often heard and read about him: they all seem to say he was a great man and a great prison breaker; and when he was at liberty like a gentleman."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: M.F. Print: Book
Statement of juvenile offender:
"I have been twice in prison and am now waiting trial... I have seen 'Jack Sheppard' performed; have read part of his life; I thought the play was very interesting; I am sure it did not create in me any bad thoughts, nor increase my desire to follow bad pratices..."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: A.L. Print: Book, Serial / periodical, not sure if penny parts or volume
Statement of juvenile offender:
"I have been six times in prison, and four times discharged... Never saw 'Jack Sheppard' performed; have read his life and often heard speak of him; he was very clever."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: J.F. Print: Book, Serial / periodical, not sure if penny parts or volume
Statement of juvenile offender:
"I have been four times in prison and twice discharged... I never saw Jack Sheppard performed; I have heard boys talk of him, and have heard my father read his life"
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book, Serial / periodical, not sure if penny parts or volume
Statement of juvenile offender:
"I never was in prison before. I have been at the Sanspareil, and at all the other theatres, except the Queen's. I never saw 'Jack Sheppard' performed. I have heard the prisoners speak about it many times: some would speak well of the play, others would say it was most of it false. I have read his Life; I think myself it is mostly false; there may have been such a man, but I think he could not go through all the exploits that is spoken of."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: E.B. Print: Book, Serial / periodical, not sure if penny parts or volume
Statement of juvenile offender:
"I never was in prison before. I was taken into custody for attempting to rob my master... I never saw 'Jack Sheppard' performed; I have read part of his life; I think he was a clever man; I don't know that reading his life created any difference in my mind."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: J.H. Print: Book, Serial / periodical, not sure if penny parts or volume
Statement of juvenile offender:
"I thought this 'Jack Sheppard' was a clever fellow for making his escape and robbing his master. If I could get out of gaol I think I should be as clever as him; but after all his exploits he got done at last. I have had the book out of a library at Dale Field. I paid 2d a book for three volumes. I also got 'Richard Turpin' in two volumes and paid the same."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: J.L. Print: Book
Statement of juvenile offender:
"When I left school I went to Mr Banks, bookseller, two years. I had good opportunities of reading then, voyages and such; read the Life of Jack Sheppard. I borrowed it from another boy... I read 'Jack Sheppard' about five months before I began the robberies."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: J.H. Print: Book
William Wordsworth to Viscount Lowther, 22 September 1818: 'Your two interesting Letters, the Pamphlet, and Sun and Chronicle, have been duly received ... The Pamphlet I have carefully read ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth to Francis Wrangham, 19 February 1819:
'I ought to have thanked you before for your versions of Virgil's Eclogues, which reached me at last. I have lately compared it line for line with the original, and think it very well done ... I think I mentioned to you that these Poems of Virgil have always delighted me much; there is frequently in them an elegance and a happiness that no translation can hope to equal. In point of fidelity your translation is very good indeed.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth to Viscount Lowther, 31 December 1819: 'In the last Kendal Chronicle appeared a most malignant misrepresentation of the words you used upon the searching for arms Bill ... I was requested to animadvert upon this Letter, which indeed I had felt some disposition to do when I first read it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Newspaper
William Wordsworth (visiting Paris) to Helen Maria Williams, [15 October 1820], 'I had the honour of receiving your letter yesterday Evening, together with the several copies of your tender and beautiful Verses ... Allow me this opportunity of expressing the pleasure I shall have in possessing this little tribute from yourself - as also, the gratification which the perusal of both the Poems [including 'The Charter'] has afforded me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Manuscript: Unknown
'Extracts from [John] Barrow's Travels in China appear in the Wordsworth Commonplace Book [Dove Cottage MS 26] ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Wordsworth Family Print: Book
'On 19 April 1809 S[ara] H[utchinson] wrote to Mary Monkhouse from Allan Bank, "The nicest model of a churn I ever saw was in 'Barrow's account of the interior of Africa.'"'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sara Hutchinson Print: Book
'[Charles] Lamb copied ... [John Beaumont, Bart., the elder, "An Epitaph upon my dear Brother Francis Beaumont"] into his copy of Beaumont and Fletcher's Fifty Comedies and Tragedies (1679).'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Lamb Print: Unknown
'[Sir George] Beaumont wriote to W[ordsworth] on 10 Aug. 1806, saying: "I am sure you will be pleased with my ancestor (sir Johns) Poems. the more I read them the more I am pleased, his mind was elevated, pious & pure."'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir George Beaumont
'[Samuel] Rogers reported W[ordsworth]'s reaction to Brougham's harsh review of Byron's first volume: "Wordsworth was spending an evening at Charles Lamb's, when he saw the said critique, which had just appeared. He read it through, and remarked that 'though Byron's verses were probably poor enough, such an attack was abominable ... "'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Serial / periodical
Henry Crabb Robinson on Wordsworth's reading of Henry Brougham's review of Byron, Hours of Idleness: 'I was sitting with Charles Lamb when Wordsworth came in, with fume on his countenance, and the Edinburgh Review in his hand. "I have no patience with these reviewers," he said, "here is a young man, a lord, and a minor ... and these fellows attack him, as if no one may write poetry unless he lives in a garret."'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Serial / periodical
'W[ordsworth] copied a set of extracts from Buchanan into the Wordsworth Commonplace Book [Dove Cottage MS 26] ... probably between mid-March and 10 June 1807.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
'W[ordsworth] seems to have translated ... [John Clanvowe, Of the Cuckowe and the Nightingale] on 7 and 8 Dec. 1801, and made a fair copy on 9 Dec.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth
Wordsworth to Alexander Dyce, 22 June 1830, on 'exceedingly pleasing' poem by Sneyd Davies: 'It begins "There was a time my dear Cornwallis, when" I first met with it in Dr Enfield's Exercises of Elocution or Speaker, I forget which.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
'W[ordsworth copied quotations from Descartes into D[ove] C[ottage] MS 31, leaves 71-2, c. Feb 1801.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth
'Charles Lamb copied ... [Mary Anne Lamb, Dialogue Between a Mother and Child] for D[orothy] W[ordsworth] in a letter of 2 June 1804.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Lamb Manuscript: Unknown
'Charles Lamb copied ... [Mary Anne Lamb, The Lady Blanch, regardless of her lovers' fears] for D[orothy] W[ordsworth] in a letter of 2 June 1804.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Lamb Manuscript: Unknown
'Charles Lamb copied ... [Mary Anne Lamb, "Virgin and Child"] for D[orothy] W[ordsworth] in a letter of 2 June 1804.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Lamb Manuscript: Unknown
'Charles Lamb copied ... [Mary Anne Lamb, "On the Same" ("Virgin and Child")] for D[orothy] W[ordsworth] in a letter of 2 June 1804.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Lamb Manuscript: Unknown
'On 19 Aug. 1810, D[orothy] W[ordsworth] told W[ordsworth] that she was "reading Malkin's Gil Blas - and it is a beautiful Book as to printing etc but I think the Translation vulgar."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
'In late 1808 S[ara] H[utchinson] copied the description of the gawlin from [Martin] Martin, pp.71-2, into C[oleridge]'s notebook ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sara Hutchinson Print: Book
'C[oleridge]'s letter to S[ara] H[utchinson] of May 1807 contained a transcription of Marvell's "On a Drop of Dew".'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
'Prelude MS W [Dove Cottage MS 38)] contains a transcription of Marvell's Horatian Ode dating from late 1802.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth
'In the Fenwick Note to The Pet-lamb, W[ordsworth] recalled: "Within a few months after the publication of this poem, I was much surprised and more hurt to find it in a child's School-book which, having been compiled by Lindley Murray, had come into use at Grasmere School ... "'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
'In 1898 Armstrong organised the Ashington Debating and Literary Improvement Society, and his reading broadened out to Shakespeare, Burns, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Byron, Whitman, Wordsworth, Scott, Robert Browning, Darwin and T.H. Huxley. Robertson Nicoll's British Weekly had introduced him to a more liberal Nonconformity that was hospitable to contemporary literature. The difficulty was that the traditional Nonconformist commitment to freedom of conscience was propelling him beyond the confines of Primitive Methodism, as far as Unitarianism, the Rationalist Press Association and the Independent Labour Party. His tastes in literature evolved apace: Ibsen, Zola. Meredith, and Wilde by the 1890s; then on to Shaw, Wells, and Bennett; and ultimately Marxist economics and Brave New World'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Chester Armstrong Print: Book
'In 1898 Armstrong organised the Ashington Debating and Literary Improvement Society, and his reading broadened out to Shakespeare, Burns, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Byron, Whitman, Wordsworth, Scott, Robert Browning, Darwin and T.H. Huxley. Robertson Nicoll's British Weekly had introduced him to a more liberal Nonconformity that was hospitable to contemporary literature. The difficulty was that the traditional Nonconformist commitment to freedom of conscience was propelling him beyond the confines of Primitive Methodism, as far as Unitarianism, the Rationalist Press Association and the Independent Labour Party. His tastes in literature evolved apace: Ibsen, Zola. Meredith, and Wilde by the 1890s; then on to Shaw, Wells, and Bennett; and ultimately Marxist economics and Brave New World'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Chester Armstrong Print: Book
[According to Flora Thompson], "Modern writers who speak of the booklessness of the poor at that time must mean books as possessions...there were always books to borrow"... One could borrow Pamela and the Waverley novels from a neighbour, Christies Old Organ from the Sunday School library. Her uncle, a shoemaker, had once carted home from a country-house auction a large collection of books that no-one would buy: novels, poetry, sermons, histories, dictionaries. She read him Cranford while he worked in his shop... Later she could borrow from her employer (the village postmistress) Shakespeare and Byron's Don Juan, as well as Jane Austen, Dickens and Trollope from the Mechanics' Institute library.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Flora Thompson Print: Book
'"I next succeeded in discovering for myself a child's book, of not less interest than even The Iliad." It was Pilgrim's Progress, with wonderful woodcut illustrations. And from there it was a sort step to Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hugh Miller Print: Book
'Writing to [Francis] Wrangham in late Feb. 1801, W[ordsworth] remarked: "I read with great pleasure a very elegant and tender poem of yours in the 2nd Vol: of the [Annual] Anthology."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
' ... a most violent attack is preparing for me in the the next number of the Edinburgh Review, this I have from the authority of a friend who has seen the proof and manuscript of the Critique ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: proofManuscript: Unknown
Byron to Edward Ellice, 4 July 1810: 'I hear your friend Brougham is in the lower house mouthing at the ministry ... you remember he would not believe that I had written my pestilent Satire [English Bards and Scotch Reviewers], now that was very cruel and unlike me, for the moment I read his speech, I believed it to be his entire from Exordium to Peroration.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron
Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 4 October 1810: 'I have just received a letter from [John] Galt with a Candiot poem which ... appears to be damned nonsense ... Galt also writes something not very intelligible about a "Spartan state paper" ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Sheet
'When radical weaver Samuel Bamford first discovered Pilgrim's Progress, it impressed him as a thrilling illustrated romance: woodcuts of Christian's fight with Apollyon and his escape from Giant Despair encouraged "the exercise of my feeling and my imagination". Then The New Testament became "my story book and I read it all through and through, but more for the interest the marvellous passages excited, than from any religious impression which they created". At a bookshop he picked up stories about witches, Robin Hood, Jack the Giant Killer, St George and the Dragon and the History of the Seven Champions, all with the same deliciously garish woodcuts he had found in Bunyan. Since these stories followed the same narrative conventions, there was no reason to doubt them. "For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were 'trash' or 'nonsense', and 'could not be true', I, innocently enough contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I had read in books that 'it were a sin to disbelieve'."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'Soldier's son Joseph Barker... first read the Bible "chiefly as a work of history and was very greatly delighted with many of its stories... One effect was to lead me to regard miracles as nothing improbable". Consequently his response to Pilgrim's Progress was exactly the same: "My impression was, that the whole was literal and true"...Ghost stories, highwayman stories, fairy tales, Paradise Lost and Daniel Defoe were all equally credible. "I was naturally a firm believer in all that was gravely spoken or printed", he recalled. "I doubted nothing that was found in books... I had no idea at the time I read Robinson Crusoe, that there were such things as novels, works of fiction, in existence".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Barker Print: Book
'Thomas Thompson, from a family of Lancashire weavers, grew up with tales of Robin Hood and the Black Hole of Calctta, as well as an abridged Faerie Queene and Pilgrim's Progress. So when a clergyman asked him why he read the Bible, he innocently replied "that I liked the battle scenes". That answer got him in serious trouble'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Thompson Print: Book
'When young, Frederick Rogers read not only the Bible as a thriller ("the men and women of the sacred books were as familiar to me as the men and women of Alexander Dumas"), but also Pilgrim's Progress: "There is a dark street yet in East London along which I have run with beating heart lest I should meet any of the evil things Bunyan so vividly described".'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Rogers Print: Book
'When young, Frederick Rogers read not only the Bible as a thriller ("the men and women of the sacred books were as familiar to me as the men and women of Alexander Dumas"), but also Pilgrim's Progress: "There is a dark street yet in East London along which I have run with beating heart lest I should meet any of the evil things Bunyan so vividly described".'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Rogers Print: Book
'As a child, William Heaton the Yorkshire weaver-poet, "rambled with Christian from his home in the wilderness to the Celestial City; mused over his hair-breadth escapes, and his conflict with Giant Despair", enjoying it exactly as he enjoyed Roderick Random and Robinson Crusoe.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Heaton Print: Book
'"I made no distinction between Thackeray's Barry Lyndon and Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel - or between Pilgrim's Progress and Sexton Blake", recalled upholsterer's son Herbert Hodge. "All four were simply exciting stories".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Hodge Print: Book
'Elizabeth Rignall, a London painter's daughter, was not permitted to read anything else on Sundays, so she treated Pilgrim's Progress as a horror comic. Irresistibly drawn to the lurid colour illustration of the horned Apollyon, "and stretched out full length on the sofa with the book open before me I would proceed, week after week, to frighten the life out of myself".'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Rignall Print: Book
'At age ten Harry West, the son of a circus escape artist, read Pilgrim's Progress merely as "A great heroic adventure". Only later did he appreciate it as a religious allegory, and still later - after his exposure to Freud and Jung - he came to "discover it as one of the greatest, most potent works on practical psychology extant".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harry West Print: Book
'Emrys Daniel Hughes, son of a Welsh miner, first treated Pilgrim's Progress as an illustrated adventure story. When he was jailed during the first World War for refusing conscription, he reread it and discovered a very different book: "Lord Hategood could easily have been in the Government. I had talked with Mr Worldly Wiseman and had been in the Slough of Despond and knew all the jurymen who had been on the jury at the trial of Hopeful at Vanity Fair. And Vanity Fair would of course have been all for the War."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Emrys Daniel Hughes Print: Book
Byron to Lady Caroline Lamb, 1 May 1812: 'I have read over the few poems of Miss Milbank with attention ... I like the lines on Dermody so much that I wish they were in rhyme. - The lines in the cave at Seaham have a turn of thought which I cannot sufficiently commend ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown
Byron to Lady Caroline Lamb, 1 May 1812: 'I have read over the few poems of Miss Milbank with attention ... I like the lines on Dermody so much that I wish they were in rhyme. - The lines in the cave at Seaham have a turn of thought which I cannot sufficiently commend ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown
Byron to Lady Caroline Lamb, 1 May 1812: 'I have read over the few poems of Miss Milbank with attention ... A friend of mine (fifty years old & an author but not Rogers) has just been here, as there is no name to the MSS I shewed them to him, & he was much more enthusiastic in his praises than I have been ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [friend of Byron's, probably Dallas] anon Manuscript: Unknown
Byron to Bernard Barton, 1 June 1812: 'Some weeks ago my friend Mr Rogers showed me some of the stanzas [of Barton's] in M.S. & I then expressed my opinion of their merit which a further perusal of the printed volume has given me no reason to revoke.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown
Byron to Bernard Barton, 1 June 1812: 'Some weeks ago my friend Mr Rogers showed me some of the stanzas [of Barton's] in M.S. & I then expressed my opinion of their merit which a further perusal of the printed volume has given me no reason to revoke.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to Edward Daniel Clarke, 26 June 1812: 'My dear Sir, - Will you accept my very sincere congratulations on your second volume wherein I have retraced some of my old paths adorned by you so beautifully that they give me double delight. The part which pleases me best is the preface ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to Lady Melbourne, 18 October 1812, on writing by Annabella Milbanke that she has forwarded to him: '... the specimen you send me is more favourable to her talents than her discernment, & much too indulgent to the subject she has chosen ... but you have not sent me the whole (I imagine) by the abruptness of both beginning & end ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown
Byron to John Galt, 8 June 1813: 'I have to thank you for a most agreeable present [apparently a copy of his Letters from the Levant] ... I wish you had given us more ... no one has yet treated the subject in so pleasing a manner. - If there is any page where your readers may be inclined to think you have said too much - it will probably be that in which you have honoured me with a notice far too favourable ... I know nothing more attractive in poetry than your description of the Romaika [dance] ... thank you for a volume on Greece - which has not yet been equalled - & will with difficulty be surpassed.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to Thomas Moore, 22 August 1813: 'I hope you are going on with your grand coup - pray do - or that damned Lucien Buonaparte will beat us all. I have seen much of his poem in MS., and he really surpasses everything beneath Tasso.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown
Byron to Dr Samuel Butler, 20 October 1813: 'The little that I have seen by stealth and accident of Charlemagne quite electrified me.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron
I neither concealed my doubts nor my fears but communicated them freely to several persons, no one however said anything which appeared to me calculated to remove my doubts I read Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and parts of other equally absurd books, but all would not do, reason was too strong for superstition and at length the fiend was completely vanquished.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Place Print: Book
In postscript to letter written by Byron to John Murray, 3 am [29 November 1813]: 'I have got out of my bed (in which however I could not sleep ... ) & so Good Morning - I am trying whether De L'Allemagne will act as an opiate - but I doubt it.-'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to Madame de Stael, 30 November 1813, in praise of her De L'Allemagne: 'few days have passed since its publication without my perusal of many of its pages ... I should be sorry for my own sake to fix the period when I should not recur to it with pleasure.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Book
On my having read some portion of the preceding narrative to Mr Fenn Bookseller at Charing Cross he related circumstances respecting some families in the Strand and its neighbourhood which were similar to those I have related.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Place Manuscript: unpublished memoirs
In Byron's Journal (14 November 1813-19 April 1814): '... [Madame de Stael] writes octavos, and talks folios. I have read her books - like most of them, and delight in the last ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron's Journal (14 November 1813-19 April 1814), 5 December 1813, on Madame De Stael: 'I read her again and again ... I cannot be mistaken (except in taste) in a book I read and lay down, and take up again ... '
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron's Journal (14 November 1813-19 April 1814), 20 March 1814: 'Redde Machiavel, parts of Chardin, and Sismondi, and Bandello - by starts.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to John Herman Merivale, [January 1814]: 'I have redde Roncesvaux with very great pleasure ... You have written a very noble poem ... your measure is uncommonly well chosen & wielded [goes on to advise March publication].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown
Byron to Annabella Milbanke, 12 February 1814: 'In thanking you for your letter you will allow me to say that there is one sentence I do not understand ... I will copy it ... "How may I have forsaken that - and under the influence of an ardent zeal for Sincerity - is an explanation that cannot benefit either of us - should any disadvantage arise from the original fault it must be only where it is deserved - Let this then suffice for I cannot by total silence acquiesce in that which if supported when it's [sic] delusion is known to myself would become deception." - - - This I believe is word for word from your letter now before me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Letter
I usually when I had done with my french, read some book every night and having left the Corresponding Society I never went from home in the evening I always learned and read for three hours and sometimes longer, the books I now read were french; Helvetius, Rousseau and Voltaire. I never wanted books and could generally borrow those I most desired to peruse.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Place Print: Book
Byron in postscript of letter to Annabella Milbanke, 1 August 1814: 'I have read your letter once more -- and it appears to me that I must have said something which makes you apprehend a misunderstanding on my part of your sentiments ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Letter
Byron to John Murray, 3 August 1814: 'I see advertisements of Lara & Jacqueline -- pray why? when I requested you to postpone publication till my return to town.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: AdvertisementManuscript: Letter
Byron to Annabella Milbanke, early in their engagement, 19 September 1814: 'When your letter arrived my sister was sitting near me and grew frightened at the effect of it's contents -- which was even painful for a moment -- not a long one -- nor am I often so shaken.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Letter
Byron to Lady Melbourne, 23 September 1814: 'I am glad you liked Annabella [Milbanke]'s letter to you -- Augusta said that to me (the decisive one ) [ie accepting his marriage proposal] was the best & prettiest she ever read ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Augusta Leigh Manuscript: Letter
Byron to Annabella Milbanke, 16 October 1814: 'In arranging papers I have found the first letter you ever wrote to me -- read it again ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Letter
he was required to answer to some of the articles, viz. the signing and subscribing the two opinions; but I thinck it was not delivered to the house, for I find it engrossed in parchment,and signed by his councill, Henry Roll, John Hearne, Matthew Hale
Unknown
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: John Bramston
When we were at the Grammar School, the English master's daughter, who was in the same class as Sheila, told us that her father had read 'The Blue Lagoon' and thought it very beautiful. We were greatly impressed. It seemed the height of sophistication to get beyond the excitement of reading a description of sexual intercourse -this we knew was the point of the ban, though Betty Martin informed us that it only said 'locked in each other's arms' -and to be able to use the calm Olympian word 'beautiful'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Martin Print: Book
When we were at the Grammar School, the English master's daughter, who was in the same class as Sheila, told us that her father had read 'The Blue Lagoon' and thought it very beautiful. We were greatly impressed. It seemed the height of sophistication to get beyond the excitement of reading a description of sexual intercourse -this we knew was the point of the ban, though Betty Martin informed us that it only said 'locked in each other's arms' -and to be able to use the calm Olympian word 'beautiful'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Betty Martin Print: Book
Throughout our childhood, mother read aloud to us, usually at the kitchen table, but sometimes, as a treat, in the front room and sometimes, on warm summer evenings, in the meadow beyond the garden... The books she chose for these readings were, I now see, startingly bad. Two of her greatest favourites were 'Coming Through the Rye' and 'Freckles'. The first was a tale with a middle-class Victorian background showing true love thwarted by a designing woman... But there was a passage at the end of 'Freckles' which overcame her so that she could not continue...
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Beer Print: Book
My recollection of 'The Pilgrim's Progress' is a little clearer, as it was the impression of much physical activity and play, such as springing out at Sheila from dark corners pretending to be Apollyon
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Patricia Beer Print: Book
Byron to John Murray, 27 June 1816: 'I have traversed all Rousseau's ground -- with the Heloise before me -- & am struck to a degree with the force and accuracy of hs descriptions ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to Samuel Rogers, 29 July 1816: 'I have read "Glenarvon" ... & have also seen Ben. Constant's Adolphe ... a work which leaves an unpleasant impression ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to Samuel Rogers, 29 July 1816: 'I have read "Glenarvon" ... & have also seen Ben. Constant's Adolphe ... a work which leaves an unpleasant impression ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
My companions at the breakfast-table through this summer were many of our popular English Classics. Among these may be enumerated "The Death of Abel" which I read emphatically aloud. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Pope's Homer, Cicero's Letters, Elizabeth, or the Exile of Siberia, Dr Johnson's Rasselas, with many other works of established reputation.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Print: Book
Byron to Thomas Moore, 6 November 1816: 'Among many things at Milan, one pleased me particularly, viz. the correspondence ... of Lucretia Borgia wth Cardinal Bembo ... I ... wished sorely to get a copy of one or two of the letters, but is was prohibited ... so I only got some of them by heart. They are kept in the Ambrosian Library, which I often visited to look them over ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Letter, Unknown
During this Spring read Shakspeare [sic] regularly through, and studied the characters of Hamlet, Douglas, Osman in 'Zara', Sir Charles Racket &c and purchased & read a great number of pieces of dramatic biography, and theatrical criticisms.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Print: Book
Byron to Thomas Moore, 17 November 1816: 'By the way, I suppose you have seen "Glenarvon". Madame de Stael lent it to me to read from Copet last autumn. It seems to me that if the authoress had written the truth ... the romance would not only have been more romantic, but more entertaining.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
[Marginalia]: pp.31-61 are heavily annotated - the only clue to the identity of the annotator is in the ink - it is the colour used by Will. Baillie (see section 1.5). The annotations are in the form of underlinings and marginalia. The marginalia involve detailed comments on the text and and make references to ideas of Sir Joshua Reynolds, therefore dating the comments later in the eighteenth century than the publication date of the book.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Will Baillie Print: Book
[Marginalia]: All three volumes have marginal vertical lines and underlines which appear to indicate meaningful points for the reader (Magdalene Erskine). Vol. 2 has a number of sketches by her. Some of the lines are accompanied by comments or corrections. The end of vol. 3 is dated "My cottage Jany 19th 1809 Thursday night by ... fireside". Marginal comments are in general very brief.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Erskine Print: Book
Byron to John Murray, 9 April 1817: 'I will tell you something about [The Prisoner of] Chillon. -- A Mr. De Luc ninety years old -- a Swiss -- had it read to him & is pleased with it -- so my Sister writes. -- He said that he was with Rousseau at Chillon -- & that the description is perfectly correct -- but this is not all -- I recollected something of the name & find the following passage in "The Confessions" -- vol.3. page 247. Liv. 8th' [quotes passage mentioning "De Luc pere" and "ses deux fils" as companions on boat trip which took in scenery that inspired descriptions in Julie, and conjectures that this De Luc one of the "fils"]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
For some reason we were never confronted with the famous animal books in childhood -neither "The Wind in the Willows" nor "Winne-the-Pooh", nor any Beatrix Potter -and when I did meet the works of Kenneth Grahame and A.A. Milne, at the age of twelve or thirteen, I was past them to the extent that I read from a height, like a connoisseur, with no involvement, accepting with sophistication rather than naivety the clothing, the speecg and the human motives of the animals.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Patricia Beer Print: Book
Once or twice some description of physical pain broke through my detachment: the detailed account of the binding of a young girl's feet in a missionary book about China, or the evocation of the agony, like walking on a thousand knives, endured by the mermaid who was given human legs. The story of 'The Little Mermaid' was in fact one which did make me feel and understand. The hopelessness of a relationship between two people born in different elements was somehow an emotion which I could grasp to the point of distress and one which came back to me in adult life with a sense of complete continuity. But this understanding was almost an aberration.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Patricia Beer Print: Book
In 'The Ugly Duckling' the meaning was something that in my own way I thought about much of the time: I was destined for a higher sphere and would be appreciated when I achieved it; and yet I did not see it in the story or make the connection at all. In fact I interpretted it in the most banal and inaccurate fashion as saying that the plain would become pretty.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Patricia Beer Print: Book
Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 3 June 1819, from Ferrara: 'In looking over the M.S. of Ariosto today -- I found at the bottom of the page after the last stanza of Canto 44, Orlando Furioso ending with the line
"Mi serbo a farsi udie ne l'altro Canto"
the follow[ing] autograph in pencil of Alfieri's
"Vittorio Alfieri vide e venero" / 8 Giugno 1783. --'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown, marginal note in MS of Ariosto, Orlando Furioso
Byron to Lady Byron, 20 July 1819: 'I tried to discover for Leigh Hunt some traces of Francesca [character in Dante's Inferno] -- but except her father Guido's tomb -- and the mere notice of the fact in the Latin commentary of Benvenuto da Imola in M.S. in the Library -- I could discover nothing for him.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown
Byron to Countess Teresa Guiccioli, 23 August 1819, about her copy of Italian translation of Corinne: 'I have read this book in your garden ... you were absent -- or I could not have read it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
'I quite agree with you about Leonidas &c. I have greatly enjoyed finding myself a child again over Macaulay's 'Lays'. Castor & Pollux really took away my breath. How beautiful those Lays are!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'I suppose you shared the benefit, so common, thank God! in our generation, - of an early, & thorough familiarity with Mrs Barbauld's Prose Hymns. I know no book influence (out of the bible) at all to be compared to the hallowing & ripening influence of that little book.[...] I know of no woman's intellect like Mrs. Barbauld's.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'[Balzac's] short works although not new are exquisite - La Recherche de L'Absolu- Eugenie Grandet- Modeste Mignon- The last good cheap English books that I remember were the holy verses by Dr. Kitto, & Duffy's Irish Songs & Ballads- For my own part I have been reading 21 volumes of Mirabeau & about as long of Memoires of that great statesman... What a story- & what a man! If you never read Lucas Montigny's Memoires from Mirabeau sa famille & ses ecrits. Do I conjure you. It is the most graphic book in that language of graphic memoires...Macaulay's book is very able- but one wished to find a greater sympathy especially with misfortune - He really likes nobody except that odious Dutchman.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
'[Balzac's] short works although not new are exquisite - La Recherche de L'Absolu- Eugenie Grandet- Modeste Mignon- The last good cheap English books that I remember were the holy verses by Dr. Kitto, & Duffy's Irish Songs & Ballads- For my own part I have been reading 21 volumes of Mirabeau & about as long of Memoires of that great statesman... What a story- & what a man! If you never read Lucas Montigny's Memoires from Mirabeau sa famille & ses ecrits. Do I conjure you. It is the most graphic book in that language of graphic memoires...Macaulay's book is very able- but one wished to find a greater sympathy especially with misfortune - He really likes nobody except that odious Dutchman.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
'[Balzac's] short works although not new are exquisite - La Recherche de L'Absolu- Eugenie Grandet- Modeste Mignon- The last good cheap English books that I remember were the holy verses by Dr. Kitto, & Duffy's Irish Songs & Ballads- For my own part I have been reading 21 volumes of Mirabeau & about as long of Memoires of that great statesman... What a story- & what a man! If you never read Lucas Montigny's Memoires from Mirabeau sa famille & ses ecrits. Do I conjure you. It is the most graphic book in that language of graphic memoires...Macaulay's book is very able- but one wished to find a greater sympathy especially with misfortune - He really likes nobody except that odious Dutchman.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
'[Balzac's] short works although not new are exquisite - La Recherche de L'Absolu- Eugenie Grandet- Modeste Mignon- The last good cheap English books that I remember were the holy verses by Dr. Kitto, & Duffy's Irish Songs & Ballads- For my own part I have been reading 21 volumes of Mirabeau & about as long of Memoires of that great statesman... What a story- & what a man! If you never read Lucas Montigny's Memoires from Mirabeau sa famille & ses ecrits. Do I conjure you. It is the most graphic book in that language of graphic memoires...Macaulay's book is very able- but one wished to find a greater sympathy especially with misfortune - He really likes nobody except that odious Dutchman.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
'At the close of the nineteenth century, on a farm in Derbyshire Peak District, Robinson Crusoe was read aloud every winter and never palled on the audience. As Alison Uttley remembered, it was even more popular than Pilgrim's Progress: "Christian on his journey met giants and evil men, but Robinson Crusoe fought against the elements, the wind and rain, lightning and tempest, droughts and floods. He lived a life they could understand, catching the food he ate, sowing and reaping corn, making bread, taming beasts... The family shared the life of Robinson Crusoe, hoping and fearing with him, experiencing his sorrows..."'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alison Uttley Print: Book
'During these early years [Daphne du Maurier] filled her head with tales of adventure, romances, histories and popular novels, including such books as Treasure Island, The Snow Queen, The Wreck of the Grosvenor, Old St Paul's, The Tower of London, Nicholas Nickleby, Mr Midshipman Easy, Bleak House, Robinson Crusoe, The Mill on the Floss, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. The seeds of her own novels were planted during these intensive, sometimes acted-out, reading sessions. The fascination with the sea, the importance of an historical sense of place, the theme of the dual personality, are all reflected in her reading during these formative years'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Daphne du Maurier Print: Book
'During these early years [Daphne du Maurier] filled her head with tales of adventure, romances, histories and popular novels, including such books as Treasure Island, The Snow Queen, The Wreck of the Grosvenor, Old St Paul's, The Tower of London, Nicholas Nickleby, Mr Midshipman Easy, Bleak House, Robinson Crusoe, The Mill on the Floss, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. The seeds of her own novels were planted during these intensive, sometimes acted-out, reading sessions. The fascination with the sea, the importance of an historical sense of place, the theme of the dual personality, are all reflected in her reading during these formative years'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Daphne du Maurier Print: Book
'[Janet Hamilton] had a heavy literary diet as a child - history by Rollin and Plutarch, Ancient Universal History, Pitscottie's Chronicles of Scotland, as well as the Spectator and Rambler. She could borrow books by Burns, Robert Fergusson and other poets from neighbours, and at age eight she found "to my great joy, on the loom of an intellectual weaver", Paradise Lost and Allan Ramsay's poems'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Janet Hamilton Print: Book
'Robert White... had somewhat more progressive tastes [than Robert Story], which extended to Shelley, Keats, Childe Harold, and The Lady of the Lake. But his reading stopped short at the Romantics. In 1873 he confessed that he could not stomach avant-garde poets like Tennyson. "As for our modern novel-writers - Dickens, Thackeray and others I do not care to read them, since Smollett, Fielding and Scott especially are all I desire".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert White Print: Book
Byron to John Murray, 17 July 1820, on books used in research for Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice: 'I have consulted Sanuto -- Sandi -- Navagero -- & an anonymous Siege of Zara -- besides the histories of Laugier Daru -- Sismondi &c.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to John Murray, 17 July 1820, on books used in research for Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice: 'I have consulted Sanuto -- Sandi -- Navagero -- & an anonymous Siege of Zara -- besides the histories of Laugier Daru -- Sismondi &c.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to John Murray, 22 July 1820, about books received: 'the diary of an Invalid good and true bating a few mistakes about "Serventismo" which no foreigner can understand ... without residing years in the country. -- I read that part (translated that is) to some of the Ladies in the way of knowing how far it was accurate and they laughed particularly at the part where he says that "they must not have children by their lover" ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
'In the 1920s Janet Hitchman acquired her literary education among the derelict bookshlves of an orphanage, which included a huge collection of "drunken father deathbed conversion" stories (Christie's Old Organ, 'The Little Match Girl', A Peep behind the Scenes), as well as everything by Dickens, old volumes of Punch and the Spectator and The Life of Ruskin. "My undigested reading made me look at the world with mid-Victorian eyes", she recalled'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Janet Hitchman Print: Book
Byron to Countess Teresa Guiccioli, 7 August 1820 (translated from Italian): 'I am reading the second volume of the proposal of that classical cuckold Perticari ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
[due to the fact that books in working class communities were generally cheap out of copyright reprints, not new works] Welsh collier Joseph Keating was able to immerse himself in Swift, Pope, Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Keats, Byron, Shelley, Dickens and Greek philosophy, as well as the John Dicks edition of Vanity Fair in weekly installments. The common denominator among these authors was that they were all dead. "Volumes by living authors were too high-priced for me", Keating explained. "Our schoolbooks never mentioned living writers; and the impression in my mind was that an author, to be a living author, must be dead and that his work was all the better if he died of neglect and starvation".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Keating Print: Book
[due to the fact that books in working class communities were generally cheap out of copyright reprints, not new works] Welsh collier Joseph Keating was able to immerse himself in Swift, Pope, Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Keats, Byron, Shelley, Dickens and Greek philosophy, as well as the John Dicks edition of Vanity Fair in weekly installments. The common denominator among these authors was that they were all dead. "Volumes by living authors were too high-priced for me", Keating explained. "Our schoolbooks never mentioned living writers; and the impression in my mind was that an author, to be a living author, must be dead and that his work was all the better if he died of neglect and starvation".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Keating Print: Book
Byron to John Murray, 29 September 1820: '... on reading more of the 4 volumes on Italy [attacked by Byron in note to Marino Faliero] ... I perceive (horresco referens [Virgil, Aeneid II.204: "I shudder to recall"]) that it is written by a WOMAN!!!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
'orphanage boy Thomas Burke... devoured books until "my mind became a lumber room". Inevitably, "criticism was beyond me; the hungry man has no time for the fastidiousness of the epicure. I was hypnotised by the word Poet. A poem by Keats (some trifle never meant for print) was a poem by Keats. Pope, Cowper and Kirke White and Mrs Hemans and Samuel Rogers were Poets. That was enough."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burke Print: Unknown
'As one participant recalled, "Many exceptional debates come back to mind on such subjects as Jane Austen, Charles Lamb, Victorian Novelists, George Eliot, Meredith, Pepys and the Navy, Frederick the Great, Wordsworth, Shelley, Napoleon, where the speaking was of high level and the debating power considerable."'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society Print: Book
Byron's Ravenna Journal (4 January-27 February 1821), 5 January 1821: 'Ordered Fletcher (at four o'clock this afternoon) to copy out 7 or 8 apophthegms of Bacon, in which I have detected such blunders as a school-boy might detect rather than commit. Such are the sages! What must they be, when such as I can stumble on their mistakes or misstatements?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown, Copied by William Fletcher (reader's valet).
Byron's Ravenna Journal (4 January-27 February 1821), 5 January 1821: 'Ordered Fletcher (at four o'clock this afternoon) to copy out 7 or 8 apophthegms of Bacon, in whiich I have detected such blunders as a school-boy might detect rather than commit. Such are the sages! What must they be, when such as I can stumble on their mistakes or misstatements?'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Fletcher
Byron's Ravenna Journal (4 January-27 February 1821), 6 January 1821: 'Read Spence's Anecdotes ... Corrected blunders in nine apophthegms of Bacon -- all historical -- and read Mitford's Greece.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown, Copied by William Fletcher (reader's valet).
Finished the second volume of Mrs Radcliffe's 'Italian'. She is the best writer in her way of anybody I [have?] heard of. There is one scene in this volume which cannot be easily equalled. I mean the scene [...] in the passage when they are going to murder Helena the heroine of the story.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
We got the last volume of the Italian, I think it does not equal the former production
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
Byron's Ravenna Journal (4 January-27 February 1821), 12 January 1821: 'Midnight. Read the Italian translation by Guido Sorelli of the German Grillparzer ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron's Ravenna Journal (4 January-27 February 1821), 12 January 1821: 'I have read ... much less of Goethe, and Schiller, and Wieland, than I could wish. I only know them through the medium of English, French, and Italian translations.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to Thomas Moore, 5 July 1821: 'I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in England ... It is signed simply N. N. A. ... She simply says that she is dying, and that as I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, she thought that she might say so ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Letter
Byron's "Detached Thoughts" (15 October 1821-18 May 1822), on R. B. Sheridan, 15 October 1821: 'One day I saw him take up his own "Monody on Garrick". -- He lighted upon the dedication to the Dowager Lady Spencer -- on seeing it he flew into a rage -- exclaimed "that it must be a forgery -- that he had never dedicated anything of his to such a d-- --d canting b-- --h &c. &c. &c." and so went on for half an hour ...'
Unknown
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Byron to John Sheppard, who had sent him a prayer apparently written for him (Byron) by his (Sheppard's) late wife, 8 December 1821: "I have received yr. letter ... the Extract which it contains has affected me ... it would imply a want of all feeling to have read it with indifference ... for whomever it was meant [this apparently uncertain] -- I have read it with all the pleasure which can arise from so melancholy a topic."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Manuscript: Letter
'I do not wonder at your wanting to read [italics for title] first impressions again, so seldom as you have gone through it, & that so long ago.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Cassandra Austen Manuscript: Book in Manuscript
Byron to the Earl of Blessington, 5 April 1823: 'I return the C[ount] D'O[rsay]'s journal which is a very extraordinary production ... I know or knew personally most of the personages and societies which he describes -- and after reading his remarks -- have the sensation fresh upon me as if I had seen them yesterday.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown
Byron to Madame Sergent-Marceau, 5 May 1823 (translated from Italian): 'no present you might give me would be more welcome than the short work in which the actions of your Brother [General Marceau], whose memory I revere, are so well described. I have read this work with the greatest pleasure ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to the Countess of Blessington, on Benjamin Constant's Adolphe, 6 May 1823: 'The first time I ever read it ... was at the desire of Madame de Stael ...'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
'Rose Macaulay's inner life was fostered from the start by parents who made her earliest years rich with stories and make-believe. "read much aloud to the children", Grace Macaulay records in her diary of 19 November 1887... "(all 5 listening in rapt atention), 'Rosamond and the Purple Jar', 'Leila or the Island' and 'The Wave and the Battlefield' - also 'Holiday House'."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Grace Macaulay Print: Book
'Rose... remembers her father reading to them - Dickens, Scott, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Meredith, Tom Jones, The Three Musketeers, Don Quixote, and, curiously, The Origin of Species'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Macaulay Print: Book
'Rose... remembers her father reading to them - Dickens, Scott, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Meredith, Tom Jones, The Three Musketeers, Don Quixote, and, curiously, The Origin of Species'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Macaulay Print: Book
'She read Renan's Life of Jesus, which had proved so critical to George Eliot's subsitution of Duty for God. As a corollary text, Rose discovered the rousing, hopeful words of Mill, who argued for the sacredness of her larger duty to herself'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rose Macaulay Print: Book
'Working class readers continued to enjoy Macaulay's drama and accessibility long after professional historians had declared him obsolete. Kathleen Woodward read Gibbon's Decline and Fall and Macaulay's History of England twice through over factory work, with such absorption she once injured a finger, leaving "an honourable scar".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Kathleen Woodward Print: Book
'[J.M. Dent's] reading was marked by the autodidact's characteristic enthusiasm and spottiness. He knew Pilgrim's Progress, Milton, Cowper, Thomson's Seasons and Young's Night Thoughts; but...did not read Shakespeare seriously until he was nearly thirty'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Malaby Dent Print: Book
'In the Star [Philip] Ballard read the music criticism of Bernard Shaw, and Richard le Gallienne on books... He pressed on to Meredith and Walter Pater'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Ballard Print: Serial / periodical, Unknown
'"In my childhood, I never met another who could not read", [H.M. Tomlinson] recalled. "Some of them could be so excited by the printed page that they passed on the fun they had found, and thus... I was introduced to Mayne Reid, and again to Harrison Ainsworth, with "The Headless Horseman" and "Rookwood"".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: H.M. Tomlinson Print: Book
'Lancashire weaver Elizabeth Blackburn... proceeded to an evening institute course in English literature and by the rhythm of the looms she memorised all of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind", Milton's Lycidas, and Gray's Elegy. She discovered the ancient Greeks at the home of a neighbour, a self-educated classicist with six children, and a Sunday school teacher introduced her to the plays of Bernard Shaw. While attending her looms she silently analysed the character of Jane Eyre's Mr Rochester, "sometimes to the detriment of my weaving".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Blackburn Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Thursday 3 June 1802, 'We have been reading the Life and some of the writings of poor Logan since dinner.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William and Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
'From 7.40 to 9 1/2 reading aloud to myself from p.42 to 50 (very carefully) vol.I Rousseau's Confessions. I READ this work so attentively for the style's sake. Besides this is a singularly unique display of character.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
' Came up to bed at 9.50. Read from pp55 to 65 Vol.I Rousseau's Confessions.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
' Could not resist unpacking my books from Paris...About ten [servant] came and curled my hair. Stood musing. Peeped into some of my books. Vol.I Nouvelle Heloise.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
' Reading from pp 22 to 32, II, Nouvelle Heloise.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
[Letter dated 1823, to Miss Pickford]. Madame Marcet is a very good guide as far as she goes, but surely respecting the system of pulleys she has not gone quite far enough. She has left us to ourselves rather too soon'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
Before breakfast, looking over the Greek grammar and Bonnycastle's algebra...
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister
Before breakfast + afterwards, from 11 to 1, making minutes + extracts from Hall's travels in France (it must go to the library today...He is an arrant republican in politics + would perhaps, style himself a philosopher in religion. Consequently, his sentiments + mine on these subjects who as a limited monarchist + a ProtestantChristian according to the established Church of England, are opposite almost as the poles. However, there is some information useful to a tourist.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Newspaper
'The son of a barely literate Derbyshire collier recalled a sister, a worker in a hosiery factory, who was steeped in the poetry of Byron, Shelley, Keats and D.H. Lawrence. Their mother's reading "would astonish the modern candidate for honours in English at any university", he claimed. "Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgeniev, Dumas, Hugo, Thackeray, Meredith, Scott, Dickens, all the classics, poetry etc., all these gave her immense joy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sutton Print: Book
'The son of a barely literate Derbyshire collier recalled a sister, a worker in a hosiery factory, who was steeped in the poetry of Byron, Shelley, Keats and D.H. Lawrence. Their mother's reading "would astonish the modern candidate for honours in English at any university", he claimed. "Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgeniev, Dumas, Hugo, Thackeray, Meredith, Scott, Dickens, all the classics, poetry etc., all these gave her immense joy".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sutton Print: Book
'[William Robertson] Nicoll's boyhood reading included Scott, Disraeli, the Brontes, Bulwer Lytton, Shelley, Johnson, Addison, Steele, Goldsmith, Emerson, Lowell, Longfellow ...' [Nicoll's father a Scottish clergyman who amassed library of 17,000 volumes.]
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Robertson Nicoll Print: Book
"Robert Blatchford, growing up in Halifax in the 1860s, read from the penny library there Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Southey's Life of Nelson, Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop, and novels by Captain Marryat, the Brontes, and Miss M. E. Braddon."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Blatchford Print: Book
I shall turn for a while to Urquhart's comentaries on classical learning. O books! books! I owe you much. Ye are my spirits oil without which, its own friction against itself would wear out.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
"The heart knows its own bitterness + it is enough. Je sens moncover, et je connais les hommes. Je ne suis fait comme [...] Rousseau's confessions, volume and page, first"
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
In the afternoon, read aloud the first 30pp. glenarvon, vol.2. Miss Goodricke called and sat a little while with us. the girls introduced me. She thanked me for the book I had bought for Miss Morritt from Miss Emily Cholmley...
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
Just before tea... read from p.126 to 168, collections and recollections the last article a pretty well done account of Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
Got home a few minutes past one. M- + I tete-a-tete in the drawing [room]... Brought down Dr Ash's little book, Institute of English Grammar, trying to give M - some instruction + lent her the book.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
'In 1917 ... [John Buchan] was treated for a duodenal ulcer. Recuperating after the operation, he read through a dozen of the Waverley Novels, the Valois and D'Artagnan cycles of Dumas, then Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame" and the immense "Les Miserables" ... ending up with half a dozen of Balzac ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan Print: Book
'In 1917 ... [John Buchan] was treated for a duodenal ulcer. Recuperating after the operation, he read through a dozen of the Waverley Novels, the Valois and D'Artagnan cycles of Dumas, then Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame" and the immense "Les Miserables" ... ending up with half a dozen of Balzac ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan Print: Book
'In 1917 ... [John Buchan] was treated for a duodenal ulcer. Recuperating after the operation, he read through a dozen of the Waverley Novels, the Valois and D'Artagnan cycles of Dumas, then Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame" and the immense "Les Miserables" ... ending up with half a dozen of Balzac ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan Print: Book
' ... in 1917-18, when he was 90, Sir Edward Fry asked his wife and daughters to read Lockhart's "Life of Scott" to him to take his mind off the Great War, which, as a Quaker, he abhorred -- "and for many hours every day ... to all ten volumes ... he listened in the last winter of his life."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Edward Fry Print: Book
' ... in 1917-18, when he was 90, Sir Edward Fry asked his wife and daughters to read Lockhart's Life of Scott to him to take his mind off the Great War, which, as a Quaker, he abhorred -- "and for many hours every day ... to all ten volumes ... he listened in the last winter of his life."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mariabella Fry Print: Book
'As a summer relaxation in 1920, Thomas Hardy and his wife - he 80 years old, she half his age -- moved on to "Emma", after reading together "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas and Florence Hardy Print: Book
'As a summer relaxation in 1920, Thomas Hardy and his wife - he 80 years old, she half his age -- moved on to "Emma", after reading together "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas and Florence Hardy Print: Book
'As a summer relaxation in 1920, Thomas Hardy and his wife - he 80 years old, she half his age -- moved on to "Emma", after reading together "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas and Florence Hardy Print: Book
E. M. Forster, "Jane Austen," in Abinger Harvest (1924): 'She is my favourite author! I read and re-read, the mouth open and the mind closed.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
My father's large bookcase was stuffed with odd volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine and other miscellaneous matters. Anacharsis' 'travels in Greece', Robertson's 'America', Goldsmith's 'History of England', Adams' 'Rome', Wesley's sermons and Fletcher's controversial volumes. All these had been read by me, either for my own amusement, or aloud to my father, whose sight had been lost for years.
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lutton Print: Book
' ... [Elizabeth and Alice Thompson] used to go for picnics at Porto Fino, loaded with books of verse, and Mrs Thompson and Mr [Alfred] Strettell would read aloud to them from Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and Tennyson.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Christiana Thompson Print: Book
' ... [Elizabeth and Alice Thompson] used to go for picnics at Porto Fino, loaded with books of verse, and Mrs Thompson and Mr [Alfred] Strettell would read aloud to them from Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and Tennyson.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Baker Strettell Print: Book
June Badeni on readings by 13-year-old Alice Thompson, as recorded in her notebook: 'She has been reading more of Scott and Dickens, is plunging through the novels of George Eliot... has sampled Bulwer Lytton, Thackeray, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alice Thompson Print: Book
Alice Meynell recalls childhood reading: 'In quite early childhood I lived upon Wordsworth ... When I was about twelve I fell in love with Tennyson, and cared for nothing else until, at fifteen, I discovered Keats and then Shelley.'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alice Thompson
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Private in an infantry regiment, formerly a skilled painter, age eighteen. Spends evenings painting, reading, working on model airplanes. Has attended art school....Patronizes Free Library. Has read The Pickwick Papers, The Old Curiosity Shop, David Copperfield, Bulwer Lytton, Ballantyne, Henty, Robinson Crusoe, Quentin Dirward, Ivanhoe, Waverley, Kidnapped, Treasure Island and Two Years before the Mast, as well as the travels of David Livingstone, Fridtjof Nansen, Matthew Peary and Scott of the Antarctic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[analysis of a female respondent in Arnold Freeman's 1918 Sheffield Survey] 'Machinist in a shell factory, age twenty-four... Has read Shakespeare, Burns, Keats, Scott, Tennyson, Dickens, Vanity Fair, The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, biography and history'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
'In 1955 Manny Shinwell - who read all of Palgrave's Golden Treasury to his children, and had consoled himself in prison with Keats and Tennyson - regretted that that poetic heritage had been surrendered to the cinema and radio: "In the early days of the [socialist] movement it was common practice of speakers to recite poetry...".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Emmanuel (Manny) Shinwell Print: Book
'In 1955 Manny Shinwell - who read all of Palgrave's Golden Treasury to his children, and had consoled himself in prison with Keats and Tennyson - regretted that that poetic heritage had been surrendered to the cinema and radio: "In the early days of the [socialist] movement it was common practice of speakers to recite poetry...".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Emmanuel (Manny) Shinwell Print: Book
'Allen Clark, the son of Bolton textile workers, found physiology books in the public library incomprehensible. A newspaper reference to Rabelais motivated him to borrow Gargantua and Pantagruel, which was no more helpful: "the love passages in the tales were meaningless and boring and I skipped them".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Allen Clarke Print: Book
I had a look at 'In tune with the infinite'. I moved on to my father's single volume, India paper edition of 'Shakespeare's Complete Works' and started at the beginning with the 'Rape of Lucrece' and the sonnets and continued slowly through the plays during the coming year. For relief I took up Marie Corelli's 'Master Christian' which I found more moving than Shakespeare and more intelligible than 'Thanatopsis'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Sawdon Pritchett Print: Book
'Your kind present of Andrew Lang's two volumes has just reached me, and from what I have gleaned by a glimpse of the plates wh. I have opened, I have an intellectual treat for store this evening & subsequent nights'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: S.P. Oliver Print: Book
'"Stilted prose" was the rapid and unhesitating reply to whether ... [George Meredith] reckoned "The Light of Asia" a very fine poem, to the dismay of his questioner, who had "read and re-read it with the greatest possible pleasure" ...'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Unknown
'[C. F.] Andrews was a missionary with the Cambridge Brotherhood and present at [William] Rothenstein's Hampstead home on 30 June 1912, when, before a select audience, including H. W. Nevinson, [Rabindranath] Tagore was introduced and Yeats gave readings from the "Gitanjali".'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Butler Yeats
'Sir, I have heard with great regret that you are the author of that gross personal libel which appeared in the Quarterly Review, in the form of criticism on my Life of Cardinal Wolsey. I say with regret because it has been my settled determination from the moment I read the article to make the author sensible that in accusing me of being activated by the most obnoxious principles, he had laid himself open to be suspected of obeying them himself.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Galt Print: Serial / periodical
'I have been going through a course of novels by lady authors, beginning with Mrs Brooke and ending with Miss Austen, who is my especial favourite. I had always wished, not daring to hope, that I might be something like Miss Austen; and, having finished her works, I took to my own, to see if I could find any resemblance. I am not certain that I have read any of mine since the time of their publication; if I have it is so long since that I have forgotten it, and I was surprised to find in the first leaf of The Miser Married the critic's opinion'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Hutton Print: Book
'I have been going through a course of novels by lady authors, beginning with Mrs Brooke and ending with Miss Austen, who is my especial favourite. I had always wished, not daring to hope, that I might be something like Miss Austen; and, having finished her works, I took to my own, to see if I could find any resemblance. I am not certain that I have read any of mine since the time of their publication; if I have it is so long since that I have forgotten it, and I was surprised to find in the first leaf of The Miser Married the critic's opinion'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Hutton Print: Book
'I have been going through a course of novels by lady authors, beginning with Mrs Brooke and ending with Miss Austen, who is my especial favourite. I had always wished, not daring to hope, that I might be something like Miss Austen; and, having finished her works, I took to my own, to see if I could find any resemblance. I am not certain that I have read any of mine since the time of their publication; if I have it is so long since that I have forgotten it, and I was surprised to find in the first leaf of The Miser Married the critic's opinion'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Hutton Print: Book
'I have been going through a course of novels by lady authors, beginning with Mrs Brooke and ending with Miss Austen, who is my especial favourite. I had always wished, not daring to hope, that I might be something like Miss Austen; and, having finished her works, I took to my own, to see if I could find any resemblance. I am not certain that I have read any of mine since the time of their publication; if I have it is so long since that I have forgotten it, and I was surprised to find in the first leaf of The Miser Married the critic's opinion'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Hutton Print: Book
'I have been going through a course of novels by lady authors, beginning with Mrs Brooke and ending with Miss Austen, who is my especial favourite. I had always wished, not daring to hope, that I might be something like Miss Austen; and, having finished her works, I took to my own, to see if I could find any resemblance. I am not certain that I have read any of mine since the time of their publication; if I have it is so long since that I have forgotten it, and I was surprised to find in the first leaf of The Miser Married the critic's opinion'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Hutton Print: Book
'I have been going through a course of novels by lady authors, beginning with Mrs Brooke and ending with Miss Austen, who is my especial favourite. I had always wished, not daring to hope, that I might be something like Miss Austen; and, having finished her works, I took to my own, to see if I could find any resemblance. I am not certain that I have read any of mine since the time of their publication; if I have it is so long since that I have forgotten it, and I was surprised to find in the first leaf of The Miser Married the critic's opinion'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Hutton Print: Book
Letter W 38 - Chamouni, 3/10/1863 - "I can't make out the run of some coal slates of the Col de Balme at their junction with what Saussure calls the 'poudingues de Valorsins'. Such a scramble as I've had after them today!"
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
Constance Smedley on readings in American literature: 'Thoreau ... opened the door to a philosophy of life when I was about fifteen ... in his train came Emerson and Lowell ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Constance Smedley Print: Unknown
" reading Rousseau to my Sally."
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Eleanor Butler
" From one till three reading Rousseau to the joy of my Life."
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Eleanor Butler
" From five till Ten read Rousseau (finished the 7th tome) to my Sally.
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Eleanor Butler
' ... in Egypt during the Great War [E. M.] Forster applied himself to read [Henry] James. Struggling with What Maisie Knew (1897), he rather thought that "she is my very limit ..."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Charles Garvice in interview with T.P.'s Weekly, 5 May 1911 (p.556): 'I once found my daughter reading a book. I asked her what it was. "Oh," she replied, "It's Maggie" ... I took it up ... and to my horror I discovered it was the story of a New York courtesan ...'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Garvice Print: Book
Charles Garvice in interview with T.P.'s Weekly, 5 May 1911 (p.556): 'I once found my daughter reading a book. I asked her what it was. "Oh," she replied, "It's Maggie" ... I took it up ... and to my horror I discovered it was the story of a New York courtesan ...'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Garvice Print: Book
' ... at Stanway in 1916 for her sister's twenty-first birthday, Lady Cynthia [Asquith] entertained family and guests after dinner by [mockingly] reading from The Rosary [by Florence L. Barclay] ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Cynthia Asquith Print: Book
'On learning that [Hall] Caine was to present twenty-four lectures in Liverpool on "Prose Fiction" ... [D. G. Rossetti] insisted that he read the works [of English novelists] aloud to him; hence "I read Fielding and Smollett, Richardson, Radcliffe, 'Monk' Lewis, Thackeray and Dickens, under a running fire of comment and criticism from Rossetti".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Hall Caine Print: Book
Letter H53, January 1857
"But I think if you read Anderson carefully, you will feel how pointed, neat and concise he is in comparison. How unexpected also are most of his turns. The conceit of the different personages is nearly all that is amusing here" (referring to one of Miss Heaton's tales)"and you will find Anderson has worked that point thoroughly in the 'darning needle' and the hen and the can in the ugly duck &c."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
Letter H 21 - 12/11/1855 - "-The common - pretty - timid - mistletoe bought kind of kiss was not what Dante meant. Rossetti has thoroughly understood the passage throughout. You will see that in the first of the series it is really not Francesca's fault. She is nearly fainting and cannot help it."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
Letter H. 28 - 23/12/1855 - "You have Carey's Dante I suppose - else Matilda's quotation from the Psalms might be useless to you. Carey is on the whole the best - and very beautiful. Cayley is sometimes closer to the original."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
Letter H 32 - 11/1/1857 - "Here is a little bit of criticism at last by way of example on your beginning of the Butterfly. "I am going to tell you." This is familiar - as if to a child. But half way down page, you becomes thee - with inverted heroic phrase "Despise not" as if it were some very grand person whom you were talking to; this is a dramatic flaw.
?Loveliest creatures that draw food? ? Why not ?feed?. Weak, because too long. If you mean to limit the phrase to proboscidian feeding ? your compliment to the butterflies is weak ? For it is not much to be fairer than Gnats & midges and such like ? who literally draw food.
?Heart of fairest cloud? is pretty.
?Through many of the daylight hours? ? Very long ? but I see it won?t contract.?
?Is it you have sent? ? ?Who have?, I think ? is necessary. I don?t see anything else to snap at for a long way. The fable is very pretty ? if only you will make your caterpillar dramatically correct - & not so much like one of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton?s best heroes. ?Make him full of caterpillar faults ? like a poor mortal ? cold blooded ? also ? as he is - & without a heart... The essence of a good fable is that every beast should have his own proper nature.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Manuscript: Unpublished short tales
'Suddenly he [William Edmonstoune Ayton] burst forth without any warning with "Come hither Evan Cameron" - and repeated the poem to us.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Edmonstoune Ayton Print: Serial / periodical
"By an accidental combination of circumstances I only saw your article on my 'secularism' this afternoon. I have no complaints to make of it & no wish to carry on the controversy. But I do wish (for I value highly your good opinion on moral character & respect all your opinions) to acquit myself from one or two charges of unfairness to Mr Maurice."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
"Excuse all this; but though you may not easily give me credit I really admired Mr Maurice; I attended his lectures as a boy; I studied his books carefully & I should be sorry that you think of my errors as caused by carelessness or undue superciliousness. They are at least the outcome of a good deal of as conscientious thinking as I can give."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
'The Queen [Victoria] had ... [in 1886] read only "Donovan" [by Edna Lyall], but in sending this to her daughter together with "We Two" she added about the latter that Princess 'Beatrice has ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Queen Victoria Print: Book
'The Queen [Victoria] had ... [in 1886] read only "Donovan" [by Edna Lyall], but in sending this to her daughter together with "We Two" [1884] she added about the latter that Princess "Beatrice has ..."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Princess Beatrice Print: Book
'Aged 22, Mrs [Ruth] Baily read [and enjoyed] both ... ["Donovan" and "We Two"] in 1887 ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Ruth Baily Print: Book
'Aged 22, Mrs [Ruth] Baily read [and enjoyed] both ... ["Donovan" and "We Two"] in 1887 ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Ruth Baily Print: Book
"'I have finished Endymion with a painful feeling that the writer [Disraeli] considers all political life as mere play and gambling,' wrote the Archbishop of Canterbury, Tait ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: A. C. Tait Print: Book
'[R. L. Stevenson] ... nominated ["The Egoist"], together with a couple of Scott's novels, a Dumas, Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Moliere, as one of that handful of books which ... he read repeatedly -- four or five times in the case of "The Egoist", he declared in 1887.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'The novel can't just leave the war out [...] What has been - stands - but Jane Austen could not write Northanger Abbey now - or if she did I'd have none of her'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'I bought a book by Henry James yesterday and read it, as they say, "until far into the night". It was not very interesting or very good, but I can wade through pages and pages of dull, turgid James for the sake of that sudden sweet shock, that violent throb of delight that he gives me at times. I don't doubt this is genius: only there is an extraordinary amount of pan and an amazingly raffine' flash - '
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
' "They were neither of them quite enough in love to imagine that ?350 a year would supply them with all the comforts of life" (Jane Austen's "Elinor and Edward"). My God! say I'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
[Bennett] '. . .reread Balzac and de Maupassant and wondered whether he would be acccused of plagiarism.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'[A. A.] Milne ... [became] a decided anti-militarist after reading Norman Angell's "The Great Illusion" (1910) ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alan Alexander Milne Print: Book
'In 1911 E. M. Forster read "with mingled joy and disgust" "A School History of England", which Kipling and C. R. L. Fletcher had just published ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'[John] Galsworthy sent [Thomas] Hardy a presentation copy of "The Man of Property" [1906] and, Hardy told Florence Henniker, "I began it, but found the people too materialistic and sordid to be interesting".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Hardy Print: Book
'[George Bernard] Shaw read the Bible all through; and he was much affected by Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress".'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Bernard Shaw Print: Book
'"Why do you want to break men's spirits for?" Shaw asked Henry James after reading his one-act play "The Saloon" in 1909.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Bernard Shaw
'When Wilfrid Blunt ... reread "Loss and Gain" he was struck how "Newman's mind ... seems never to have faced the real issues of belief and unbelief, those which have to be fought out with materialism ..."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfrid Scawen Blunt Print: Book
"The longer you are married, the better you will like it & then I hope you will show proper gratitude to your adviser - not but that you will also heretically deny his influence in the matter. Man is ungrateful. If you doubt it read La Rochefoucauld & the other authors of reputation - I forget their names."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
"S[ain]te Beuve & Mat. Arnold (in a smaller way) are the only modern critics wh. seem to me worth reading - perhaps, too, Lowell."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
" But I read with unchecked voracity, and in several curious directions...I made aquaintance with Keats, who entirely captivated me."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Gosse Print: Book
"I finished Daudet who is stupid & took to Plato who is first rate for sleeping purposes. I can just puzzle it out enough to get muddled."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
'I finished old Newman?s book coming down & as the book is too metaphysical to give you pleasure I will tell you what it comes to, it is an elaborate apology for the morality of persuading yourself that a thing is absolutely certain when you really know that it is not certain at all? Why shouldn?t I say that such a creature is a liar & that I despise him? I do most heartily.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
'To say the truth, much as I like reading them & specially Balzac and Sand, & little as I am given to overstrictness in my tastes, I do believe that the commonplace criticism is correct. I do think they are as a rule prurient & indecent & that they treat love affairs a good deal too much from the point of view of the whore and the whoremonger. They are very clever and very artistic; but I don?t think delicate either in the sense of art or morals? The books are put together with great skill to produce a given effect; but the effect is apt to border on the nasty & they are too anxious to keep everything in due harmony to give proper contrasts & variety of real life.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
"Why do you say that I don't like Dante? I read him through with the help of your crib & was profoundly impressed."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
'It occurred to me lately to read Dante again &, as I required a crib very constantly I took yours & by its help went through the whole. It suggested to me innumerable speculations upon which I should have liked to ask your questions? I should have liked to know, to suggest only one question, what Dante himself really believed? That is, of course, unanswerable; but I should like to get a little nearer to an answer at all conceivable to me.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
"I have read Corinne with my father, and I like it better than he does. In one word, I am dazzled by the genius, provoked by the absurdities, and in admiration of the taste and critical judgement of Italian literature displayed throughout the work. ... My father acknowledges he never read anything more pathetic."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria Edgeworth Print: Book
"I have been laughed at unmercifully by some of the phlegmatic personages around the library table for my impatience to send you The Mine. Do you think Margaret cannot live five minutes longer without it? ... Observe, I think the poem as a drama, tiresome in the extreme, and absurd, but I wish you to see the very letters from the man in the quick silver mine which you recommended to me have been seized upon by a poet of no inferior genius. Some of the strophes of the fairies are most beautifullly poetic."
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria Edgeworth Print: Book
??in Mrs Radcliff?s romances. She was ? an extraordinary female, and her style of writing ? must be allowed to form an era in English romances. Her ignorance was nearly equal to her imagination and that is to say a great deal. Of the modest life on the continent (where scenes of all her romances ? are laid) she knew nothing. With all this, and more, her romances are irresistibly and dangerously delightful? The most extraordinary production of this period was the powerful and wicked romance of The Monk. The spirits raised by the Enchantress of Udolpho, compared to those evoked by Lewis, are like the attendants on Prospero in his enchanted island.?
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Maturin Print: Book
In the public library [Manny Shinwell] doggedly tackled volumes "whose contents I usually failed to understand": Paley's Evidences of Christianity, Haeckel's Riddle of the Universe, Herbert Spencer's Sociology, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Shinwell's whole intellectual career was an exciting but laborious exercise in decoding. All his life he used a dictionary to correct his pronunciation'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Emmanuel Shinwell (later Baron Shinwell) Print: Book
The parents of playwright Arnold Wesker were both immigrants, tailor's machinists, Communists and culturally Jewish atheists. Wesker admitted he was "a very bad student", but his parents provided an envionment of "constant ideological discussion at home, argument and disputation all the time... it was the common currency of day-to-day living that ideas were discussed around the table, and it was taken for granted that there were books in the house and that we would read". The books mostly had a leftward slant (Tolstoy, Gorky, Jack London, Sinclair Lewis) but Wesker soon reached out to Balzac, Maupassant and a broader range of literature'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Wesker Print: Book
'While his widowed mother... worked a market stall, Ralph Finn scrambled up the scholarship ladder to Oxford University. He credited his success largely to his English master at Davenant Foundation School: "When I was an East End boy searching for beauty, hardly knowing what I was searching for, fighting against all sorts of bad beginnings and unrewarding examples, he more than anyone taught me to love our tremndous heritage of English language and literature". And Finnn never doubted that it was HIS heritage: "My friends and companions Tennyson, Browning, Keats, Shakespeare, Francis Thompson, Donne, Housman, the Rosettis. All as alive to me as thought they had been members of my family". After all, as he was surprised and pleased to discover, F.T. Palgrave (whose Golden Treasury he knew thoroughly) was part-Jewish'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ralph Finn Print: Book
'While his widowed mother... worked a market stall, Ralph Finn scrambled up the scholarship ladder to Oxford University. He credited his success largely to his English master at Davenant Foundation School: "When I was an East End boy searching for beauty, hardly knowing what I was searching for, fighting against all sorts of bad beginnings and unrewarding examples, he more than anyone taught me to love our tremndous heritage of English language and literature". And Finnn never doubted that it was HIS heritage: "My friends and companions Tennyson, Browning, Keats, Shakespeare, Francis Thompson, Donne, Housman, the Rosettis. All as alive to me as thought they had been members of my family". After all, as he was surprised and pleased to discover, F.T. Palgrave (whose Golden Treasury he knew thoroughly) was part-Jewish'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ralph Finn Print: Book
[Bill Naughton was hurt that when he applied for conscientious objector status the tribunal was suspicious of his elevated vocabulary] '"I couldn't help feeling hurt", Naughton recalled, "that they should deny one the right to use the English language". That hit both ethnic and class nerves: he had been born in County Mayo of peasant stock. At any rate, he was using the language to read Locke, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Schopenhauer, Marx and The Faerie Queene. They were not easy to decipher at first, but as he pieced together an understanding of what he was reading, he became more critical and less deferential...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Bill Naughton Print: Book
[D.R. Davies was inspired by his school teacher] 'to read Macaulay's History of England before his twelfth birthday'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: D.R. Davies Print: Book
?We saw at Brussels two of the best Paris actors, and Madame Talma. The play was Racine?s Andromache (initiated in England as the Distressed Mother.) Madame Talma played Andromache and her husband Orestes. .. We read the play in the morning, an excellent precaution, otherwise the novelty of the French mode of declamation would have set my comprehension at defiance.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria Edgeworth Print: Book
'[Davies said] "Before I was twelve I had developed an appreciation of good prose, and the Bible created in me a zest for literature", propelling him directly to Lamb, Hazlitt's Essays and Ruskin's The Crown of Wild Olives. Later... he joined the library committee of the Miners' Institute in Maesteg, made friends with the librarian, and advised him on acquisitions. Thus he could read all the books he wanted: Marx, Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Marshall, economic and trade union history, Fabian Essays, Thomas Hardy, Meredith, Kipling and Dickens'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: D.R. Davies Print: Book
?This evening my father has been reading out Gay?s Trivia to our great entertainment. I wished very much, my dear aunt, that you and Sophy had been sitting round the fire with us. If you have Trivia, and if you have time, will you humour your niece so far as to look at it? I think there are many things in it which will please you, especially the ?Patten and the Shoeblack?, and the old woman hovering over her little fire in a hard winter. Pray tell me if you like it.?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: R.L. Edgeworth Print: Book
'You do not mention Madame Roland, therefore I am not sure whether you have read her; if you have only read her in the translation which talks of her uncle Bimont's dying of a fit of the gout translated to his chest, you have done her injustice. We think some of her Memoirs beautifully written and like Rousseau; she was a great woman and died heroically. I think if I had been Mons Roland I should not have shot myself for her sake.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria Edgeworth Print: Book
14/1/1827 ? 'I read "Galt?s Life of Wolsey" with interest. To be thankful, and rather better, could only read a psalm to the servants.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Amelia Opie Print: Book
'As a collier [Joseph Keating]... heard a co-worker sigh, "Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate". Keating was stunned: "You are quoting Pope". "Ayh", replied his companion, "me and Pope do agree very well". Keating had himself been reading Pope, Fielding, Smollett, Goldsmith and Richardson in poorly printed paperbacks. Later he was reassigned to a less demanding job at a riverside colliery pumping station, which allowed him time to tackle Swift, Sheridan, Byron, Keats, Shelley and Thackeray'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Keating Print: Book
'As a collier [Joseph Keating]... heard a co-worker sigh, "Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate". Keating was stunned: "You are quoting Pope". "Ayh", replied his companion, "me and Pope do agree very well". Keating had himself been reading Pope, Fielding, Smollett, Goldsmith and Richardson in poorly printed paperbacks. Later he was reassigned to a less demanding job at a riverside colliery pumping station, which allowed him time to tackle Swift, Sheridan, Byron, Keats, Shelley and Thackeray'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Keating Print: Book
'27/1/1833 ? Read Carne?s "letters from the East", which, though not new to me, were most pleasing; so absorbed with his accounts of the Holy Land, I could scarcely quit them to go to bed.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Amelia Opie Print: Book
'Percy Wall described his [colliery] institute as a "blatantly utilitarian" building with a "square cemented front" and a "drab, poorly lit" reading room, but it offered a wonderful escape from a dull Welsh village: "I could view the future through the words of H.G. Wells, participate in the elucidation of mysteries with Sherlock Holmes,... or penetrate darkest Africa with Rider Haggard as my guide. I could laugh at the comic frustrations of coaster seaman or bargee at the call of W.A. Jacobs. What a gloriously rich age it was for the storyteller!... When the stories palled there was always the illustrated weeklies with their pictures of people and conditions remote from my personal experience... I could laugh with Punch or Truth, although some of the humour was much too subtle for my limited education. Above all I could study the Review of Reviews and learn therein the complexities of foreign affairs.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Wall Print: Book
'[During the Great Depression] "Thousands used the Public Library for the first time", recalled itinerant labourer John Brown, who read Shaw, Marx, Engels, and classic literature until he exhausted his South Shields library.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Brown Print: Book
'[Jack Ashley] was less prepared for Ruskin [College] than most of the students, having read only two books since leaving school: Jack London's The Iron Heel and the regulations of the Widnes Town Council. But principal Lionel Elvin "appreciated the profound dificulties facing working class students": "When I stumbled through the intricacies of the political theories of Marx, Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke and T.H. Green, he marked my work frankly yet gave encouragement... He was an excellent teacher, genuinely interested in discussing ideas and persuading students to express their own"
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Jack Ashley Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to Charles Cuthbert Southey, 26 August 1850, regarding possible publication of letters between herself and Robert Southey: 'I have now read them and feel that -- truly wise and kind as they are -- they ought to be published ...'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte Manuscript: Letter
'Ewan McColl remembered his father, a Communist ironfounder, as someone who was always giving him secondhand books. He "belonged to the generation who believed that books were tools that could open a lock which would free people..." At age eight McColl received the works of Darwin. By fifteen he had read Gogol, Dostoevsky and the entire Human Comedy: "They were a refuge from the horrors of the life around us... Unemployment in the 1930s was unbelievable, you really felt you'd never escape... So books for me were a kind of fantasy life... For me to go at the age of fourteen, to drop into the library and discover a book like Kant's Critique of Pure Reason or The Mistaken Subtlety of the Four-Sided Figure... the titles alone produced a kind of happiness in me... When I discovered Gogol in that abominable translation of Constance Garnett with those light blue bindings... I can remember the marvellous sensation of sitting in the library and opening the volume and going into that world of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin in The Overcoat or in The Nose, or The Madman's Diary. I thought I'd never read anything so marvellous, and through books I was living in many worlds simultaneously. I was living in St Petersburg and in Paris with Balzac... And I knew all the characters, Lucien de Rubempre and Rastignac as though they were my own friends".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ewan McColl Print: Book
'Ewan McColl remembered his father, a Communist ironfounder, as someone who was always giving him secondhand books. He "belonged to the generation who believed that books were tools that could open a lock which would free people..." At age eight McColl received the works of Darwin. By fifteen he had read Gogol, Dostoevsky and the entire Human Comedy: "They were a refuge from the horrors of the life around us... Unemployment in the 1930s was unbelievable, you really felt you'd never escape... So books for me were a kind of fantasy life... For me to go at the age of fourteen, to drop into the library and discover a book like Kant's Critique of Pure Reason or The Mistaken Subtlety of the Four-Sided Figure... the titles alone produced a kind of happiness in me... When I discovered Gogol in that abominable translation of Constance Garnett with those light blue bindings... I can remember the marvellous sensation of sitting in the library and opening the volume and going into that world of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin in The Overcoat or in The Nose, or The Madman's Diary. I thought I'd never read anything so marvellous, and through books I was living in many worlds simultaneously. I was living in St Petersburg and in Paris with Balzac... And I knew all the characters, Lucien de Rubempre and Rastignac as though they were my own friends".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ewan McColl Print: Book
'Next to Robinson Crusoe, Rider liked the Arabian Nights, The Three Musketeers and the poems of Edgar Allan Poe and Macaulay. His two favourite novels were Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities and The Coming Race, a fantasy novel by Bulwer Lytton (the uncle of Sir Henry Bulwer, a Norfolk neighbour and friend of Squire Haggard who was to play a decisive part in Rider's life).'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Rider Haggard Print: Book
'Next to Robinson Crusoe, Rider liked the Arabian Nights, The Three Musketeers and the poems of Edgar Allan Poe and Macaulay. His two favourite novels were Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities and The Coming Race, a fantasy novel by Bulwer Lytton (the uncle of Sir Henry Bulwer, a Norfolk neighbour and friend of Squire Haggard who was to play a decisive part in Rider's life).'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Rider Haggard Print: Book
'[Helen Crawfurd] derived lessons in socialism and feminism from Carlyle, Shaw, Wells, Galsworthy, Arnold Bennett, Ibsen's Ghosts and A Doll's House, Dickens, Disraeli's Sybil, Mary Barton, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Under the Greenwood Tree, Tennyson's The Princess, Longfellow, Whitman, Burns, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, George Sand, the Brontes, Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Crawfurd Print: Book
'[Helen Crawfurd] derived lessons in socialism and feminism from Carlyle, Shaw, Wells, Galsworthy, Arnold Bennett, Ibsen's Ghosts and A Doll's House, Dickens, Disraeli's Sybil, Mary Barton, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Under the Greenwood Tree, Tennyson's The Princess, Longfellow, Whitman, Burns, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, George Sand, the Brontes, Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Crawfurd Print: Book
'[Helen Crawfurd] derived lessons in socialism and feminism from Carlyle, Shaw, Wells, Galsworthy, Arnold Bennett, Ibsen's Ghosts and A Doll's House, Dickens, Disraeli's Sybil, Mary Barton, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Under the Greenwood Tree, Tennyson's The Princess, Longfellow, Whitman, Burns, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, George Sand, the Brontes, Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Crawfurd Print: Book
'[Helen Crawfurd] derived lessons in socialism and feminism from Carlyle, Shaw, Wells, Galsworthy, Arnold Bennett, Ibsen's Ghosts and A Doll's House, Dickens, Disraeli's Sybil, Mary Barton, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Under the Greenwood Tree, Tennyson's The Princess, Longfellow, Whitman, Burns, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, George Sand, the Brontes, Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Crawfurd Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to G. H. Lewes, 12 January 1848: 'What induced you to say that you would rather have written "Pride & Prejudice" or "Tom Jones" than any of the Waverley novels?
I had not seen "Pride & Prejudice" till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book and studied it. And what did I find? An accurate daguerrotyped portrait of a common-place face ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to William Smith Williams, 12 April 1850: 'The perusal of Southey's "Life" has lately afforded me much pleasure ... I have likewise read one of Miss Austen's works "Emma" -- read it with interest and with just the degree of admiration which Miss Austen herself would have thought sensible or suitable -- anything like warmth or enthusiasm ... is utterly out of place in commending these works ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to James Taylor, 6 November 1850: 'I have just finished reading the "Life of Dr Arnold", but now when I wish -- in accordance with your request -- to express what I think of it -- I do not find the task very easy -- proper terms seem wanting ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to James Taylor, 1 February 1851: 'Have you yet read Miss Martineau's and Mr Atkinson's new work "Letters on the Nature and Development of Man?" ... It is the first exposition of avowed Atheism and Materialism I have ever read ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte Print: Book
The mother of Carteret Rede remembered that when 'I came up into her Chamber, I found her reading Mr. John Janeway's "Life and Death"; she was all in Tears ...'
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Carteret Rede Print: Book
I, who was the reader, had not seen it for several years, the rest did not know it at all. I am afraid I perceived a sad change in it, or myself ? which was worse; and the effect altogether failed. Nobody cried, and at some of the passages, the touches that I used to think so exquisite ? Oh Dear! They laughed.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Louisa Stuart Print: Book
I remember so well its first publication, my mother and sisters crying over it, dwelling upon it with rapture! And when I read it, as I was a girl of fourteen not yet versed in sentiment, I had a secret dread I should not cry enough to gain the credit of proper sensibility.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Louisa Stuart Print: Book
'London hatter Frederick Willis asserted that [Frank Richards's stories in the Gem and Magnet] taught him to be "very loyal" to the headmaster and teachers at his old Board school: "We were great readers of school stories, from which we learnt that boys of the higher class boarding schools were courageous, honourable, and chivalrous, and steeped in the traditions of the school and loyalty to the country. We tried to mould our lives according to this formula. Needless to say, we fell very short... Nevertheless, the constant effort did us a lot of good".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Willis Print: Serial / periodical
'London hatter Frederick Willis asserted that [Frank Richards' stories in the Gem and Magnet] 'taught him to be "very loyal" to the headmaster and teachers at his old Board school: "We were great readers of school stories, from which we learnt that boys of the higher class boarding schools were courageous, honourable, and chivalrous, and steeped in the traditions of the school and loyalty to the country. We tried to mould our lives according to this formula. Needless to say, we fell very short... Nevertheless, the constant effort did us a lot of good".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Willis Print: Serial / periodical
'Edward Ezard admitted that he and his friends read the Gem and Magnet for "the public school glamour". They thoroughly absorbed all the stock phrases and attitudes associated with Greyfriars, Frank Richards's mythical school.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Ezard Print: Serial / periodical
Edward Ezard admitted that he and his friends read the Gem and Magnet for "the public school glamour". They thoroughly absorbed all the stock phrases and attitudes associated with Greyfriars, Frank Richards's mythical school.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Ezard Print: Serial / periodical
'For Paul Fletcher, a colliery winder's son in a Lancashire mining town, the Magnet's appeal lay precisely in that "code of schoolboy honour". "Although I never realised it at the time, it proved to influence me more about right or wrong than any other book", he recalled, "And that includes the Bible". After all, the Greyfriars code "was as well defined as the scriptures [were] nebulous".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Paul Fletcher Print: Serial / periodical
'A.J. Mills, a charlady's son, recalled that his teachers made a pathetic attempt to teach an honour system but "the nearest any of us got to knowing about the honour system was to read the Magnet to find out how the other half lived".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: A.J. Mills Print: Serial / periodical
[Lionel Fraser dreamt unfulfilledly of Oxbridge]: 'Whatever resentment he may have felt was mollified by the Gem and Magnet, which "brought brightness into my rather humdrum existence, giving me an insight into the hitherto unknown life of upper-class children". Making sense of the school slang and rituals was not easy but Tom Merry and Harry Wharton "became my idols and I longed to be like them".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lionel Fraser Print: Serial / periodical
[Lionel Fraser dreamt unfulfilledly of Oxbridge]: 'Whatever resentment he may have felt was mollified by the Gem and Magnet, which "brought brightness into my rather humdrum existence, giving me an insight into the hitherto unknown life of upper-class children". Making sense of the school slang and rituals was not easy but Tom Merry and Harry Wharton "became my idols and I longed to be like them".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lionel Fraser Print: Serial / periodical
'Charwoman's son Bryan Forbes "devoured every word, believed every word" of the Magnet and Gem, "surrendering to a world I never expected to join". As an adult he appreciated that they rehashed the same plot week after week, all to buttress "our indestructible class system" [but he resented George Orwell critiquing them]'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Bryan Forbes Print: Serial / periodical
'Charwoman's son Bryan Forbes "devoured every word, believed every word" of the Magnet and Gem, "surrendering to a world I never expected to join". As an adult he appreciated that they rehashed the same plot week after week, all to buttress "our indestructible class system" [but he resented George Orwell critiquing them]'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Bryan Forbes Print: Serial / periodical
'Louis Battye, the spastic child of former millworkers, was at first utterly bewildered by the Gem and Magnet, because he was being educated at home and had no school experience of any kind... "But I persevered and eventually familiarised myself with the conventions of the form... I continued to read the Gem and Magnet religiously until I was fourteen or fifteen, and from them I received what might be called the Schoolboy's Code"... [which] enabled him to get along with other children when he was sent to Heswall Hospital'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Louis Battye Print: Serial / periodical
'Louis Battye, the spastic child of former millworkers, was at first utterly bewildered by the Gem and Magnet, because he was being educated at home and had no school experience of any kind... "But I persevered and eventually familiarised myself with the conventions of the form... I continued to read the Gem and Magnet religiously until I was fourteen or fifteen, and from them I received what might be called the Schoolboy's Code"... [which] enabled him to get along with other children when he was sent to Heswall Hospital'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Louis Battye Print: Serial / periodical
'Angela Brazil inspired Kathleen Betterton (whose father operated a lift in the London Underground) to ascend the scholarship ladder to Christ's Hospital in Hertford and thence to Oxford University. The Brazil stories, she wrote "conjured up muddled visions of midnight picnics, sweet girl prefects, hockey, house matches and exploits that saved the honour of the school. It never occurred to me that Mother and Father might be hurt by my anxiety to leave home".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Kathleen Betterton Print: Book
'V.S. Pritchett furtively devoured the Gem and Magnet with a compositor's son: both adopted Greyfriars nicknames and slang. Pritchett's father eventually found them, burnt them in the fireplace and ordered the boy to read Ruskin, though there was no Ruskin in the house'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Sawdon Pritchett Print: Serial / periodical
'V.S. Pritchett furtively devoured the Gem and Magnet with a compositor's son: both adopted Greyfriars nicknames and slang. Pritchett's father eventually found them, burnt them in the fireplace and ordered the boy to read Ruskin, though there was no Ruskin in the house'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Sawdon Pritchett Print: Serial / periodical
'Amy Gomm, an electrician's daughter, discovered the erotics of the text in some old Gems and Magnets she found in a cupboard. "What a joy to share my bed with Tom Merry and his chums, and that other band of derring-doers, Harry Wharton & Co. My excitement knew no bounds. My indiscretion was equally boundlesss". When she told her parents about the papers, they naturally burned them'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Amy Gomm Print: Serial / periodical
'Amy Gomm, an electrician's daughter, discovered the erotics of the text in some old Gems and Magnets she found in a cupboard. "What a joy to share my bed with Tom Merry and his chums, and that other band of derring-doers, Harry Wharton & Co. My excitement knew no bounds. My indiscretion was equally boundlesss". When she told her parents about the papers, they naturally burned them'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Amy Gomm Print: Serial / periodical
'After Dennis Marsden won an exhibition to St Catherine's College, Cambridge his parents, solid Labour supporters, "found supreme happiness sitting on the Backs looking over the river and towards King's college. For my father, Lord Maulever (of Billy Bunter and the Magnet) might have walked that lawn; Tom Brown must have been there, and the Fifth Form from St Dominic's. He had read The Adventures of Mr Verdant Green at Oxford, and saw that I had a "gyp" (as Verdant Green had a "scout"). He imagined how my gyp would shake his head and say (as Verdant Green's scout always said), "College Gents will do anything". All I could say... couldn't convince my parents that that powerful Cambridge image of my father's schoolboy reading wasn't my Cambridge".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Marsden Print: Serial / periodical
'George Scott left school and the boys' weeklies behind at fifteen: in barely a year he had absorbed enough Shaw, Wells, Dos Passos and (secondhand) Marx to lecture his parents on the evils of capitalism'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Scott Print: Book
'George Scott left school and the boys' weeklies behind at fifteen: in barely a year he had absorbed enough Shaw, Wells, Dos Passos and (secondhand) Marx to lecture his parents on the evils of capitalism'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Scott Print: Book
'Hymie Fagan, an East End Jewish Communist, picked up public school ethics from the Gem, the Magnet and the stories of Talbot Baines Reed. He once declined to run in an athletics event because "It seemed to me, under the influence of the boys' books I had read, that it was dishonourable to run for money".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hymie Fagan Print: Serial / periodical
'Hymie Fagan, an East End Jewish Communist, picked up public school ethics from the Gem, the Magnet and the stories of Talbot Baines Reed. He once declined to run in an athletics event because "It seemed to me, under the influence of the boys' books I had read, that it was dishonourable to run for money".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hymie Fagan Print: Serial / periodical
'As a boy Percy Wall adored the "Magnet", the "Boy's Own Paper", and G.A. Henty novels... [Later] While he read Henty for enjoyment, he studied the "Clarion", the "Freethinker", "The Struggle of the Bulgarians for Independence" and "The Philippine Martyrs" for their politics, and did not allow one body of literature to affect the other'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Wall Print: Book
Frances Burney noted as having been 'an early reader' of Ann Radcliffe, "The Mysteries of Udolpho" (1794).
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Burney Print: Book
'[Frances] Burney's little diary of "Consolatory Extracts Daily collected or read in my extremity of Grief at the sudden & tragical loss of my beloved Susan on the instant of her liberation & safe arrival in England" ... [included] Extracts culled from the work of ... Mme. de Stael, Miss Talbot, Mrs. Chapone ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Burney
'[Frances] Burney's little diary of "Consolatory Extracts Daily collected or read in my extremity of Grief at the sudden & tragical loss of my beloved Susan on the instant of her liberation & safe arrival in England" ... [included] Extracts culled from the work of ... Mme. de Stael, Miss Talbot, Mrs. Chapone ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Burney
On Frances Burney d'Arblay's married life in France: 'With affection and friendship, the pleaseures of attending the theater and reading works of French literature such as "Gil Blas" aloud at home, life was more than bearable.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: D'Arblay family Print: Book
'[Frances] Burney had read both "The Mysteries of Udolpho" and "The Italian" when they first came out, preferring the latter ...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Burney Print: Book
'[Frances] Burney had read both "The Mysteries of Udolpho" and "The Italian" when they first came out, preferring the latter ...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Burney Print: Book
'It is equally possible for the same reader to adopt different frames for the same story, relishing it on one level while seeing through the claptrap on another. In his youth Aneurin Bevan enjoyed the Magnet and Gem surreptitiously (his father forbade them) and devoured H. Rider Haggard at the Tredegar Workmen's Institute Library. But during the 'Phoney War' he lambasted the government's stupidly optimistic predictions in precisely the same terms: "Immediately on the outbreak of war, England was given over to the mental level of the Boys' Own Paper and the Magnet..." In 1944 Bevan freely admitted that "William le Queux, John Buchan and Phillips Oppenheim have always been favourites of ours in our off-moments. Part of their charm lies in their juvenile attitude".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Aneurin Bevan Print: Book
'No national commentator sympathised with working-class culture so well as Wilfred Pickles, BBC newsreader and stonemason's son. But even he admitted that the hours he spent in the public library, reading Shelley, Keats, Shaw and Galsworthy, represented a desperate breakout from the stultifying provincialism of his native Halifax.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Pickles Print: Book
'No national commentator sympathised with working-class culture so well as Wilfred Pickles, BBC newsreader and stonemason's son. But even he admitted that the hours he spent in the public library, reading Shelley, Keats, Shaw and Galsworthy, represented a desperate breakout from the stultifying provincialism of his native Halifax.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Pickles Print: Book
'No national commentator sympathised with working-class culture so well as Wilfred Pickles, BBC newsreader and stonemason's son. But even he admitted that the hours he spent in the public library, reading Shelley, Keats, Shaw and Galsworthy, represented a desperate breakout from the stultifying provincialism of his native Halifax.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Pickles Print: Book
'James Hanley's workmates laughed when he taught himself French by reading the Mercure de France...Working the night shift at a railway station, Hanley withdrew into the work of Moliere, Hauptmann, Calderon, Sudermann, Ibsen, Lie and Strindberg until he grew quite cozy in his literary shell. His parents were appalled that he had no friends. But I've hundreds of friends he protested. "Bazarov and Rudin and Liza and Sancho Panza and Eugenie Grandet". His father countered with Squeers, Nickleby, Snodgrass and Little Nell: "And they're a healthy lot I might say, whereas all your friends have either got consumption, or are always in the dumps".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hanley Print: Book
'James Hanley's workmates laughed when he taught himself French by reading the Mercure de France...Working the night shift at a railway station, Hanley withdrew into the work of Moliere, Hauptmann, Calderon, Sudermann, Ibsen, Lie and Strindberg until he grew quite cozy in his literary shell. His parents were appalled that he had no friends. But I've hundreds of friends he protested. "Bazarov and Rudin and Liza and Sancho Panza and Eugenie Grandet". His father countered with Squeers, Nickleby, Snodgrass and Little Nell: "And they're a healthy lot I might say, whereas all your friends have either got consumption, or are always in the dumps".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hanley Print: Book
'James Hanley's workmates laughed when he taught himself French by reading the Mercure de France...Working the night shift at a railway station, Hanley withdrew into the work of Moliere, Hauptmann, Calderon, Sudermann, Ibsen, Lie and Strindberg until he grew quite cozy in his literary shell. His parents were appalled that he had no friends. But I've hundreds of friends he protested. "Bazarov and Rudin and Liza and Sancho Panza and Eugenie Grandet". His father countered with Squeers, Nickleby, Snodgrass and Little Nell: "And they're a healthy lot I might say, whereas all your friends have either got consumption, or are always in the dumps".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hanley Print: Book
[Harry Burton recalled' "we wallowed in Eric and St Winifred's and other school stories, especially Talbot Baines Reed's"...[Burton] like other working class children preferred Frank Richards to Empire Day, simply because the former was a more reliable guide to the reality he knew'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harry Burton Print: Serial / periodical
'A Scottish flax dresser gained his "first or incipient idea of localities and distances" when he was assigned to read aloud at work from Anson, Cook, Bruce and Mungo Park'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: "Jacques", a flax dresser Print: Book
'Pupils at Queen's College remembered the puritanical standards imposed by Owen Breen, English and Elocution Professor there in the 1890s. L. V. Hodson notes that when reading Sheridan in his classes, they first had to take a pencil and cross out all the expletives ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: English class, Queen's College Print: Book
'Girls in the top forms [at Roedean] were allowed to read ... in a small school library ... but ... [Margaret Cole] forfeited that privilege when a sub-prefect reported her for reading Macaulay's "Essays" during preparation time ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Cole Print: Book
'One of the daughters of Florence Barclay, a writer of popular fiction ... recounts how her mother used, in the 1880s, to read aloud to them a great deal: Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales, children's books like "Little Lord Fauntleroy" and "The Little Duke" [as well as Scott] ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Florence Barclay Print: Book
'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
'When she was thirteen or fourteen, [Constance] Maynard's businessman father used to read Monier Williams on the religions of the East, William Law, and Jacob Boehme aloud to her.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Maynard Print: Book
'["In A Nursery in the Nineties" (1935)] Eleanor Farjeon (b.1881) ... recreates her identificatory enthusiam as she read "The Three Musketeers", which enabled her to step outside the bounds even of male, let alone female, notions of propriety.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Eleanor Farjeon Print: Book
'As a child in the late 1860s and 1870s, the books ... [Florence White] used to read were "The Wide, Wide World", "Queechy", and "Ministering Children" ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Florence White Print: Book
'As a child in the late 1860s and 1870s, the books ... [Florence White] used to read were "The Wide, Wide World", "Queechy", and "Ministering Children" ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Florence White Print: Book
"Christine Longford, having read The Wide, Wide World in the first decade of the twentieth century, recalled that she had been especially impressed by the passage in which [the schoolgirl heroine follows some adults' French conversation and is able to supply the historical date that one of them forgets]. "
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Christine Longford 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
"... [the young Frances Power Cobbe] ... read, in what translations were ... accessible, in Eastern sacred philosophy, such as Anquetil du Perron's Zend Avesta, and Sir William Jones's Institutes of Menu, and found out as much as she could about the Greek and Alexandrian philosophers from Diogenes Laertius and the old translators, as well as from a large Biographical Dictionary."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Power Cobbe Print: Book
"When she was seven ... [Frances Power Cobbe's] interest in religious subjects had been activated by hearing Bunyan read aloud to her brothers."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Power Cobbe Print: Book
Early reading of Joan Evans noted as having included Salomon Reinach, Orpheus: A History of Religions; Jane Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion; Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, and Frazer, The Golden Bough.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joan Evans Print: Book
Early reading of Joan Evans noted as having included Salomon Reinach, Orpheus: A History of Religions; Jane Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion; Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, and Frazer, The Golden Bough.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joan Evans Print: Book
"[in her autobiography Growing up Into Revolution (1949), Margaret Cole] conveys the combination of amusement and delight she and her companions experienced reading Shaw ..."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Cole and Girton contemporaries Print: Unknown
"Ellen Wilkinson, brought up in Ardwick, Manchester, went with her father to lectures on theological and evolutionary subjects, and by the time she was fourteen was reading Haeckel, Huxley and Darwin with him."
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ellen Wilkinson and father 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
"Whilst the Viscountess Rhondda had taken with her [to prison, where sent as suffragettte] Morley's Life of Gladstone and ... famous speeches of famous men, she resorted in preference to the Edna Lyall novels which she borrowed from the prison library ..."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Viscountess Rhondda Print: Book
'Growing up in a family that read newspapers only for sport and scandal, Vernon Scannell knew all the great prize fighters by age thirteen, "but I could not have named the Prime Minister of the day..." The history and geography he was taught at school were never related to contemporary events. Remarkably, Scannell had read widely about the last war: the poetry of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, Edmund Blunden's "Undertones of War", and Robert Graves's "Goodbye to All That". The Penguin edition of "A Farewell to Arms" so overwhelmed him that he tried to write his own Great War novel in a Hemingway style. But none of this translated into any awareness that another war might be on the way'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Scannell Print: Book
[review of the novel. Noted but not reproduced by the editor]
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Ellen Weeton Print: Book
Lessons of a Governess to her Pupils by Madame de Silery- Brulart (formerly Countess de Genlis) 3 vols. For further remarks see page 11th.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Ellen Weeton Print: Book
'"[Penny dreadfuls] were thrilling, absolutely without sex interest, and of a high moral standard", explained London hatmaker Frederick Willis. "No boy would be any the worse for reading them and in many cases they encouraged and developed a love of reading that led him onwards and upwards on the fascinating path of literature. It was the beloved 'bloods' that first stimulated my love of reading, and from them I set out on the road to Shaw and Wells, Thackeray and Dickens, Fielding, Shakespeare and Chaucer".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Willis Print: Book
'Barber John Paton remembered that the "Boys' Friend" "ran a serial which was an enormously exciting tale of Alba's oppression of the Netherlands, and gave as its source, Motley's 'Rise of the Dutch Republic'". He borrowed it from the public library and, with guidance from a helpful adult, also read J.R. Green, Macaulay, Prescott, Grote, and even Mommsen's multi-volume History of Rome by age fourteen. "There must have been, of course, enormous gaps in my understanding of what I poured into the rag bag that was my mind, particularly from the bigger works," he conceded, "but at least I sensed the important thing, the immense sweep and variety and the continuity of the historical process".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Paton Print: Book
'Weaver-novelist William Holt extolled the standard greats ("Noble Carlyle; virtuous Tolstoi; wise Bacon; jolly Rabelais; towering Plato...") and, having taught himself German, memorized Schiller while working at the looms. But he did not limit himself to classics: "I read omnivorously, greedily, promiscuously", from dime novels and G.A. Henty to Hardy and Conrad. Holt disparaged popular authors such as Ethel M. Dell and Elinor Glyn for "peddling vulgar narcotics", yet he was closely attuned to the mass reading public. His own autobiography sold a quarter of a million copes and he once owned a fleet of bookmobiles. He reconciled taste with populism through this logic: though most readers consume a certain amount of junk, it does them no harm because they recognize it as junk'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Holt Print: Book
'Weaver-novelist William Holt extolled the standard greats ("Noble Carlyle; virtuous Tolstoi; wise Bacon; jolly Rabelais; towering Plato...") and, having taught himself German, memorized Schiller while working at the looms. But he did not limit himself to classics: "I read omnivorously, greedily, promiscuously", from dime novels and G.A. Henty to Hardy and Conrad. Holt disparaged popular authors such as Ethel M. Dell and Elinor Glyn for "peddling vulgar narcotics", yet he was closely attuned to the mass reading public. His own autobiography sold a quarter of a million copes and he once owned a fleet of bookmobiles. He reconciled taste with populism through this logic: though most readers consume a certain amount of junk, it does them no harm because they recognize it as junk'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Holt Print: Book
'[Edwin] Whitlock... borrowed books from a schoolmaster and from neighbours: "Most of them would now be considered very heavy literature for a boy of fourteen or fifteen, but I didn't know that, for I had no light literature for comparison. I read most of the novels of Dickens, Scott, Lytton and Mrs Henry Wood, 'The Pilgrim's Progress' and 'The Holy War' - an illustrated guide to Biblical Palestine, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', several bound volumes of religious magazines, 'The Adventures of a Penny', and sundry similar classics". With few books competing for his attention, he could freely concentrate on his favorite reading, "A set of twelve thick volumes of Cassell's 'History of England'".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Whitlock Print: Book
Scott probably knew de Stael, he was certainly acquainted with her work, friends, lifestyle etc. Here is a brief excerpt: '...the tendency of the last of her productions, which, as a posthumous work, connects itself most immedately with her memory, is for the most part as excellent as its execution is brilliant and masterly. To speak first of its style: we cannot refrain from noticing the rarer occurrence of that appearance of straining after eloquence and philosophy which defaced ....'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Scott Print: Book
Evidence of engagement with the text: (1) occasional marginal notes; (2) marginal symbols throughout the text, crosses (ex. pp. 1,5,12), underlines (pp. 16, 520-1), score throughs (ex. p. 77) and pointing hands (ex. pp. 340, 348, 520).
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Jo. Halkerston Print: Book
'I have done little since I wrote last but revised Leslie's conics, and read a part of Laplace's 'exposition du systeme du monde' not the mecanique celeste for I alas, am not one of the gifted half-dozen that can understand it - but the original of that book which Smeal once brought from Selkirk and lent to you.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I had read some little of Laplace when I saw you; & I continue to advance with a diminishing velocity. I turned aside into Leslie's conics - '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
" ... a young compositor encounters Macaulay for the first time:
"'Bernard Shaw tells me how he could get more intoxication from Mozart and Beethoven than any common mortal could from a bottle of brandy. I was as intoxicated that day far more completely than wine or whisky have ever made me, and intoxicated by literary art, as well as by the pageantry of its historical theme.'"
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
3 pp of ms at the end of v.1 appear to be brief notes abstracted from details in the text. Each page is ruled and divided into 3 columns headed, 'Substance', 'Symptoms', 'Corrections' [ie remedy]. Example: 'Alkalies - Soda Ammonia Lime &-', 'Nearly the same [ie as the entry above for concentrated acids] -the ejected matter does not effervesse [?] with alkalies but with acids'. 'Vinegar or limejuice - a spoonful or two in a glass of water frequently - or simply warm [?] water'. There are 9 such entries.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dr Sibbald Print: Book
Elizabeth Morrison, "Serial Fiction in Australian Colonial Newspapers": " ... the short novel A Woman's Friendship ... owes much to [Ada] Cambridge's reading of George Eliot, George Meredith, Henry James, and William Dean Howells ..."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Ada Cambridge Print: Unknown
'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
'Growing up in Lyndhurst after the First World War, R.L. Wild regularly read aloud to his marginally literate grandmother and his completely illiterate grandfather - and it was his grandparents who selected the books... "I shall never understand how this choice was made. Until I started reading to them they had no more knowledge of English literature than a Malay Aborigine... I suppose it was their very lack of knowledge that made the choice, from "Quo Vadis" at eight, Rider Haggard's "She" at nine. By the time I was twelve they had come to know, intimately, a list of authors ranging from Shakespeare to D.H. Lawrence. All was grist to the mill (including Elinor Glyn). The classics, poetry, essays, belles lettres. We took them all in MY stride. At times we stumbled on gems that guided us to further riches. I well remember the Saturday night they brought home "The Essays of Elia". For months afterwards we used it as our roadmap...".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: R.L. Wild Print: Book
'George Howell, bricklayer and trade unionist..."read promiscuously. How could it be otherwise? I had no real guide, was obliged to feel my way into light. Yet perhaps there was a guidance, although indefinite and without distinctive aim". Howell groped his way through literature "on the principle that one poet's works suggested another, or the criticisms on one led to comparisons with another. Thus: Milton - Shakespeare; Pope-Dryden; Byron-Shelley; Burns-Scott; Coleridge-Wordsworth and Southey, and later on Spenser-Chaucer, Bryant-Longfellow, and so on". By following these intertextual links, autodidacts could reconstruct the literary canon on their own'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Howell Print: Book
'[Neville] Cardus read only boys' papers until quite suddenly, in adolescence, he dove into Dickens and Mark Twain. "Then, without scarcely a bridge-passage, I was deep in the authors who to this day I regard the best discovered in a lifetime" - Fielding, Browning, Hardy, Tolstoy, even Henry James. He found them all before he was twenty, with critical guidance from no one: "We must make our own soundings and chartings in the arts... so that we may all one day climb to our own peak, silent in Darien".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Neville Cardus Print: Book
'Charlie Chaplin was a classic autodidact, always struggling to make up for a dismally inadequate education, groping haphazardly for what he called "intellectual manna"... Chaplin could be found in his dressing room studying a Latin-English dictionary, Robert Ingersoll's secularist propaganda, Emerson's "Self- Reliance" ("I felt I had been handed a golden birthright"), Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman, Twain, Hazlitt, all five volumes of Plutarch's Lives, Plato, Locke, Kant, Freud's "Psychoneurosis", Lafcadio "Hearn's Life and Literature", and Henri Bergson - his essay on laughter, of course... Chaplin also spent forty years reading (if not finishing) the three volumes of "The World as Will and Idea" by Schopenhauer, whose musings on suicide are echoed in Monsieur Verdoux'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Spencer Chaplin Print: Book
'Charlie Chaplin was a classic autodidact, always struggling to make up for a dismally inadequate education, groping haphazardly for what he called "intellectual manna"... Chaplin could be found in his dressing room studying a Latin-English dictionary, Robert Ingersoll's secularist propaganda, Emerson's "Self- Reliance" ("I felt I had been handed a golden birthright"), Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman, Twain, Hazlitt, all five volumes of Plutarch's Lives, Plato, Locke, Kant, Freud's "Psychoneurosis", Lafcadio Hearn's "Life and Literature", and Henri Bergson - his essay on laughter, of course... Chaplin also spent forty years reading (if not finishing) the three volumes of "The World as Will and Idea" by Schopenhauer, whose musings on suicide are echoed in Monsieur Verdoux'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Spencer Chaplin Print: Book
'In reading Franklin's correspondence, it is impossible not to be entertained by his lively style and I think not to be convinced that he did all in his power to prevent the rupture of Great Britain and the colonies, but I am astonished that the printer of it and the publisher have not been prosecuted for a libel.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Newton Print: Book
'After reading Junius identified with a living character I am pretty well satisfied that Sir P. Francis was the man.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Newton Print: Book
'Read Walpoe's Turkey amd M'Cleod's Voyage of the Alceste to China.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Newton
'Read M'cleod's Voyage of the Alceste, his account of the Island of Lewchew is an account of the most amiable pagans I ever read of N.B. little or nothing is said of the females.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Newton
'Snow and rain all day. Read Pegge on the English language, Sir J. Sinclair's Code of Agriculture, proceeded with notes on Bede. Mr Cline in his paper on breeding is quite decided that [...] but Mr Colling [...] is not of thatopinion. [NB Henry Cline - on the form of animals]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Newton Print: Book
" ... an irritated reader of Jonathan Edwards's Dissertation Concerning Liberty and Necessity (1797) provides an epigraph from Milton on the title page, right after the author's name: 'So spoke the Fiend, and with Necessity, / -- excused his dev'lish deeds.'"
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
"And how fared the growth of this child's mind the while? Thanks to the care of his mother, who had sent him to the penny school, he had learnt to read, and the desire to read had been awakened. Books, however, were very scarce. The Bible and Bunyan were the principle; he committed many chapters of the former to memory, and accepted all Bunyan's allegory as bona fide history. Afterwards, he obtained access to 'Robinson Crusoe', a few old Wesleyan magazines and some battle histories. These constituted his sole reading, until he came up to London, at the age of fifteen, as an errand boy."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Massey Print: Book
"The books in which Pope's annotations, though scanty, are undoubtedly authentic include a copy of the racy poems of the Earl of Rochester in which Pope filled in some of the concealed or deliberately omitted names."
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Alexander Pope Print: Book
In his copy of John Whitaker, The History of Manchester, Francis Douce "[backed] up a sarcastic note (I: vii) about the defects of the author's style and his overreliance on sentences beginning with the conjunctions 'and' or 'but' ... by underlining every single instance of a sentence beginning with 'and ' in the two volumes."
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Douce Print: Book
" ... Macaulay ... did not annotate his copies of Jane Austen except to record the dates of reading and to correct a very small number of typographical errors."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
'Read Eustace's tour and think he is the best dissenter I have met with, rather prolix about churches, especially such as have nothing extraordinary about them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Newton Print: Book
'I wanted to have sent you a translation of the epigram Flahaut has introduced in her book. It is Johnson's...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
H. J. Jackson discusses second annotator of 1791 copy of Rousseau, A Treatise on the Social Compact; or, The Principles of Politic Law; ownership inscription in same hand reads "'H. B. L. Webb / Brent House / Master Brace / 30th Dec. 1909. / (Bought at old Bennett's in Castle St.).'" Notes include reference to 1910 elections and comments such as "'very flimsy here'"; "'Pah!'" and (in response to Rousseau's assertion that comparisons between different nations' early religious beliefs "'an absurd part of erudition,'") "'And yet, Jean Jacques, comparitive mythology has told us a different tale about this 'absurd part of erudition'!'"
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: H. B. L. Webb Print: Book
William Blake, on margin of his copy of Johann Lavater, Aphorisms: "'I hop no one will call what I have written cavilling ... For I write from the warmth of my heart, & cannot resist the impulse I fell to rectify what I think false in a book I love so much, & aprove so generally.'"
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake Print: Book
William Blake, in copy of Francis Bacon, Essays: "'Villain! Did Christ seek the Praise of the Rulers?'"
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake Print: Book
William Blake, in copy of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Works (1798) vol I: " '... I read Burkes Treatise [on the Sublime and Beautiful] when very Young at the same time I read Locke on Human Understanding & Bacons Advancmt [sic] of Learning on Every one of these Books I wrote my Opinions & on looking them over find that my Notes on Reynolds in this Book are exactly Similar. I felt the Same Comtempt & Abhorrence then; that I do now.'"
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake Print: Book
"For [Sir James] Fellowes, a prospective biographer ... [Hester Lynch Piozzi] annotated books by and about herself: Nathaniel Wraxall's Historical Memoirs of My Own Time (1815), the Johnson Anecdotes and Letters, and her own Observations and Retrospection."
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Piozzi Print: Book
H. J. Jackson discusses Rupert Brooke's pencilled notes, "clearly made out on a single reading," in copy of Raymond Macdonald Alden, Introduction to Poetry for Students of English Literature (1909); notes that Brooke acquired the book when aged twenty-one.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rupert Brooke Print: Book
'On turning to my book, I find I have journalised only one day, during this summer vis [sic] July 29, when I walked after tea with Mrs Cole a new walk down Penny-black Lane, across Chapman's Common, & into the Scalby Road - a short way into the Whitby Road, & returned over the fields by the bleach yard on the Whitby Road - a delightful rural walk. Read in Dibdin's Decameron - Delany's Life of King David, & Gay's Choir.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Print: Book
'On my return to Scarborough was busily employed in preparing for the season, & in editing the work called The Scarborough Album, and in soliciting contributions of a poetical description; these were of a good class, & abundantly bestowed. Archdeacon Wrangham wrote an original piece for the work 'Lines on the sea bathing infirmary at Scarborough'. The Mss of George Berret, the Younger, were freely offered to my use; & Hermione (Mrs Ballantyre, widow of the celebrated Publisher in Edinburgh) kindly controbuted. I also reprinted the celebrated pieces under the signature of Malvina, from The Scarborough Repository.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Manuscript: Unknown
'On my return to Scarborough was busily employed in preparing for the season, & in editing the work called The Scarborough Album, and in soliciting contributions of a poetical description; these were of a good class, & abundantly bestowed. Archdeacon Wrangham wrote an original piece for the work 'Lines on the sea bathing infirmary at Scarborough'. The Mss of George Berret, the Younger, were freely offered to my use; & Hermione (Mrs Ballantyre, widow of the celebrated Publisher in Edinburgh) kindly controbuted. I also reprinted the celebrated pieces under the signature of Malvina, from The Scarborough Repository.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Manuscript: Unknown
[Marginalia]: A poem on the verso of the title page, though not entirely legible, appears to be related to the text. It takes the form of 8 lines, 4 rhyming couplets, begins 'Of wood & iron & strong ...' ends 'Never again shall thou my pillow cross/ Nor ... may you, doctor, bear the loss'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: B.B. Preston Print: Book
Letter 202 to Ralph Hodges, Woodstock, N.Y., Aug 15 1939:
'I?ve done lots of work ? finished this small piece for Toronto I mentioned to you ? "Young Apollo" (after Keats), Fanfare for Piano, Solo String quartet, & string orchestra.'
Letter 227 to Wulff Scherchen,Amityville N.Y., December 8th 1939
'I?m playing my "Young Apollo? which I wrote for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. ? on Columbia on Dec. 20th, sometime in the middle of your night ? you know whom that?s written about ? founded on last lines of Keat?s "Hyperion?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Britten Print: Book
?One has no inclination at all to work or to read seriously ? so I?ve been dipping into an enormous range of stuff ? from Hans Anderson to Boris Godonof.?
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Britten Print: Book
'I am glad you have read Madame de Stael?s "Allemagne". The book is a foolish one in some respects; but it abounds with information, and shows great mental power. She was certainly the first woman of her age; Miss Edgeworth, I think, the second; and Miss Austen the third.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hannah Macaulay Print: Book
[Marginalia]: copious marginal pencil annotations and text marks, some now fading to the point of illegibility. Contents are mainly comments on, or corrections to, the text, including detailed points of grammar e.g. Text = "It is a general rule that the Ghazel do not contain more than twelve distiche; * although some poets formerly made Ghazels of greater length", ms note = "or less than five"; p. 6 Text = "Mo-sum-mut", ms note = "Moosullis"; p. 70 Text = "This [mark] is a conjunction [underlined] occurring in the middle of an hemistich, * when it receives the accent of the preceding letter", [whole clause is underlined], ms note = "In summary it is removed & its accent is given to the preceding letter"; the note on p.19 is in Persian.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Drummond Erskine Print: Book
H. J. Jackson notes "extra illustration" ("prompted by the text") of a copy of Margaret Sandford, Thomas Poole and His Friends (1888), with inserts including letters and "a flower taken from Wordsworth's garden in 1844."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'I went to the Library; read Bramhall against Hobbes'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Byrom Print: Book
'Marjory Todd read [the books of Hesba Stretton, Mrs O.F. Walton and Amy le Feuvre but felt later that] "I would not now willingly expose a child of mine to the morbid resignation of any of these books... yet I think that children, when their home life is secure and happy, can take a lot of that debilitating sentiment... We sharpened our teeth on this stuff and then went on to greater satisfaction elsewhere", including "Pride and Prejudice", "Jane Eyre", "Alice in Wonderland", Captain Marryat, Kenneth Grahame, and E. Nesbit'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Marjory Todd Print: Book
'Marjory Todd read [the books of Hesba Stretton, Mrs O.F. Walton and Amy le Feuvre but felt later that] "I would not now willingly expose a child of mine to the morbid resignation of any of these books... yet I think that children, when their home life is secure and happy, can take a lot of that debilitating sentiment... We sharpened our teeth on this stuff and then went on to greater satisfaction elsewhere", including "Pride and Prejudice", "Jane Eyre", "Alice in Wonderland", Captain Marryat, Kenneth Grahame, and E. Nesbit'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Marjory Todd Print: Book
'Robert Collyer grew up in a blacksmith's home with only a few books - "Pilgrim's Progress", "Robinson Crusoe", Goldsmith's histories of England and Rome - but their basic language made them easy to absorb and excellent training for a future clergyman:. "I think it was then I must have found the germ... of my lifelong instinct for the use of simple Saxon words and sentences which has been of some worth to me in the work I was finally called to do".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Collyer Print: Book
'Coachman's daughter Anne Tibble was enraged by "The Waste Land", which she read as a scholarship student at a redbrick university: "Eliot's neurosis of disillusion was horrifying... almost utterly invalid...almost entirely without feeling for others. Eliot showed people as ugly, stupid, shabby, vulgarian, squalid, somehow indecent...the 'broken fingernails of dirty hands'...Weren't these my father's and my mother's hands?". The experience of reading it plunged her into depression, but in the late 1920s it was difficult to express her real feelings about one of the greatest living poets...Instead, she channelled her scholarly energies toward the poetry of John Clare, whose work affirmed the literacy of working people'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Tibble Print: Unknown
H. J. Jackson discusses copy of John Clare, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820) annotated by Eliza Louisa Emmerson for Lord Radstock.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Louisa Emmerson Print: Book
'W.J. Brown was introduced to literature by "Robinson Crusoe", "She", "The Last of the Mohicans", and "Around the World in Eighty Days", and he never moved far beyond that level. He tried "The Idiot" and "The Brothers Karamazov", but found them too depressing, perhaps because his life was anything but Dostoevskian'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William John Brown Print: Book
H. J. Jackson discusses Max Beerbohm's "doctored copy of Queen Victoria's More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands", to which he added "playfully-intended forgeries of her handwriting in annotations, captions, and a dedicatory inscriptiom [to himself]."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Max Beerbohm Print: Book
'After a miserable Catholic school education...periodic unemployment allowed [Joseph Toole] to study in the Manchester Reference Library. There he discovered, Adam Smith, Ricardo, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Mill, Emerson, Dickens, Morris, Blatchford, Shaw and Wells, and of course John Ruskin..."Study always left me with a deep feeling that there was so much amiss with the world. It seemed that it had been started at the wrong end, and that it was everybody's business to put the matter right".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Toole Print: Book
'After a miserable Catholic school education...periodic unemployment allowed [Joseph Toole] to study in the Manchester Reference Library. There he discovered, Adam Smith, Ricardo, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Mill, Emerson, Dickens, Morris, Blatchford, Shaw and Wells, and of course John Ruskin..."Study always left me with a deep feeling that there was so much amiss with the world. It seemed that it had been started at the wrong end, and that it was everybody's business to put the matter right".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Toole Print: Book
H. J. Jackson notes annotations made by John James Raven over period of around 40-50 years in copy of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome given to him in 1848, "when Raven was a schoolboy of fifteen."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John James Raven Print: Book
"Horatio Nelson's copy of Helen Maria Williams's Sketches of the State of Manners and Opinions in the French Republic Towards the Close of the Eighteenth Century (1801) ... has very little marking and only a few actual notes in it, but all his notes correct the author on matters of fact ..."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Horatio Nelson Print: Book
H. J. Jackson notes handwritten insertion of names of persons identified only by initials in H. Giles's copy of B. L. Putnam Weale, Indiscreet Letters from Peking (an "alleged eyewitness account of the siege of Peking in 1900"); Giles also places question marks beside passages of "'doubtful historical value', as explained in another note by him in the text.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: H. Giles Print: Book
'Lancashire journalist Allen Clarke (b.1863), the son of a Bolton textile worker, avidly read his father's paperback editions of Shakespeare and ploughed through the literature section (Chaucer, Marlowe, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Milton, Pope, Chatterton, Goldsmith, Byron, Shelley, Burns, Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt) of the public library. With that preparation, he was winning prizes for poems in London papers by age thirteen...[he] went on to found and edit several Lancashire journals'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Allen Clarke Print: Book
'A.E. Coppard, a laundrywoman's son who grew up in dire poverty, left school at nine, ascended the ranks of clerkdom and became (at age forty) a professional author. At fourteen he was still enjoying "Deadeye Dick", by twenty he was reading Henry James...He secured a literary education at the Brighton Public Library, and as a professional runner he used prize money to buy Hardy's poems, Shakespeare, Mackail's translation of "The Odyssey", and William Morris's "The Earthly Paradise". In an undemanding job... he read on company time, though there was a row when his supervisor found "Jude the Obscure" on his desk'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Edgar Coppard Print: Book
'As a ?1-a-week warehouse clerk in the early 1920s, H.E. Bates spent most of the workday with Conrad, Hardy, Wells, Bennett, Galsworthy, Edith Wharton and Willa Cather'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Ernest Bates Print: Book
'Masefield habitually purchased a book each Friday evening and read it over the weekend. Among the first purchases was a seventy-five cent copy of Chaucer; and that evening, as he recalled, "I stretched myself on my bed, and began to read 'The Parliament of Fowls'; and with the first lines entered into a world of poetry until then unknown to me". As a result, Masefield's study of poetry deepened, and Chaucer, John Milton, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats became his mentors. Shelley converted the impressionable youth to vegetarianism....Unfortunately [he] overdid vegetarianism by abjuring milk; and, weak from lack of protein, he finally gave up the regimen'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Masefield Print: Book
"When John Brand had a copy of his Observations on Popular Antiquities (1777) interleaved to take materials for a revised edition, he drafted a paragraph of acknowledgements [on one of the interleaves of the same copy] with specific reference to [Francis] Douce, 'who had enriched an interleaved Copy of my former Book with many very pertinent notes & illustrations ...'"
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Douce Print: Book
H. J. Jackson notes Francis Douce's reading and annotations (which are "not generous") of copies of John Whitaker, The Ancient Cathedral of Cornwall Historically Surveyed (1804) and The History of Manchester (1771; 1775), both bequeathed by him to the British Museum; quotes extensive note in which Douce attacks Whitaker's scholarship at point where Whitaker has attempted to correct one of his (Douce's) previous remarks on etymology.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Douce Print: Book
H. J. Jackson notes Francis Douce's reading and annotations (which are "not generous") of copies of John Whitaker, The Ancient Cathedral of Cornwall Historically Surveyed (1804) and The History of Manchester (1771; 1775), both bequeathed by him to the British Museum; quotes extensive note in which Douce attacks Whitaker's scholarship at point where Whitaker has attempted to correct one of his (Douce's) previous remarks on etymology.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Douce Print: Book
Anthony Grafton, "Discitur ut agatur: How Gabriel Harvey Read His Livy": "In 1584 ... in Cambridge, Harvey read Livy ... with Thomas Preston, master of Trinity Hall. They read Machiavelli's Discorsi at the same time ... They read several other up-to-date works on pragmatic politics as well, notably Jean Bodin's Methodus and Republic."
Century: 1500-1599 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey and Thomas Preston Print: Book
Anthony Grafton, in "Discitur ut agatur: How Gabriel Harvey Read His Livy," notes Harvey's reading, and light annotation, of Niccolo Machiavelli, The Art of War.
Century: 1500-1599 / 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'Ellinor, or the World as it is, by M.A.Hanway. 4 vols. An entertaining production written in a light, easy style [editor does not reproduce all of Weeton's comments] [The story] cannot have the slightest tendency to injure the morals of any reader,whether they have common sense or not, when it is considered that there was a continued series of suffering for 20 years from first to last.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Ellen Weeton Print: Book
'The Royal Sufferers, or Intrigues at the Close of the 18th Century. by J.Agg. 3 vols.' [no commentary on the text: part of list of texts read]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Ellen Weeton Print: Book
'E- being called out for a few hours in the morning I attempted to amuse myself with Marmontel's Tales- it was but an attempt. For I hurried thro' them 'quite upon thorns' expecting every moment his return, - which prevented either pleasure or instruction to arise from it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Upcott Print: Book
'One book... stimulated the poet beyond all others; it became, in a way, a key to the rest of his reading for some time to come. This was George du Maurier's "Trilby". It was not so much the work itself - though John Masefield enjoyed it more than any book he had read until then - which played so prominent a part in forming his tastes, but the other works which George du Maurier put John Masefield on to... Whatever book "Trilby" mentions John Masefield bought... On the oblique recommendations in "Trilby" he read the "Three Musketeers"; Sterne's "Sentimental Journey"; Darwin's "Origin of the Species"'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Masefield Print: Book
''"My masters... in poetry, were Swinburne and Meredith among the living, Rossetti, Matthew Arnold and Robert Browning among the lately dead. To these I would add Edward Fitzgerald... In prose, the masters were Stendhal, Flaubert, Villiers del'Isle-Adam, Guy de Maupassant, Prosper Merimee and Walter Pater".'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Masefield Print: Book
''"My masters... in poetry, were Swinburne and Meredith among the living, Rossetti, Matthew Arnold and Robert Browning among the lately dead. To these I would add Edward Fitzgerald... In prose, the masters were Stendhal, Flaubert, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Guy de Maupassant, Prosper Merimee and Walter Pater".'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Masefield Print: Book
'[Howard] Spring was the son of a Cardiff gardener who bought his children secondhand copies of "Tom Jones" and "Swiss Family Robinson", and read aloud from "Pilgrim's Progress", "Robinson Crusoe" and Charles Dickens'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Spring Print: Book
'[Aneurin Bevan] burrowed through the Tredegar Workmen's Institute Library, and acquired his characteristically grandiose vocabulary through close study of Roget's Thesaurus... When he chaired the Tredegar Library Committee, ?60 of its ?300 acquisitions budget was delegated to a colliery repairman to buy philosophy books. Bevan could quote Nietzsche, discuss F.H. Bradley's "Appearance and Reality", and deeply impress an Oxford tutor with his crique of Kant's "Categorical Imperative"... Bevan was... deeply influenced by "The Theory of the Leisure Class".'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Aneurin (Nye) Bevan Print: Book
[the 'intellectual' clique within the Clarion Scouts, including Edwin Muir] "followed the literary and intellectual development of the time, discovering such writers as Bergson, Sorel, Havelock Ellis, Galsworthy, Conrad, E.M. Forster, Joyce and Lawrence, the last two being contributed by me, for I had seen them mentioned in the New Age by Ezra Pound".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Muir Print: Book
'The poet Clare Cameron, born Winifred Wells to a London blacksmith, was a 15s a week clerk given to artistic ecstasies... She ate cheap lunches at Lyons to save money for volumes of Tennyson, Shelley and Ruskin. She found the "kindling glow" of words and ideas in Tolstoy, Shaw, Ibsen, Nietzsche, and Marx... Once she read Murger's novel and saw Puccini's opera, she could not turn back: "Ah, THERE was the life we craved. There was expression of and answer to all our fumbling desires and half-formed dreams"...At her first Bohemian party (it was actually in St John's Wood) she was dazzled and intimidated by the easy conversation, the poise, the confidence, the wit'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clare Cameron Print: Book
"William Carleton got the perusal of Gil Blas from a 'pedlar, who carried books about for sale, with a variety of other goods'."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Carleton Print: Book
'Every time I re-read "Emma" I see more clearly that we must be somehow related to the Knightleys of Donwell Abbey; both dear Mr Knightley and Mr John Knightley seem so familiar and cousinly. Surely no-one, who had not Darwin or Wedgwood blood in their veins, could be as cross as Mr John Knightley... it is obvious, too, that there is some strain of the Woodhouses of Hartfield in us...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gwen Raverat Print: Book
'Lovely books she read to us...:"The Wide Wide World", with all the religion and deaths from consumption left out, and all the farm life and good country food left in; "Masterman Ready", with that ass Mr Seagrave mitigated, and dear old Ready not killed by the savages; "Settlers at Home", with the baby not allowed to die; "The Little Duke" with horrid little Carloman spared to grow more virtuous still; "The Children of the New Forest"; "The Runaway"; "The Princess and the Goblin", and many more'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henrietta Litchfield Print: Book
'Lovely books she read to us...:"The Wide Wide World", with all the religion and deaths from consumption left out, and all the farm life and good country food left in; "Masterman Ready", with that ass Mr Seagrave mitigated, and dear old Ready not killed by the savages; "Settlers at Home", with the baby not allowed to die; "The Little Duke" with horrid little Carloman spared to grow more virtuous still; "The Children of the New Forest"; "The Runaway"; "The Princess and the Goblin", and many more'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henrietta Litchfield Print: Book
'Maria Josepha Holroyd in her teens was "enchanted" with the "all for Love" of de Stael's "Delphine", which in mature years she viewed more critically (if still with enjoyment, although her husband was "disgusted" by it).'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria Josepha Holroyd Print: Book
'Even conservative Elizabeth Montagu read "Bankes' voyage", and although she disapproved his religious scepticism she also criticised the "prudery of the Ladies", who are afraid to own they have read the "Voyages"', arguing that accounts of the open sexual freedom of the "Demoiselles of Ottaheite" were less "dangerous" to young British women than the "secret" liaisons of their own society.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Montagu Print: Book
Adrian Johns notes that "It was [Robert] Hooke who, during his employ with [Robert] Boyle, conducted him through most of Descartes's works; before that Boyle had ... read only the Passions ..."
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Boyle Print: Book
Adrian Johns notes that "It was [Robert] Hooke who, during his employ with [Robert] Boyle, conducted him through most of Descartes's works; before that Boyle had ... read only the Passions ..."
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Boyle Print: Book
'[Carter] is sympathetic to women of different views, like Charlotte Smith or Helen Maria Williams whose books she finds "too democratical" but praises as "exprest with decency and moderation" and "very prettily written".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter Print: Book
'One day Maud stood in front of Grandfather's bookshelves in the parlour and made up her mind that she would read every book on them. There weren't all that many, even though Grandfather, himself, loved to read. He took a daily newspaper from Charlottetown and Grandmother had her Godey's Lady's Book magazine full of stories, poems and fashion drawings. There was the big family Bible. There was "The Pilgrim's Progress" - in those days, in every Christian household where there were books, there was a copy of Bunyan's inspirational allegory. There were other Christian books and missionary tracts, two volumes of the "History of the World", a few novels for adults, and one story for children entitled "Little Katey and Jolly Jim". Grandfather read the Bible aloud every night after supper, seated at the big table in the sitting room, and, afterwards, Maud was allowed to sit at the kitchen table with the light from the oil lamp shining on the book and read again the stories that gripped her... In time, she did read every book on Grandfather's shelves, but not during the summer she was six and a half, and she was well into her teens before she had any wish to read most of the novels or "The Pilgrim's Progress". But she spent many a blissful evening poring over the fashion drawings in the Godey's Lady's Book... The one book she read over and over was "Little Katey and Jolly Jim", because it was about children and not too full of moral lessons. She thought it was "simply scrumptious".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Maud Montgomery Print: Book
[Maud Montgomery and her foster brothers] 'read the "Wide Awake" magazines the boys' aunt sent them for a while - the last instalment of a serial Maud was reading was due when the magazines stopped coming. The boys thought this was a huge joke...(thirty years later she came across bound copies of "Wide Awake" and was finally able to finish reading that story). They told ghost stories. In school Well won the teacher's prize for being the best in arithmetic that winter, a copy of Hans Andersen's fairytales. Maud was enchanted by the book. Then she won a collection of fairytales for being top student most often and it had a story in it called "The Honey Stew of the Countess" Bertha which "abounded in ghosts" and she liked it even better'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Maud Montgomery Print: Book
[Marginalia]: p. 465 has a bookmark and marginal mark against item 'Regimen'; opposite the half-title there is reference to another medical work 'An Essay on The Action of Medicines in the system, or: on the Mode in which Therapeutic Agents introduced in the Stomack ... awarded ... Frederick William [Headland] ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe Erskine Print: Book
'Along with her old school books [Maud Montgomery] read whatever she could find both for pleasure and to learn from their authors how to improve her own writing: religious tracts, newspapers, the Godey's Lady's Book, Charles Dickens's "Pickwick Papers", Sir Walter Scott's novels, Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The House of the Seven Gables", Washington Irving's "The Sketch Book", and Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Maud Montgomery Print: Book
'About 5.40 I set out to the house from which John Carter was this day buried in order to read the will of the deceased (by desire of Mr Burges) to his relations, they being all met to hear the same.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Manuscript: Sheet
" ... in the [Royal] Society ... date of publication could override date of registration. Walter Needham made this explicit in reporting his perusal [as part of Royal Society registration process] of a book by Reginald de Graaf that had provoked Swammerdam to contest de Graff's authorship of discoveries."
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Needham Print: Book
" ... [Edmond] Halley's paper on the causes of the Noachian deluge was finally printed in the Philosophical Transactions some thirty years after being read at the [Royal] Society ..."
Unknown
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Royal Society
Adrian Johns discusses John Flamsteed's (disapproving) reading of Edmond Halley, Catalogus Stellarum Australium.
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: John Flamsteed Print: Book
"When [Isaac] Newton arrived at Greenwich in September 1694, the astronomer [John Flamsteed] showed him 157 lunar positions calculated at the observatory ... Newton asked permission to take copies of them."
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Isaac Newton Manuscript: Unknown
Adrian Johns discusses John Flamsteed's reading of sheets 1 and 3 of his star catalogue (submitted for printing without his authorisation, and much added to), apparently supplied to him by printing-house staff.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Flamsteed Print: sheets
Adrian Johns describes how "[Edmond] Halley ... [took] to 'correcting' the copy [of John Flamsteed's star catalogue] in Child's coffeehouse, and pointing out to his 'impious friends' there all Flamsteed's purported errors."
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmond Halley
"As late as 1782 ... [Caroline Herschel] would employ a telescope to 'sweep' the sky for comets, with her brother William seated beside her. William helped her attain the vital skill of correlating in an instant what she observed in the sky with its representation in the Atlas [Coelestis] lying open beside her."
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Caroline and William Herschel Print: Book
[Marginalia]: some very brief marginal marks/notes eg p. 72/3 is bookmarked and has text '11. Calcium. - This metal is a component of part of all animals' marked by three horizontal lines; p.77 next to the text 'This arrangement is a very excellent one; but several reasons incude nme to adopt another...' is the ms note 'Saline aliment'.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Anon Print: Book
'I could read "The Daisy Chain" or "The Wide Wide World", and just take the religion as the queer habits of those sorts of people, exactly as if I were reading a story about Mohammedans or Chinese'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gwen Raverat Print: Book
'I completed the reading of Gay's "Fables", which I think contains a very good lesson of morality; and I think the language very healthy, being very natural.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
Noted by Leon Edel in "Brief Chronology" of Henry James: "1860: Returns to Newport ... Reads Balzac and Merimee."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Leon Edel notes re Henry James's unsigned review of Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, in North American Review (July 1865): "Arnold read this review and praised it to his friends unaware it was the work of a twenty-two-year-old novice."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Matthew Arnold Print: Serial / periodical
Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, from Cambridge, Mass., 20 September 1867: "I had just been reading, when your letter came, Taine's Graindorge, of which you speak ... I enjoy Taine more almost than I do any one; but his philosoph of things strikes me as essentially superficial and as if subsisting in the most undignified subservience to his passion for description ... I have also read the last new Mondays of Ste.B, and always with increasing pleasure."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Leon Edel, introducing Henry James's letters from 1869-70: " [James] traveled in 1869, reading Goethe, Stendhal, the President de Brosses and Hawthorne."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
'After the breakdown of her marriage in 1752, Sarah Scott read voraciously and eclectically, the "history of Florence" and Lord Bacon's essays, and the Old Plays, Christianity not founded on argument, Randolph's answer to it... and some of David's Simple Life... an account of the Government of Venice, Montaigne's Essays.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Scott Print: Book
'After the breakdown of her marriage in 1752, Sarah Scott read voraciously and eclectically, the "History of Florence" and Lord Bacon's essays, and the Old Plays, Christianity not founded on argument, Randolph's answer to it... and some of David's Simple Life... an account of the Government of Venice, Montaigne's Essays.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Scott Print: Book
'She began Candide but "threw it aside, and nothing, I believe, will tempt me ever to look into it again."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter Print: Book
'she thinks Rousseau "the most dangerous writer I ever read", his work "of so bad tendency that, after a few trials, I have determined never to look into any thing he should publish".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter Print: Book
'Even conservative Elizabeth Montagu read "Bankes's Voyage", and although she disapproved his religious scepticism she also criticised the "prudery of the Ladies, who are afraid to own they have read the Voyages", arguing that accounts of the open sexual freedom of the "Demoiselles of Ottaheite" were less "dangerous" to young British women than the "secret" liaisons of their own society.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Montagu Print: Book
'Carter read and enjoyed fiction until the end of her life. Pennington reveals her enthusiasm for a number of novelists "of considerable genius, as well as strict morals", who provided "a very pleasing relaxation from her severer studies" (Letters... to Mrs Montagu, vol 1, p. 69). According to him, she disliked realist fiction, though she made an exception for Burney's which she read with "increasing approbation more than once": her favourite was "Evelina" (Memoirs, p. 299). She also enjoyed Jane West (who dedicated "A Tale of the Times" to her) and Ann Radcliffe, who impressed her, according to Pennington, by "the good tendency of all her works, the virtues of her principal characters... and her accurate, as well as vivid delineation of the beauties of nature" (Memoirs, p. 300). She thought "A Sicilian Romance" "elegant" and praised its "good" moral (Letters... to Mrs Montagu, Vol III, p. 323).'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter Print: Book
Henry James to William James, 1 January 1870 (letter begun 27 December 1869): " ... I felt a most refreshing blast of paternity, the other day in reading Father's reply to a 'Swedenborgian,' in a number [of The Nation] that I saw at the bankers."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Serial / periodical
'In the day read part of Bracken's "Pocket Farrier", which I look upon as a very complete thing of its kind.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'In the morning read part of a book entitled "A Defence of Plurality of Church Benefices", but I cannot be persuaded by his reasons that it is always beneficial to promote our most holy religion.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
Henry James to Henry James Sr, 14 January 1870: "With your letter [of 22 December 1869] came two Nations, with your Swedenborgian letters, which I had already seen and I think mentioned. I read at the same time in an Atlantic borrowed from the Nortons, your article on the woman business ... your Atlantic article I decidedly liked ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Serial / periodical
Henry James to Henry James Sr, 14 January 1870: "With your letter [of 22 December 1869] came two Nations, with your Swedenborgian letters, which I had already seen and I think mentioned. I read at the same time in an Atlantic borrowed from the Nortons, your article on the woman business ... your Atlantic article I decidedly liked ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Serial / periodical
Henry James to William James, 8 March 1870: "During the past month I have been ... reading among other things Browning's Ring and Book ... the President de Brosse's delightful letters, Crabbe Robinson's memoirs and the new vol. of Ste Beuve."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Unknown
Henry James to Elizabeth Boott, 24 January 1872: "I heard read in MS. the other evening a new story by Bret Harte (for the next Atlantic) better than anything in his 'second manner' -- though not quite so good as his first."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Manuscript: Unknown
" ... [Henry James] would [after 1872] be a close reader of Renan ... whom he later met."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Mrs Henry James Sr, 24 March 1873: "Thank him [Henry James Sr] ... greatly for his story of Mr Webster. It is admirable material, and excellently presented: I have transcribed it in my notebook with religious care, and think that some day something will come of it."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Manuscript: Sheet
Henry James to William Dean Howells, 9 January 1874, regarding first half of "tale" (Eugene Pickering) being sent in separate cover: "I have been reading it to my brother who pronounces it 'quite brilliant.'"
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Manuscript: Unknown
[Marginalia]: pencil annotation at the end of the text of v.1 (ie p. 378): 'And this is given as the character of Louis the Fourteenth Pooh! P...! What a Prostitution of Talents [?] & Truth!' 'Is it that [?] can creep and pride that licks the dust' Two very brief notes on p. 342 and p. 182. Also has marginal marks | and * on various pages.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Drummond Erskine Print: Book
[Marginalia]: ms annotations in pencil on several pages eg: p. 47 at foot of page 'The English usually divide the Days into two parts only Morning and Evening - the Scotch divide it into four parts Morning, Forenoon, Afternoon, & Evening'; p. 28 at foot of page 'What like is such a Thing? What appearance has such a thing?'; p.25 at foot of page 'Almost nothing. Hardly anything Ex: His house was burnt down & almost nothing [underlined] was saved & hardly anything [underlined] was saved'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Drummond Erskine Print: Book
'Two little books that I read in my boyhood impressed and stimulated me greatly. They helped me in my efforts to live bravely and to use my life for noble ends. These were the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglass.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burt Print: Book
'I have no enthusiasm-cui bono? I always ask myself. It would be irksome, & impossible, in this state of my sheet, to criticise the elegant and ingenious rather than powerful or philosophical narrative which Horace Benedict Saussure gives of his journeys in the Alps. I am in the third quarto-'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I always hated Gay's Fables, and for long could not abide a red book.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
[in the sick bay with measles, after a week not allowed to read] 'I was very bored, and started reading "Diary of a District Officer". Matron says that I must not read more than two hours a day!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'I am reading "Peter Abelard" ...[it's] a wonderful book and not at all hard to read. I have nearly finished it now. Wish I hadn't!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'Read most of day. I am reading "Dandelion Days", and love it. I must get some more of the Henry Williamson books.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'1943 My Favourite:
Books: "How Green Was my Valley", "Witch in the Wood".
Authors: T.H.White, Hugh Walpole
Poems: "Christabel", "Lotus Eaters"
Writers: Shaw, Shakespeare'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'1943 My Favourite:
Books: "How Green Was my Valley", "Witch in the Wood".
Authors: T.H.White, Hugh Walpole
Poems: "Christabel", "Lotus Eaters"
Writers: Shaw, Shakespeare'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'There is also Madame de Stael on the French revolution - first volume only finished - remarks (if any) in the next letter.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'In conformity with ancient custom, I ought now to transmit you some account of my studies- But I have too much conscience to dilate upon this subject. Besides, it is not so easy to criticise the brilliant work of Madame de Stael-considerations sur quelques evenemen[t]s de la revolution - as to tell you, what I learnt from a small Genevese attending Jameson's class, that she was very ugly and very immoral- yet had fine eyes, and was very kind to the poor people of Coppet & the environs.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'In conformity with ancient custom, I ought now to transmit you some account of my studies- But I have too much conscience to dilate upon this subject... On the same authority [a small Genevese], I inform you that Horace Benedict Saussure (whose beautiful voyages I have not yet finished) died 20 years ago; but Theodore, his son, is still living.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I read Bailly's memoires d'un temoin de la revolution, with little comfort. The book is not ill-written: but it grieved me to see the august historian of astronomy, the intimate of Kepler, Gallileo & Newton- "thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm'd," at the approbation or the blame of Parisian tradesmen - not to speak of the "pouvres ouvriers" [poor workers], as he fondly names the dogs, du faubourg St Antoine.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'Have you read Mad. Sevigne's Letters from the [French]? Fine passages and Sentiments there are in it, & a notion given of the French manner tho' written in the middle reign of Louis XIV. What are the Two volumes called the History of Man from the French also. There is a volume which is not chaste enough to be recommended to your Ladiship. It is truly French. Its language good. But for the knowledge of the hearts of people given up to what is called Gallantry, particularly French Gallantry, I have not seen its equal. It is called Letters of Ninon de Lenclos to the marquis of Sevigne. Son of the above-named Lady, and her contemporary. It will not offend the Ear. But I would not by any means recommend it to a very young Lady'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Richardson Print: Book
'Does your Ladiship see The Adventurer? I buy it; but have not had time to read but here and there one; But purpose from the Character judicious Friends give of them, to make them part of my Reading Entertainment when I have Leisure'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Richardson Print: Serial / periodical
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'Read "The Count of Monte Cristo" (abridged) which is simply superb. Bought "Song of Bernadette" at last.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'Spent morning shopping and in Pub. Library. Got 2 lovely books and read "Lottie Dundass" all afternoon and "Provincial Lady in America" in evening.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'Spent glorious morning doing book [i.e. sorting bookcase] & enjoying myself thoroughly. Bought "Balletomania" at long last, and am so thrilled as have wanted it for ages. Am re-reading "Peter Abelard" & again it is far and away the best book I have ever read. Have saved ?2 for next hol's book buying!'
NB "Balletomania" does not appear on the list of books read during 1944 at the end of the diary.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'Read Shaw, which is wonderful, but I'm sure I don't understand half of it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'1944 My Favourite:
Books: "Peter Abelard". "The Story of San Michele"
Authors: Henry Williamson, B. Nichols
Poems: Hiawatha. Arabia
Writers: Shaw. Dorothy Sayers'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'One of my aunts, living some two miles away, I discovered had a copy of Bunyan's immortal dream. The Bible and the pilgrim. Bunyan, for some reason, probably because of the great esteem in which it was held, was hidden away in a drawer, and my aunt was disinclined to let me take the book away with me, but she gladly gave me permission to read it at her house. As my visits were few, I had to read it by snatches. Ultimately I read it all, some portions many times over, with intense delight, though I fear with no great spiritual profit.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burt Print: Book
?Macaulay, who had recently died, was greatly in vogue. I had read with enjoyment and advantage his "History of England" and some of his essays.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burt Print: Book
Henry James to Thomas Seregant Perry, 25 November 1883: "Her [Louise-Florence d'Epinay's] Memoirs I read years ago ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Thomas Seregant Perry, 25 November 1883: "I have just been reading the two last [sixth and seventh] volumes of Mme de Remusat, just out -- her correspondence with her son -- and finding them interestng ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
19 June 1884: Henry James writes (in French) to Alphonse Daudet about having read and enjoyed Daudet's Sapho.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Francis Parkman, 24 August 1884: " ... I cannot hold my hand from telling you ... with what high appreciation and genuine gratitude I have been reading your Wolfe and Montcalm ... I have found the right time to read it only during the last fortnight, and it has fascinated me from the first page to the last."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to William James, 2 January 1885: "Three days ago ... came the two copies of Father's (and your) book ... All I have had time to read as yet is the introduction ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book, Unknown
Robert Louis Stevenson to Henry James, November-early December 1887: "I must break out with the news that I can't bear the Portrait of a Lady. I read it all, and I wept, too; but I can't stand your having written it, and I beg you will write no more of the like."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Unknown
'I am glad the Adventurers please your Ladiship. You think the Style of some of them uneasy and difficult. The principal Author has been thought an Imitator of Mr Johnson, the Author of the Rambler. The two Gentlemen have a high Opinion of each other. Mr Hawkesworth has written some very good things in Cave's Magazine...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Bradshaigh Print: Serial / periodical
'I am glad the Adventurers please your Ladiship. You think the Style of some of them uneasy and difficult. The principal Author has been thought an Imitator of Mr Johnson, the Author of the Rambler. The two Gentlemen have a high Opinion of each other. Mr Hawkesworth has written some very good things in Cave's Magazine...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Richardson Print: Serial / periodical
'Rudie inspired in all his children a love of literature, reading aloud to them from his own favourites, the great Victorians, particularly Dickens, and helping them to choose from the library shelves. "I had the run of my father's library", Rosamond remembered. "I was allowed to read anything and did". There was a bookcase in the hall where he would put books sent to him for review, and from these Rosamond, graduating from her beloved Hans Andersen, E. Nesbit and "Les Petites Filles Modeles", began to discover some of the more adult novelists'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamond Lehmann Print: Book
[Lehmann and her first husband, Leslie Runcimann] 'were great readers, particularly of modern novelists such as Huxley, Lawrence and Gerhardie.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamond Lehmann Print: Book
[Lehmann and her first husband, Leslie Runcimann] 'were great readers, particularly of modern novelists such as Huxley, Lawrence and Gerhardie.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Runcimann Print: Book
'her main intellectual interests were always literary, and as a novelist she was predominantly engaged in the business of reading and writing, with a keen critical interest in the works of other writers. She read avidly, modern poets such as T.S. Eliot, Roy Fuller, Auden and Cecil Day Lewis, and contemporary novelists, admiring in particular the work of Faulkner and Ford Madox Ford, Virginia Woolf, Ivy Compton Burnett, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Jean Rhys and Elizabeth Bowen. Jean Rhys's bleak, beautiful novel "Voyage in the Dark", published in the same month as [Lehmann's] "Invitation to the Waltz", had much impressed Rosamond, who invited its author to tea'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamond Lehmann Print: Book
'her main intellectual interests were always literary, and as a novelist she was predominantly engaged in the business of reading and writing, with a keen critical interest in the works of other writers. She read avidly, modern poets such as T.S. Eliot, Roy Fuller, Auden and Cecil Day Lewis, and contemporary novelists, admiring in particular the work of Faulkner and Ford Madox Ford, Virginia Woolf, Ivy Compton Burnett, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Jean Rhys and Elizabeth Bowen. Jean Rhys's bleak, beautiful novel "Voyage in the Dark", published in the same month as [Lehmann's] "Invitation to the Waltz", had much impressed Rosamond, who invited its author to tea'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamond Lehmann Print: Book
'You will receive in a few days the typescript of the novel of your new client, Mrs Farley, 16 rue de la Paix. . . . I have read through the novel, and had it altered to suit my notions several times. So you can take my guarantee that it is sound, quiet, capable, library fiction, quite up to the standard.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: typescript
'Do you want Frank Harris? If so, I think I could bring him into the fold. . . . His last book "The Bomb" (which is a masterly thing) is published by Long (!) who gave him ?75 in advance.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'He [Frank Harris] has two or three books unpublished; including one on Shakespeare which is probably the most penetrating book on Shakespeare ever written.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown
?The first book which attracted my particular notice was "The Pilgrim?s Progress", with rude woodcuts; it excited my curiosity in an extraordinary degree. There was "Christian knocking at the strait gate", his "fight wit Appolyn", his "passing near the lions", his "escape from Giant Dispair [sic]", his perils at "Vanity Fair", his arrival in "the land of Beula", and his final passage to "Eternal Rest": all these were matters for the exercise of my feeling and my imagination. And then when it was explained to me ? as it was by my mother and sister...?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'the book that prompted [Mary Wollstonecraft's] fullest comment was Rousseau's "Emile". It was bound to appeal to her; it was a treatise on education, a metaphysical essay - at times almost a sermon - and a sentimental novel, all in one'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Print: Book
'I am now reading Rousseau's "Emile", and love his paradoxes. He chuses a common capacity to educate - and gives as a reason, that a genius will educate itself - however he rambles into a chimerical world into which I have too often [wand]ered - and draws the usual conclusion that all is vanity and vexation of spirit.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Print: Book
'I am so fatigued with poring over a German book, I scarcely can collect my thoughts or even spell English words.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Print: Book
' I would advise you to read Mrs R's "Italian" in your own chamber, not to lose the picturesque images with which it abounds.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'We read, wrote and walked a little before dinner. After, I read Sainte Beuve aloud.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'When the cigars came, Hoffmann was requested to read some of his poetry, and he gave us a bacchanalian poem with great spirit... little rain sent us into the house, and when we were seated in an elegant drawing room, opening into a large music salon, we had more reading from Hoffmann, and from the French artist who with a tremulous voice pitched in a minor key, read us some rather pretty sentimentalities of his own'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) Manuscript: Unknown, own poem
'Read "Letters of People in Love". Quite good.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'Began to read Egmont after dinner, then "The Hoggarty Diamond".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
[Sunday, on a bike picnic] 'It began to pour down just as B [unidentified] and I reached a barn... so we stayed there to eat, and curled up on rugs on mouldy straw, and I read "Jerusalem under the High Priests"! Arrived in at 6:30 totally soaked! Maccy [later the cookery writer Jane Grigson] has a tiny book of Shakespeare's Sonnets which I must try and get - they are most lovely and very interesting and soothing.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'Began translating Spinoza's Ethics... Read Wilhelm Meister aloud in the evening'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'I finished reading "The Rivals", and have embarked on Bradley's "Shakespearean Tragedy"'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'I did a lot of "The Rivals", which I don't like a bit. It has momentary flashes of wit, but otherwise it's awful.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'Have begun "Peter Abelard" again. I do love it, & can never leave it once I've begun.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'The weather continues disagreeable and the streets dirty. Read Jacobi's Briefe uber Spinoza.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Not well in the morning. Finished Fanny Lewald's Wandlungen'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 15 April 1892: "I send you by this post the magnificent Memoires de Marbot, which should have gone to you sooner by my hand if I had sooner read them ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James writes (in French) on 12 February 1895 to Alphonse Daudet, on having read and enjoyed Daudet's new novel [Petite Paroisse], sent to him by Daudet, and re-read (in each case for the third time) the same author's Sapho and L'Immortel.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James writes (in French) on 12 February 1895 to Alphonse Daudet, on having read and enjoyed Daudet's new novel [Petite Paroisse], sent to him by Daudet, and re-read (in each case for the third time) the same author's Sapho and L'Immortel.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James writes (in French) on 12 February 1895 to Alphonse Daudet, on having read and enjoyed Daudet's new novel [Petite Paroisse], sent to him by Daudet, and re-read (in each case for the third time) the same author's Sapho and L'Immortel.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Mrs. Henry James Sr., 8 May 1876: "The other day I was at the house of a dreadful old lion huntress, Mme. Blaze de Bury -- an Englishwoman with a French husband and daughter. She invited me, unsolicited, from having read my threadbare tales in the Revue des Deux Mondes ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mme. Blaze de Bury Print: Serial / periodical
Henry James to Mrs. Henry James Sr., 8 May 1876: "I have been reading Macaulay's Life with extreme interest and entertainment, and admiration of the intellectual robustness of the man."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Wiliam James, 28 February 1877: " ... [Henry Sidgwick] has read Roderick Hudson (!) and asked me to stop with him at Cambridge."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Sidgwick Print: Unknown
Henry James to Henry James Sr., 19 April 1878: "Two days since I dined with Frederick Macmillan to meet Mr Grove, the editor of their magazine, who had just been reading The American ... 'with great delight.'"
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Archibald Grove Print: Unknown
Henry James to Henry James Sr., 29 May 1878: " ... Sir Charles Dilke ... appears to have found time ... to read and be 'struck' by my French essays."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Charles Dilke Print: Unknown
[Marginalia]: substantial annotations on several pages, usually associated with marked passages in the text: eg p. 8 para beginning 'I admit that the existing stock of specie, at any given moment [underlined and with the word always in ms above], constitutes the capital, or a portion of the capital of many individuals *...' has ms annotation '*& hence certainly of the nation; a conclusion directly contrary to his position p.3. The function of currency is neither more nor less than the barter of one commodity for another'; p. 20 The first 2 complete paras are marked with vertical lines and have the ms annotation 'extremely inaccurate to calculate our resources from this particular branch of trade'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Drummond Erskine Print: Book
'In the evening began Macaulay's History of England. Richard III and G's M.S. on Goethe's scientific labours'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Looked through Wraxall's Memoirs'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
Henry James to Mrs F. H. Hill, 21 March 1879, on his characterisation of Lord Lambeth in Daisy Miller: "That he says 'I say' rather too many times is very probable (I thought so, quite, myself, in reading over the thing as a book): but that strikes me as a rather venial flaw."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Mrs Henry James Sr., 8 April 1879: "I have received father's book from Trubner -- but really to read it I must lay it aside till the summer. I have however dipped into it and found it a great fascination."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Henry James Sr., 11 January 1880: "I know there are quite too many 'I's' in my Sainte-Beuve -- they shocked me very much when I saw it in print, and they would never have stayed had I seen it in proof."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Serial / periodical
Henry James to Mrs Henry James Sr., 16 March 1881: "I have of course read Grant Allen in the March Atlantic and think it seems prettily enough argued."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Serial / periodical
Leon Edel notes: "In the weeks after his mother's death H[enry]J[ames] converted 'Daisy Miler' into a play, and before sailing read it to Mrs. [Isabella Stewart]Gardner."
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James
[Marginalia]: two ms notes, one opp. to: "Joannes Marshall scripsit hunc librum./ Incepi scribere hunc librum duodecimo die Aprilis 1729. Finivi librum nonodecimo die Junij 1729"; opp. p. 88: "David Marshall ... libro Gulielmus D... scripsit hunc librum./ Incepi scribere hunc librum Quinto die Februarij 1725/ ... John Halkerston ... [ie between two paras.]/ Ego Joannes Marshall Incepi scribere hunc librum duodecimo die Martii 1729 et finivi librum nondecimo die Junij 1729" ["John Marshall transcribed this book. I began to transcribe this book on 12th April 1729. I finished the book on 19th June 1729", "David Marshall... book...William D... transcribed this book. I began to transcribe this book on the 5th Feb 1725.... John Halkerston... I John Marshall began to transcribe this book on 12 March 1729 and I finished the book on 19th June 1729."; marginal marks in text p. 112-3.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: David Marshall Print: Book
'You are not to think that I am fretful. I have long accustomed my mind to look upon the future with a sedate aspect; and at any rate, my hopes have never yet failed me. A French Author (D'Alembert, one of the few persons who deserve the honourable epithet of honest man) whom I was lately reading, remarks that one who devotes his life to learning ought to carry for his motto-Liberty, Truth, Poverty; for her that fears the latter can never have the former.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Unknown
'... I also enlarged my acquaintance with English literature, read Johnson's "Lives of the Poets", and, as a consequence, many of their productions also. Macpherson's "Ossain", whilst it gave me a glimpse of our most ancient love, interested my feelings and absorbed my attention. I also bent my thoughts on more practical studies, and at one time had nearly the whole of Lindley Murray's "Grammar" stored in my memory, although I never so far benefited by it as to become ready at pausing.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
[Marginalia]: Three entries (Perth, Haddington and Fife & Kinross) have been annotated with some extra information ex. from the Perth entry 'At a small village calld [sic] Pitcaithly within a mile of Dumbarny, 25 miles from Perth, is a well whose water is remarkable for curing sore eyes. Near Loch Dochart in Breadalbane, is Ben More, among the highest hills in Scotland.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Wemyss Print: Book
?Excepting "Pilgrim?s Progress", "Gulliver?s Travels" and the "Arabian Nights", I saw and read none of the books which entrance young minds. The religious meaning of the first, the satirical meaning of the second, and the doubtful meaning of the third were, of course, not understood. The story was the great thing ? the travels of Christian, the troubles of Gulliver, the adventures of Aladdin??
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Edwin Adams Print: Book
?If I did not at that time educate myself, I at least did the next best thing. I tried to. English was picked up from Cobbett; the lessons in Cassell?s "Popular Educator" offered some insight into Latin; French was studied from the same pages in conjunction with another youth; and arrangements were made with an enthusiastic disciple of Isaac Pitman to plunge the depths of phonography when a change of circumstances cast these and all other educational projects to the winds.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Edwin Adams Print: Newspaper
?I made very little progress in learning until the year 1794 only my mother borrowed the pilgrim?s progress and Doctor Watts hymns for me and told me the meaning of them as well as she Could which kept me from going back but I Could not advance because I had no one to teach me.?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Mayett Print: Book
'Here I also met with some books of a higher order, but which were then far beyond any comprehension. Among these were Hervey's "Meditations", "The Pilgrim's Progress", and an illustrated Bible. This last work was crowded with engravings which were called embellishments.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
'Another book which thus came in my way was Mrs Barbauld's "Hymns for Children" which I soon perceived to be exactly suited both to my taste and my capacity. Here I met with descriptions of rural scenery, life and manners which delighted and instructed me...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
'A little before this time I had been reading that entertaining little volume, Miss Taylor's "Original Poems for Children", one of which, "The Truant Boys", had particularly gained my attention, and I had partly committed it to memory.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
'We are reading Gall's Anatomie et Physiologie du Cerveau in the evening, with, occasionally, Carpenter's Comparative Physiology. The Newcomes as light fare after dinner'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes Print: Book
'We are reading Gall's Anatomie et Physiologie du Cerveau in the evening, with, occasionally, Carpenter's Comparative Physiology. The Newcomes as light fare after dinner'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes Print: Book
'I am reading in the evenings the Memoirs of Beaumarchais and Milne Edwards's Zoology'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
[Marginalia]|: 7pp (6 ink, 1 pencil) of ms notes of journeys (all in south of England or Wales) in the blank pages following the end of the text, in a standard format eg: 'To Millbourn Port [heading]/ Hounslow - George - 12/ Staines - Bush 7/ Bagshot - Kings Arms - 9/ Hartford Bridge - White Lion -9/ Basingstoke - Crown - 11/ Overton Red Lion 8/ Andover - Star Garter 11/ Salisbury - White Hart 1? [deleted and replaced by] 13/ Fovent - Pembroke Arms./ Shaftesbury Red Lion.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Paget? Print: Book
'I have continued reading Milne-Edwards aloud, and have also read Harriet Martineau's article on Missions in the "Westminster", and one or two articles in the "National". Reading to myself Harvey's "Sea-side Book", and "The Lover's Seat".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) Print: Book
'have now taken up Quatrefages again.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) Print: Book
'Finished Cesar Birotteau aloud.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) Print: Book
'Reading Burke's "Reflections on French Revolution" and "Mansfield Park" in the evenings.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Began "The Scarlet Letter".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes Print: Book
'I began to read Miss Catlow's "Botany".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) Print: Book
'I have begun Draper's "Physiology", too but rarely have spirit and clearness of brain for it'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) Print: Book
'read "Emma" in the evening.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) Print: Book
'In the evenings of late, we have been reading Harriet Martineau's sketch of "The British Empire in India", and are now following it up with Macaulay's articles of Clive and Hastings. We have lately read H.M.'s Introduction to the "History of the Peace" and have begun the "History of the Thirty Years Peace".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Print: Book
[Marginalia]; Several pp of ms notes copied from another related work laid into v.1. Notes are entitled 'Extract from the 1st volume of Voyages et Recherches dans la Grece par le Chev.er P.O. Brondsted de l'Ile de Ceos'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Drummond Erskine Print: Book
[Marginalia]: very brief annotations, bookmarks and marginal marks, indicating active use when on visit to Paris. Also has several tiny samples of fabric pinned into inside back cover with some notes eg "'ong gloves 2-16'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Erskine Print: Book
'Read my new story to G. this evening as far as the end of the third chapter. He praised it highly... I am in the Choephorae now. In the evenings we are reading "History of Thirty Years' Peace" and Beranger. Throughly disappointed in Beranger'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes Print: Book
'About this time I read also the narratives of some eminent navigators and travellers; among the former were those of Cook, P?rouse and Bougainville; of the latter I chiefly remember those of Bruce, Le Vaillant and Weld. Mr. Weld's narrative so deeply interested me, as to have well nigh been the occasion of my emigrating to the United States or Canada. The desire of seeing those countries which was excited thereby remained with me for some years: it was the cause of my reading several works descriptive of North America and the condition of its inhabitants.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
[Marginalia]: 8 leaves of ms notes, in ink, in French, have been bound in at the beginning of the volume. They consist of an introduction praising those who protect and encourage the arts, including Madame la Pompadour, 'who brought fame to this series of etchings', followed by a description of each etching. There is also a single sheet, in a different hand, containing more notes related to the item.
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Anon Print: Book
'About this time I read also the narratives of some eminent navigators and travellers; among the former were those of Cook, P?rouse and Bougainville; of the latter I chiefly remember those of Bruce, Le Vaillant and Weld. Mr. Weld's narrative so deeply interested me, as to have well nigh been the occasion of my emigrating to the United States or Canada. The desire of seeing those countries which was excited thereby remained with me for some years: it was the cause of my reading several works descriptive of North America and the condition of its inhabitants.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
'About this time I read also the narratives of some eminent navigators and travellers; among the former were those of Cook, P?rouse and Bougainville; of the latter I chiefly remember those of Bruce, Le Vaillant and Weld. Mr. Weld's narrative so deeply interested me, as to have well nigh been the occasion of my emigrating to the United States or Canada. The desire of seeing those countries which was excited thereby remained with me for some years: it was the cause of my reading several works descriptive of North America and the condition of its inhabitants.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
Henry James to Edward Holton James, 15 February 1896: 'For the two stories in the "Harvard Magazine" I am [...] gratefully indebted to you. I have read them with a searching of spirit (to begin with) inevitable to one who has in a manner set an example and who sees it (in his afternoon of life) inexorably and fatally followed.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Serial / periodical
Henry James to Edmund Gosse, 28 August 1896: 'The only thing that befell me [on recent week in London, from 15 August] was that I dined one night at the Savoy with F. Ortmans and the P. Bourgets [...] The only other thing I did was to read in the "Revue de Paris" of the 15th August the wonderful article of A. Daudet on Goncourt's death [...]'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Serial / periodical
Henry James to Antonio de Navarro, 15 June 1898: 'Well, my dear Tony, I have read your ms. [...] It is Hans Andersenesque -- but no editor of an actual London magazine would look at a Hans Andersen tale to-day.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Manuscript: Unknown
'I have done, as usual, almost nothing since we parted- Some one asked me with a smile, of which I knew not the meaning, if I would read that book, putting into my hands a volume of Rousseau's confessions. It is perhaps the most remarkable tome, I ever read. Except for its occassional obscenity, I might wish to see the remainder of the book: to try if possible to connect the character of Jean Jacques with my previous ideas of human nature.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I know not if there be a Goddess of Sloth - tho' considering that this of all our passions is the least turbulent and most victorious, it could not without partiality be left destitute - But if there be, she certainly looks on with an approving smile - when in a supine posture, I lie for hours with my eyes fixed upon the pages of Lady Morgan's France or the travels of Faujas St Fond - my mind seldon taking the pains even to execrate the imbecile materialism, the tawdry gossiping of the former, or to pity the infirm speculations and the already antiquated mineralogy of the latter.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I know not if there be a Goddess of Sloth - tho' considering that this of all our passions is the least turbulent and most victorious, it could not without partiality be left destitute - But if there be, she certainly looks on with an approving smile - when in a supine posture, I lie for hours with my eyes fixed upon the pages of Lady Morgan's France or the travels of Faujas St Fond ... What shall I say to the woebegone Roderick last of the Goths; and others of a similar stamp? They go through my brain as light goes thro' an achromatic telescope.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
Henry James to Katherine Prescott Wormeley, 8 February 1900, thanking her for sending him a proof copy of her preface to her translation [of Balzac's Letters], and accompanying MS notes:
'I deeply appreciate the admirable and generous labour that prepared for me the ms. notes to Balzac's Letters and that accompanied the Preface to your translation. [...] I have read with care every word of your preface and notes -- as I had already read the "Roman d'Amour", and bought and read much of the "Lettres a l'Etrangere".'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Katherine Prescott Wormeley, 8 February 1900, thanking her for sending him a proof copy of her preface to her translation [of Balzac's Letters], and accompanying MS notes:
'I deeply appreciate the admirable and generous labour that prepared for me the ms. notes to Balzac's Letters and that accompanied the Preface to your translation. [...] I have read with care every word of your preface and notes -- as I had already read the "Roman d'Amour", and bought and read much of the "Lettres a l'Etrangere".'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
'We have just finished reading aloud "Pere Goriot" - a hateful book... I have been reading lately and have nearly finished Comte's "Catechism". We have also read aloud "Tom Brown's School Days" with much disappointment. It is an unpleasant, unveracious book'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) and G.H. Lewes Print: Book
'I am reading old Bunyan again after the long lapse of years, and am profoundly struck with the true genius manifested in the simple, vigorous, rhythmic style.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) Print: Book
Henry James to the Earl of Lovelace, 14 January 1906: 'I left home at Christmas for a few weeks' stay, which became a fortnight's absence, and, on my return a week ago, found the very handsome, remarkable and interesting volume ["Astarte", Lovelace's account of his grandmother's marriage to Byron] which you had been so good as to send me. I wished to take real possession of it before having the pleasure of thanking you, and have now done so by a very attentive, and in fact fascinated perusal.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Leon Edel notes, regarding Henry James's letter to James B. Pinker of 14 October 1907: 'The eminent actor Johnston Forbes-Robertson read H[enry]J[ames]'s story "Covering End" in "The Two Magics" (1898) and proposed that the novelist turn it into a play for him.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Johnston Forbes-Robertson Print: Book
Henry James, in letter to Edmund Gosse, 9 November 1912, mentions 'having recently read [...] [Andrew Lang's] (in two or three respects so able) Joan of Arc, or Maid of France, and turned over his just-published (I think posthumous) compendium of "English Literature"'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James, in letter to Edmund Gosse, 9 November 1912, mentions 'having recently read [...] [Andrew Lang's] (in two or three respects so able) Joan of Arc, or Maid of France, and turned over his just-published (I think posthumous) compendium of "English Literature" [...] The extraordinary inexpensiveness and childishness and impertinence of this latter gave to my sense the measure of a whole side of Lang [goes on to attack Lang's "Scotch provincialism"]'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
'I also had some good opportunities for borrowing books; and thus read that very interesting quarto volume, Mr. Park's "Travels in Africa". I also read Mr. Colquhoun's large treatise on the "Police of the Metropolis" from which I gleaned much information and amusement.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
'For my private and sole use, seeing that my friends had no taste for poetry, I bought Mr. Pye's translation of Horace, and was well pleased with my purchase; for I found the old "Roman poet" to be a very lively and shrewd companion. I also ventured to spend a guinea in the purchase of "Kirke White's Remains": a large sum for one like myself to spend at one time in buying books; yet I had good reason to be satisfied; for the work was useful to me in the way of strengthening and confirming my habits of reading and observation.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
'I was unable to work for a fortnight through lameness... While laid by from work, I read Mr. MacKenzie's "Man of Feeling" and other tales. I thought them a little too highly coloured to be of any great use, considered as pictures of men and manners.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
Henry James to Compton Mackenzie, 21 January 1914: 'When I wrote to [James B.] Pinker I had only read "S[inister].S[treet]"., but I have now taken "Carnival" in persistent short draughts -- which is how I took "S[inister].S[treet]". and is how I take anything I take at all'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Compton Mackenzie, 21 January 1914: 'When I wrote to [James B.] Pinker I had only read "S[inister].S[treet]"., but I have now taken "Carnival" in persistent short draughts -- which is how I took "S[inister].S[treet]". and is how I take anything I take at all'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James, in letter of 21 November 1914 to Hugh Walpole, writes of his bemusement at the second volume of Compton Mackenzie's "Sinister Street": 'I don't know what it means [...] the thing affects me on the whole as a mere wide waste.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
?Macaulay, who had recently died, was greatly in vogue. I had read with enjoyment and advantage his "History of England" and some of his essays.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burt Print: Unknown
'Without reluctance, I push aside the massy quarto of Millar on the English government, to perform ther more pelasing duty of writing a few lines to you, by the conveyance of Mr Duncan.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I have read Millar on the English government &c-'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'Before I forget again?have you looked into the "History of a Flirt"? [The History of a Flirt, related by Herself ? by the author of "The Manoeuvring Mother"] The name may alarm you ? but the writer "leans to Miss Austen?s side," ? as I remember dear Dr. Mitford and yourself do - & there is some power and much truth to nature.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'The title is, The Neighbours ? just a title for Miss Austen you see! ? And for Miss Austen, you shall praise her as much as you please. She is delightful exquisite in her degree! ? only I wdnt have one of your dear hands "cut off" that you shd "write one page like her?s with the other", - because, really & earnestly, your Village and Belford Regis are more charming to me than her pages in congregation. She wants (admit it honestly, because you know she wants it) she wants a little touch of poetry. Her "neighbours" walk about & gossip, all unconscious of the sunshine & the trees & the running waters ? to say nothing of the God of nature & providence. "Persuasion" (ah! You are cunning to bring "Persuasion" to me!) is the highest & most touching of her works ? and I agree with you gladly that it is perfect in its kind, & with touches of a higher impulse in it than we look generally to receive from her genius.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Did you see ? what I am reading just too late (but we must be benighted sometimes) in the number before the last of the Edinburgh Review, a notice of Madme d?Arblay, very admirable in all ways, but chiefly interesting to you for the sake of the high estimate of your Miss Austen, who is called second to Shakespeare in the nice delineation of character.' [the review was in the January 1843 issue].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Serial / periodical
'It is a long argument ? but I have been reading quite lately & for your sake & for the third time, her two best works ? Persuasion & Mansfield Park: & really my impressions do grow stronger & stronger in their old places. She is perfect after her kind ? true to the nature she SAW - & with a sufficient sense of the Beautiful, for grace. Like Mrs Hemans, she is too obviously a lady. I have put it in the shape of blame - & many might remark the same thing for praise: I mean however, that her ladyhood is always stronger in her than her humanity. Not that she is defective in strength as Mrs Hemans sometimes is ? she can "always do the thing she would" better than anybody else. Surely, surely I am not a niggard in my praise of Jane Austen! To call her a great writer & learned in the secrets, heights & depths of our nature, or a poet in anywise, is all that I refuse to call her ? and indeed I have not breath & articulation for such an opinion: & it astonishes me that you shd be so exorbitant my dearest Miss Mitford, in your claim for her!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'It is a long argument ? but I have been reading quite lately & for your sake & for the third time, her two best works ? Persuasion & Mansfield Park: & really my impressions do grow stronger & stronger in their old places. She is perfect after her kind ? true to the nature she SAW - & with a sufficient sense of the Beautiful, for grace. Like Mrs Hemans, she is too obviously a lady. I have put it in the shape of blame - & many might remark the same thing for praise: I mean however, that her ladyhood is always stronger in her than her humanity. Not that she is defective in strength as Mrs Hemans sometimes is ? she can "always do the thing she would" better than anybody else. Surely, surely I am not a niggard in my praise of Jane Austen! To call her a great writer & learned in the secrets, heights & depths of our nature, or a poet in anywise, is all that I refuse to call her ? and indeed I have not breath & articulation for such an opinion: & it astonishes me that you shd be so exorbitant my dearest Miss Mitford, in your claim for her!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Yes, I think that Pride & Prejudice is one of the very best of the Austen novels ? and yet I do not quite rank it with Mansfield Park, it seems to take the line just below. Sense & Sensibility is inferior, by my impression, to every one of them?& I am inclined to call that weak and commonplace occasionally.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Yes, I think that Pride & Prejudice is one of the very best of the Austen novels ? and yet I do not quite rank it with Mansfield Park, it seems to take the line just below. Sense & Sensibility is inferior, by my impression, to every one of them?& I am inclined to call that weak and commonplace occasionally.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'I cannot help the oozing forth of my Io triumphe?although it is by no means my dearest friend, my turn for writing. Mr Kenyon came yesterday - & he had just been reading, he said, "Pride & Prejudice", ?driven into making an acquaintance with Miss Austen in despite of his anti-novelism, by the buzz of admiration which beset him from Mr Harness, and others. Mind, he was quite unaware of your & my ever quarrelling on the subject: he spoke to me of his impressions therefore quite innocently & freely, not knowing but that I might be wearing out the knees of my soul before her statue.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Kenyon Print: Book
November 18, 1881 [Paris] 'This morning I laid in a stock of Tauchnitzes, and am beginning a pleasant sketch of Miss Thackeray's on Mme. de Sevigne. Apropos of books, I received two days ago a letter from an American publisher, telling me that M. Lanier had thrown my Mabinogion into a popular form for children and had just completed the work before he died [?] This is very interesting to me. My first number came out in 1839, forty-three years ago.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
[Marginalia]: marginal marks (*) and dates throughout the guidebook, with v.2 more heavily marked than v.1.: eg. p.376-7 against the text line 'L'Eglise de St. Francois' is the ms note 'Jan 30 again'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Erskine Print: Book
[Marginalia]: marginal marks (++) throughout, one date (p. 68 'Feb, 18.19'), and very occasional comments; eg. longest example is p. 83 at the end of the section 'Tombeau de Virgile' is the ms note 'little doubt but that the Poet was buried on the other side of the bay'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Erskine Print: Book
[Marginalia]: Each sermon has a ms date (or dates), possibly indicating use of material: e.g. p. 40 sermon on "Self-ignorance" has ms note 'Ex. F.G. [?] August 8th 1858/ Jany 27th 1861/ Feby 14th 1864/ Apr. 29th 1866; only p.133 has any comment ie "29th /Decr 1867 - very beautiful'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Anon Print: Book
[Marginalia]: ms notes on some 12pp, some ink, some pencil, most in English, some in Arabic. All are notes on points of grammar or translation: e.g p.8 the text 'eight dentals ....[arabic text]; and six linguals, ....[Arabic text]' is underlined and marked +. There is a ms note '++Solar [?] letter before which ...[arabic letter] in the article[?] loses its sound and the .... is ....'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Drummond Erskine Print: Book
?With this proposal I of course readily closed and accordingly the next day my father gave me the 1st vol of the "Universal History" (beginning with the life of Mohamed) and the 1st of Rapin?s "History of England", to begin with, an each of which in turn, I bestowed an hour in reading on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Friday mornings, allotting the other two mornings to a more amusing kind of reading such as Dryden?s "Virgil", "Telamachus", "Charles 12th". etc. I also began a translation of "Diable Boiteaux" & a prose one of Virgil?s "Eneid".?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
?With this proposal I of course readily closed and accordingly the next day my father gave me the 1st vol of the "Universal History" (beginning with the life of Mohamed) and the 1st of Rapin?s "History of England", to begin with, an each of which in turn, I bestowed an hour in reading on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Friday mornings, allotting the other two mornings to a more amusing kind of reading such as Dryden?s "Virgil", "Telamachus", "Charles 12th". etc. I also began a translation of "Diable Boiteaux" & a prose one of Virgil?s "Eneid".?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
?With this proposal I of course readily closed and accordingly the next day my father gave me the 1st vol of the "Universal History" (beginning with the life of Mohamed) and the 1st of Rapin?s "History of England", to begin with, an each of which in turn, I bestowed an hour in reading on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Friday mornings, allotting the other two mornings to a more amusing kind of reading such as Dryden?s "Virgil", "Telamachus", "Charles 12th". etc. I also began a translation of "Diable Boiteaux" & a prose one of Virgil?s "Eneid".?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
?With this proposal I of course readily closed and accordingly the next day my father gave me the 1st vol of the "Universal History" (beginning with the life of Mohamed) and the 1st of Rapin?s "History of England", to begin with, an each of which in turn, I bestowed an hour in reading on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Friday mornings, allotting the other two mornings to a more amusing kind of reading such as Dryden?s "Virgil", "Telamachus", "Charles 12th". etc. I also began a translation of "Diable Boiteaux" & a prose one of "Virgil?s Eneid".?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
'I was truly sorry and at the same time tickled to observe the abrupt conclusion of your letter. The thunder of Jack's snoring is not unknown to me; but poor fellow! you would pity his cold and rejoice that he could sleep at all.' [A large number of Carlyle's reading experiences were letters. We have not included them all, but this is included as a sample of the type of response].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Manuscript: Letter
'Having been lately interested in astronomical studies & been reading Ferguson and Bonnycastle on that science; I on Monday the 15th began making a planetorium upon a stand which I completed in the following week.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
Fanny Kemble, 22 July 1831, following record of discussion with her aunt Dall in which the prospect was raised of her having to give up her career and personal wealth if she should marry: 'I took up Dante, and read about the devils boiled in pitch, which refreshed my imagination and cheered my spirits very much'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Kemble Print: Book
Fanny Kemble, 20 August 1832, on board ship to America: 'I have done more in the shape of work to-day, than any since the first two I spent on board; translated a German fable without much trouble, read a canto in Dante, ending with a valuation of fame.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Kemble Print: Book
'We certainly do not think it as a [italics] whole [end italics], equal to P. & P. - but it has many & great beauties. Fanny is a delightful Chracter! and Aunt Norris is a great favourite of mine. The Characters are natural & well supported, & many of the Dialogues excellent. - You need not fear the publication being considered as discreditable to it's [sic] author'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis William Austen Print: Book
'Not so clever as P.&P. - but pleased with it altogether. Liked the character of Fanny. Admired the Portsmouth Scene.' - Mr K.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Austen Knight Print: Book
Fanny Kemble, 3 December 1832: 'After breakfast [on board steamboat] returned to my crib. As I was removing "Contarini Fleming" [a novel by Disraeli], in order to lie down, a lady said to me, "Let me look at one of those books," and without further word of question or acknowledgement, took it from my hand, and began reading. I was a [italics]little surprised[end italics], but said nothing, and went to sleep.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: unknown Print: Book
'Edward & George. - Not liked it near so well as P.& P. - Edward admired Fanny - George disliked her. - George interested by nobody but Mary Crawford. - Edward pleased with Henry C. - Edmund objected to, as cold & formal. - Henry C.'s going off with Mrs R. - at such a time, when so much in love with Fanny, thought unnatural by Edward.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Knight Print: Book
Fanny Kemble, 3 December 1832: 'After breakfast [on board steamboat] returned to my crib. As I was removing "Contarini Fleming" [a novel by Disraeli],in order to lie down, a lady said to me, "Let me look at one of those books," and without further word of question or acknowledgement, took it from my hand, and began reading [...] Arrived at the Delaware, we took boat again; and, as I was sitting very quietly reading "Contarini Fleming", with the second volume lying on the stool by my feet, the same unceremonious lady who had [italics]borrowed[end italics] it before, snatched it up without addressing a single syllable to me, read as long as she pleased, and threw it down again in the same style before she went to dinner.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: unknown Print: Book
'Edward & George. - Not liked it near so well as P.& P. - Edward admired Fanny - George disliked her. - George interested by nobody but Mary Crawford. - Edward pleased with Henry C. - Edmund objected to, as cold & formal. - Henry C.'s going off with Mrs R. - at such a time, when so much in love with Fanny, thought unnatural by Edward.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Knight Print: Book
Fanny Kemble, 3 December 1832: 'After breakfast [on board steamboat] returned to my crib. As I was removing "Contarini Fleming" [a novel by Disraeli],in order to lie down, a lady said to me, "Let me look at one of those books," and without further word of question or acknowledgement, took it from my hand, and began reading [...] Arrived at the Delaware, we took boat again; and, as I was sitting very quietly reading "Contarini Fleming", with the second volume lying on the stool by my feet, the same unceremonious lady who had [italics]borrowed[end italics] it before, snatched it up without addressing a single syllable to me, read as long as she pleased, and threw it down again in the same style before she went to dinner.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Kemble Print: Book
'Fanny Knight. - Liked it, in many parts, very much indeed, delighted with Fanny; - but not satisfied with the end - wanting more Love between her & Edmund - & could not think it natural that Edmd. shd. be so much attached to a woman without Principle like Mary C. - or promote Fanny's marrying Henry'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Knight Print: Book
'Anna liked it better than P.& P. - but not so well as S.&S. - could not bear Fanny. - Delighted with Mrs Norris, the scene at Portsmouth, & all the humourous [sic] parts.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anna Lefroy Print: Book
'Mrs James Austen, very much pleased. Enjoyed Mrs Norris particularly, & the scene at Portsmouth. Thought Henry Crawford's going off with Mrs Rushworth, very natural.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Austen Print: Book
Fanny Kemble, 3 December 1832: 'Arrived at the Mansion House [in Philadelphia], which I was quite glad to gain [after coach and steamboat journey]. Installed myself in a room, and while they brought in the packages, finished "Contarini Fleming". It reminded me of Combe's [George Combe, Scottish phrenologist] book'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Kemble Print: Book
'Miss Clewes's objections [to Mansfield Park] much the same as Fanny's [Fanny Knight]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Miss] Clewes Print: Book
'Miss Lloyd preferred it altogether to either of the others [Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility]. - Delighted with Fanny. - Hated Mrs Norris'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Martha Lloyd Print: Book
'My Mother - not liked it so well as P. & P. - Thought Fanny insipid. Enjoyed Mrs. Norris.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Cassandra Leigh Austen Print: Book
'Cassandra - thought it quite as clever, tho' not so brilliant as P. & P. - Fond of Fanny. - Delighted much in Mr Rushworth's stupidity.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Cassandra Elizabeth Austen Print: Book
'My Eldest Brother - a warm admirer of it in general. - Delighted with the Portsmouth scene.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Austen Print: Book
'Edward - Much like his Father. - Objected to Mrs Rushworth's Elopement as unnatural'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Edward Austen-Leigh Print: Book
'Mr B.L. - Highly pleased with Fanny Price - & a warm admirer of the Portsmouth Scene. - Angry with Edmund for not being in love with her, & hating Mrs Norris for teazing her'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Lefroy Print: Book
'Miss Burdett - Did not like it so well as P. & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Miss] Burdett Print: Book
'Mrs James Tilson - Liked it [Mansfield Park] better than P. & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs James] Tilson Print: Book
'Fanny Cage - did not much like it - not to be compared to P. & P. - nothing interesting in the Characters - Language poor. - Characters natural & well supported - Improved as it went on.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Cage Print: Book
'Mr & Mrs Cooke - very much pleased with it - particularly with the Manner in which the Clergy are treated. - Mr Cooke called it "the most sensible Novel he had ever read." - Mrs Cooke wished for a good Matronly character.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Cooke Print: Book
'Mr & Mrs Cooke - very much pleased with it - particularly with the Manner in which the Clergy are treated. - Mr Cooke called it "the most sensible Novel he had ever read." - Mrs Cooke wished for a good Matronly character.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mr] Cooke Print: Book
'Mary Cooke - quite as much pleased with it, as her Father & Mother; seemed to enter into Lady B.'s character, & enjoyed Mr Rushworth's folly. Admired Fanny in general, but thought she ought to have been more determined on overcoming her own feelings, when she saw Edmund's attachment to Miss Crawford.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Cooke Print: Book
'Miss Burrel - admired it very much - particularly Mrs Norris & Dr Grant.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Miss] Burrel Print: Book
'Mrs Bramstone - much pleased with it; particularly with the character of Fanny, as being so very natural. Thought Lady Bertram like herself. Preferred it to either of the others [Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility] - but imagined that might be her want of Taste - as she does not understand Wit'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Bramstone Print: Book
'Mrs Augusta Bramstone - owned that she thought S & S. - and P. & P. downright nonsense, but expected to like M.P. better, & having finished the 1st vol. - flattered herself that she had got through the worst.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Augusta Bramstone Print: Book
'The families at Deane - all pleased with it. Mrs Anna Harwood delighted with Mrs Norris & the green curtain.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anna Harwood Print: Book
'The Kintbury Family - very much pleased with it; - preferred it to either of the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fowle Print: Book
'Mr Egerton the Publisher - praised it for it's [sic] Morality, & for being so equal a Composition. - No weak parts.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Egerton Print: Book
'Lady Rob: Kerr wrote - "You may be assured I read every line with the greatest interest & am more delighted with it than my humble pen can express. The excellent delineation of Character, sound sense, Elegant Language & the pure morality with which it abounds, makes it a most desirable as well as useful work, & reflects the highest honour &c. &c. Universally admired in Edinburgh, by all the [italics] wise ones [end italics]. - Indeed, I have not heard a single fault given to it."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Robert Kerr Print: Book
'Miss Sharpe - "I think it is excellent - & of it's [sic] good sense & moral Tendency there can be no doubt. - Your Characters are drawn to the Life - so [italics] very very [end italics] natural & just - but as you beg me to be perfectly honest, I must confess I prefer P. & P."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Miss] Sharpe Print: Book
'Mrs Carrick. - "All who think deeply and feel much will give the Preference to Mansfield Park."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Carrick Print: Book
'To amuse ourselves at the inns on this road we brought with us Jackson's "30 Letters" & Moritz's "Travels in England" (both in our Society) but having finish'd the latter (w'ch John was now reading) & Mrs M being reading the other, I got Mrs Radcliffe's novel of the "Sicilian Romance" from the Library there, which I this day began reading & was much pleased with.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
'Mr J. Plumptre. - "I never read a novel which interested me so very much throughout, the characters are all so remarkably well kept up & so well drawn, & the plot is so well contrived that I had not an idea till the end which of the two wd marry Fanny, H.C. or Edmd. Mrs Norris amused me particularly, & Sir Thos. is very clever, & his conduct proves admirably the defects of the modern system of Education." Mr J.P. made two objections, but only one of them was remembered, the want of some character more striking & interesting to the generality of Readers, than Fanny was likely to be.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: J. Plumptre Print: Book
'Sir James Langham & Mr Sanford, having been told that it was much inferior to P.& P. - began it expecting to dislike it, but were very soon extremely pleased with it - & I beleive [sic], did not think it at all inferior.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir James Langham Print: Book
'Sir James Langham & Mr Sanford, having been told that it was much inferior to P.& P. - began it expecting to dislike it, but were very soon extremely pleased with it - & I beleive [sic], did not think it at all inferior.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mr] Sanford Print: Book
'Alethea Bigg. - "I have read M.P. & heard it very much talked of, very much praised. I like it myself & think it very good indeed, but as I never say what I do not think, I will add that although it is superior in a great many points in my opinion to the other two Works [Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice], I think it has not the Spirit of P & P., except perhaps the Price family at Portsmouth, & they are delightful in their way.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alethea Bigg Print: Book
'Charles - did not like it near so well as P. & P. - thought it wanted Incident.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Austen Print: Book
'Mrs Dickson. - "I have bought M.P. - but it is not equal to P. & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Dickson Print: Book
'Mrs Lefroy - liked it, but thought it a mere Novel.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Lefroy Print: Book
'Mrs Portal - admired it very much - objected cheifly [sic] to Edmund's not being brought more forward'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Portal Print: Book
'Lady Gordon wrote "In most novels you are amused for the time with a set of Ideal People whom you never think of afterwards or whom you in the least expect to meet in common life, whereas in Miss A-s works, & especially in M.P. you actually [italics] live [end italics] with them, you fancy yourself one of the family; & the scenes are so exactly descriptive, so perfectly natural, that there is scarcely an Incident or conversation, or a person that you are not inclined to imagine you have at one time or other in your Life been a witness to, born a part in, & been acquainted with."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Gordon Print: Book
'Mrs Pole wrote, "There is a particular satisfaction in reading all Miss A-s works - they are so evidently written by a Gentlewoman - most Novellists [sic] fail & betray themselves in attempting to describe familiar scenes in high Life, some little vulgarism escapes & shews that they are not experimentally acquainted with what they describe, but here it is quite different. Everything is natural, & the situations & incidents are told in a manner which clearly evinces the Writer to [italics] belong [end italics] to the Society whose Manners she so ably delineates." Mrs Pole also said that no Books had ever occasioned so much canvassing & doubt, & that everybody was desirous to attribute them to some of their own friends, or to some person of whom they thought highly.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Pole Print: Book
'Adml Foote - surprised that I had the power of drawing the Portsmouth-Scenes so well.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Admiral] Foote Print: Book
'Mrs Creed - preferred S & S. and P & P. - to Mansfield Park.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Creed Print: Book
[Marginalia]: there are two annotators, one using blue ink and one red. All ms notes take the form of additional genealogical information ie pp. 4-7 added dates and people, p. 79 a family tree for William Cumming of Craigmill, and the beginning of an index on the inside back cover and facing page.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Anon Print: Book
'The next day being wet, we staid [sic] within, when to amuse me I got the 2 last vols of the "Mysteries of Udolpho" (the 2 first of w'ch I had read before we left Chichester) & afterw'ds Keate's "Sketches of Nature", from the library.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
'I spent the evening and slept at the Old Tree, a very poor inn in which I was forced to sleep in a double bedded room with a stranger. For my amusement during this journey I took the novel of "Vanillo Gonzales".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
'Captain Austen. - liked it extremely, observing that though there might be more Wit in P & P - & an higher Morality in M P - yet altogether, on account of it's [sic] peculiar air of Nature throughout, he preferred it to either.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Captain Frank Austen Print: Book
'Mrs F.A. - liked & admired it very much indeed, but must still prefer P & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs Francis] Austen Print: Book
'Mrs J. Bridges - preferred it to all the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs J.] Bridges Print: Book
'Miss Sharp - better than M.P. - but not so well as P. & P. - pleased with the Heroine for her Originality, delighted with Mr K - & called Mrs Elton beyond praise. - dissatisfied with Jane Fairfax.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Miss] Sharp Print: Book
'Cassandra - better than P. & P. - but not so well as M.P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Cassandra Elizabeth Austen Print: Book
'Fanny K. - not so well as either P & P or M P. - could not bear Emma herself. Mr Knightley delightful. Should like J.F. - if she knew more of her.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Knight Print: Book
'Mr & Mrs J. A. - did not like it so well as either of the 3 others. Language different from the others; not so easily read.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Austen Print: Book
'Mr & Mrs J. A. - did not like it so well as either of the 3 others. Language different from the others; not so easily read.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs James] Austen Print: Book
'Edward - preferred it to M.P. - only. - Mr. K liked by every body.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Edward Austen-Leigh Print: Book
'Miss Bigg - not equal to either P & P. - or M.P. - objected to the sameness of the subject (Match-making) all through. - Too much of Mr Elton & H. Smith. Language superior to the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Miss] Bigg Print: Book
'My Mother - thought it more entertaining than M.P. - but not so interesting as P.& P. - No characters in it equal to Ly Catherine & Mr Collins.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Cassandra Leigh Austen Print: Book
'Miss Lloyd - thought it as [italics] clever [end italics] as either of the others, but did not receive so much pleasure from it as from P. & P - & MP.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Martha Lloyd Print: Book
'Mrs & Miss Craven - liked it very much, but not so much as the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Craven Print: Book
'Mrs & Miss Craven - liked it very much, but not so much as the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Miss] Craven Print: Book
'Fanny Cage - liked it very much indeed & classed it between P & P & M.P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Cage Print: Book
'Mr Sherer - did not think it equal to either M P - (which he liked the best of all) or P & P. - Displeased with my pictures of Clergymen.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mr] Sherer Print: Book
'Miss Bigg - on reading it a second time, liked Miss Bates much better than at first, & expressed herself as liking all the people of Highbury in general, except Harriet Smith - but could not help still thinking [italics] her [close italics] too silly in her Loves.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Bigg Print: Book
'The family at Upton Gray - all very amused with it. - Miss Bates a great favourite with Mrs Beaufoy.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Beaufoy Print: Book
'Mr and Mrs Leigh Perrot - saw many beauties in it, but could not think it equal to P & P. - Darcy & Elizabeth had spoilt them for anything else. - Mr. K. however, an excellent character; Emma better luck than a Matchmaker often has. - Pitied Jane Fairfax - thought Frank Churchill better treated than he deserved.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Leigh-Perrot Print: Book
'Mr and Mrs Leigh Perrot - saw many beauties in it, but could not think it equal to P & P. - Darcy & Elizabeth had spoilt them for anything else. - Mr. K. however, an excellent character; Emma better luck than a Matchmaker often has. - Pitied Jane Fairfax - thought Frank Churchill better treated than he deserved.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mr] Leigh-Perrot Print: Book
'Countess Craven - admired it very much, but did not think it equal to P & P. - which she ranked as the very first of it's [sic] sort.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Countess] Craven Print: Book
'Mrs Guiton - thought it too natural to be interesting.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Guiton Print: Book
'Mrs Digweed - did not like it so well as the others, in fact if she had not known the Author, could hardly have got through it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Digweed Print: Book
'Miss Terry - admired it very much, particularly Mrs Elton.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Miss] Terry Print: Book
'Henry Sanford - very much pleased with it - delighted with Miss Bates, but thought Mrs Elton the best-drawn Character in the Book. - Mansfield Park however, still his favourite.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Sanford Print: Book
'Mr Haden - [italics] quite [end italics] delighted with it. Admired the Character of Emma.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mr] Haden Print: Book
'Miss Isabella Herries - did not like it - objected to my exposing the sex in the character of the Heroine - convinced I had meant Mrs & Miss Bates for some acquaintance of theirs - People whom I never heard of before.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Isabella Herries Print: Book
'Miss Harriet Moore - admired it very much, but M.P. still her favourite of all.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Moore Print: Book
'Countess Morley - delighted with it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Countess] Morley Print: Book
'Mr Cockerelle - liked it so little, that Fanny would not send me his opinion.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mr] Cockerelle Print: Book
'Mrs Dickson - did not much like it - thought it [italics] very [end italics] inferior to P & P. - Liked it the less, from there being a Mr & Mrs Dixon in it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Dickson Print: Book
'Mrs Brandreth - thought the 3d vol: superior to anything I had ever written - quite beautiful!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Brandreth Print: Book
'Mr B. Lefroy - thought that if there had been more Incident, it would be equal to any of the others. -The Characters quite as well drawn & supported as in any, & from being more everyday ones, the more entertaining. - Did not like the Heroine so well as any of the others. Miss Bates excellent, but rather too much of her. Mr & Mrs Elton admirable & John Knightley a sensible Man.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Lefroy Print: Book
'Mrs Lefroy - preferred it to M.P. - but like[?]d M.P. the least of all.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Lefroy Print: Book
'Mr Fowle - read only the first & last Chapters, because he had heard it was not interesting.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mr] Fowle Print: Book
'Mrs Lutley Sclater - liked it very much, better than MP - & thought I had "brought it all about very cleverly in the last volume."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Lutley Sclater Print: Book
'Mrs C. Cage wrote thus to Fanny - "A great many thanks for the loan of "Emma," which I am delighted with. I like it better than any. Every character is thoroughly kept up. I must enjoy reading it again with Charles. Miss Bates is incomparable, but I was nearly killed with those precious treasures! They are Unique, & really more fun than I can express. I am at Highbury all day, & I can't help feeling I have just got into a new set of acquaintance. No one writes such good sense. & so very comfortable."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs C.] Cage Print: Book
'Mrs Wroughton - did not like it so well as P & P. - Thought the Authoress wrong, in such times as these, to draw such Clergymen as Mr Collins & Mr Elton.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Wroughton Print: Book
'Sir J. Langham - thought it much inferior to the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir J. Langham Print: Book
'Mr Jeffery (of the Edinburgh Review) was kept up by it three nights.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Jeffrey Print: Book
'Miss Murden - certainly inferior to all the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Miss] Murden Print: Book
'Capt C. Austen wrote - "Emma arrived in time to a moment. I am delighted with her, more so I think than even with my favourite Pride & Prejudice, & have read it three times in the Passage."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Austen Print: Book
'Mrs D. Dundas - thought it very clever, but did not like it so well as either of the
others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Janet Whitley-Deans-Dundas Print: Book
'I sat up till two, as I did last night, to finish "Pride and Prejudice". This novel I consider as one of the most excellent of the works of our female novelists. Its merits lie in the characters, and in the perfectly colloquial style of the dialogue. Mrs. Bennet, the foolish mother, who cannot conceal her projects to get rid of her daughters, is capitally drawn. There is a thick-headed servile parson, also a masterly sketch. His stupid letters and her ridiculous speeches are as delightful as wit. The two daughters are well contrasted - the gentle and candid Jane and the lively but prejudiced Elizabeth, are both portraits, and the development of the passion between Elizabeth and the proud Darcy, who at first hate each other, is executed with skill and effect.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Crabb Robinson Print: Book
'In the evening read the last volume of "Emma", a novel evincing great good sense, and an acute observation of human life, but it is not interesting. One cares little for Harriet, the kind-hearted girl who falls in love with three men in a year, and yet hers is the best conceived character after all. Emma, the heroine, is little more than a clever woman who does foolish things - makes mistakes for others, and is at last caught unawares herself. We hear rather too much about fools: the kind-hearted but weak father, the silly chattering Miss Bates, who gabbles in the style of polite conversation, and the vulgar impertinence of the Eltons.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Crabb Robinson Print: Book
'I was reading yesterday and to-day "Sense and Sensibility", which I resumed at the second volume. The last volume greatly improves on the first, but I still think it one of the poorest of Miss Austen's novels - that is inferior to "Mansfield Park" and "Pride and Prejudice", which is all I have read.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Crabb Robinson Print: Book
'I went on with "Persuasion", finished it, began "Northanger Abbey", which I have now finished. These two novels have sadly reduced my estimation of Miss Austen. They are little more than galleries of disagreeables and the would-be heroes and heroines are scarcely out of the class of insignificants. Yet I ought to be suspicious perhaps of my own declining judgement.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Crabb Robinson Print: Book
'I went on with "Persuasion", finished it, began "Northanger Abbey", which I have now finished. These two novels have sadly reduced my estimation of Miss Austen. They are little more than galleries of disagreeables and the would-be heroes and heroines are scarcely out of the class of insignificants. Yet I ought to be suspicious perhaps of my own declining judgement.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Crabb Robinson Print: Book
'By the way did you know Miss Austen Authoress of some novels which have a great deal of nature in them - nature in ordinary and middle life to be sure but valuable from its strong resemblance and correct drawing.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Walter Scott Print: Book
'Also read again and for the third time at least Miss Austen's very finely written novel of "Pride and Prejudice". That young lady had a talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going, but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Walter Scott Print: Book
'There is no book which that word ["vulgaire"] would suit so little... Every village could furnish matter for a novel to Jane Austen. She did not need the common materials for a novel - strong passion, or strong incident.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir James Mackintosh Print: Book
'You mention Miss Austen; her novels are more true to nature, and have (for my sympathies) passages of finer feeling than any others of this age.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
'You surprise me greatly by what you say of "Emma" and the other books. They enjoy the highest reputation, and I own, for my part, I was delighted with them. I fear they must have been badly read aloud to you. At all events, they are generally much admired, and I was quite serious in my praise of them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Bulwer Lytton Print: Book
'...Jane Austen, who, if not the greatest, is surely the most faultless of female novelists. My uncle Southey and my father had an equally high opinion of her merits, but Mr. Wordsworth used to say that though he admitted that her novels were an admirable copy of life, he could not be interested in productions of that kind; unless the truth of nature were presented to him clarified, as it were, by the pervading light of imagination, it had scarce any attractions in his eyes...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
'...Jane Austen, who, if not the greatest, is surely the most faultless of female novelists. My uncle Southey and my father had an equally high opinion of her merits, but Mr. Wordsworth used to say that though he admitted that her novels were an admirable copy of life, he could not be interested in productions of that kind; unless the truth of nature were presented to him clarified, as it were, by the pervading light of imagination, it had scarce any attractions in his eyes...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
'I have been reading "Emma". Everything Miss Austen writes is clever, but I desiderate something. There is a want of [italics] body [close italics] to the story. The action is frittered away in over-little things. There are some beautiful things in it. Emma herself is the most interesting to me of all her heroines. I feel kind to her whenever I think of her. But Miss Austen has no romance - none at all. What vile creatures her parsons are! she has not a dream of the high Catholic ethos. That other woman, Fairfax is a dolt - but I like Emma.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Henry Newman Print: Book
'I am amusing myself with Miss Austin's [sic] novels. She has great power and discrimination in delineating common-place people; and her writings are a capital picture of real life, with all the little wheels and machinery laid bare like a patent clock. But she explains and fills out too much. Those who have not power to fill up gaps and bridge over chasms as they read, must therefore take particular delight in such minuteness of detail. It is a kind of Bowditch's Laplace in the romantic astronomy. But readers of lively imagination naturally prefer the original with its unexplained steps, which they so readily supply.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Print: Book
'Finished Miss Austen's "Emma", which amused me very much, impressing me with a high opinion of her powers of drawing and sustaining character, though not satisfying me always with the end and aim of her labours. She is successful in painting the ridiculous to the life, and while she makes demands on our patience for the almost intolerable absurdities and tediousness of her well-meaning gossips, she does not recompense us for what we suffer from her conceited and arrogant nuisances by making their vices their punishments. We are not much better, but perhaps a little more prudent for her writing. She does not probe the vices, but lays bare the weaknesses of character; the blemish on the skin, and not the corruption at the heart, is what she examines. Mrs. Brunton's books have a far higher aim; they try to make us better, and it is an addition to previous faults if they do not. The necessity, the comfort, and the elevating influence of piety is continually inculcated throughout her works - which never appear in Miss Austen's.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Charles Macready Print: Book
'After dinner read a part of "Northanger Abbey", which I do not much like. Heavy, and too long a strain of irony on one topic.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Charles Macready Print: Book
'Lay down on the sofa, reading Miss Austen's "Mansfield Park"... The novel, I think, has the prevailing fault of the pleasant authoress's books; it deals too much in descriptions of the various states of mind, into which her characters are thrown, and amplifies into a page a search for motives which a stroke of the pen might give with greater power and interest. Is Richardson her model? She is an excellent portrait painter, she catches a man near to the life.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Charles Macready Print: Book
'Finished "Mansfield Park", which hurried with a very inartificial [sic] and disagreeable rapidity to its conclusion, leaving some opportunities for most interesting and beautiful scenes particularly the detailed expression of the "how and the when" Edward's love was turned from Miss Crawford to Fanny Price. The great merit of Miss Austen is in the finishing of her characters; the action and conduct of her stories I think frequently defective.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Charles Macready Print: Book
'Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. What induced you to say that you would have rather written "Pride and Prejudice" or "Tom Jones", than any of the Waverley Novels? I had not seen "Pride and Prejudice" till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses. These observations will probably irritate you, but I shall run the risk.' [Bronte goes on to compare Austen and George Sand]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte Print: Book
'I have likewise read one of Miss Austen's works "Emma" - read it with interest and with just the degree of admiration which Miss Austen herself would have thought sensible and suitable - anything like warmth or enthusiasm; anything energetic, poignant, heartfelt, is utterly out of place in commending these works: all demonstration the authoress would have met with a well-bred sneer, would have calmly scorned as outre and extravagant... she ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound: the Passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy Sisterhood...'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte Print: Book
'I haven't any right to criticise books and I don't often do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read "Pride and Prejudice" I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Langhorne Clemens Print: Book
'This dream I knew not what to make of but I took some encouragement from it and the next day I was reading in pilgrims progress and was by a quotation directed to the 33 Chap of job and the 15th and 16th verses In a dream in a vision of the night when deep sleep falleth upon men in slumberings upon the bed Then he openeth the ears of men and Sealeth their instruction.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Mayett Print: Book
'in a few days after this I met with a book written by Mr Bunyan the title of the book was the two Covenants in this book the unpardonable Sin was explained this part I soon found and read it over with eagerness for I thought Mr Bunyan Could not be deceived such a man as he was but I found no satisfaction for all seemed to be against me I read it again several times over for I Could not give it up...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Mayett Print: Book
'We certainly do not think it ["Mansfield Park"] as a whole equal to P & P - but it has many & great beauties...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis William Austen Print: Book
["Mansfield Park" is] 'Not so clever as P & P - but pleased with it altogether' - Mr K.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Austen Knight Print: Book
'Edward & George. - Not liked it ["Mansfield Park"] near so well as P. & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Knight Print: Book
'Edward & George. - Not liked it ["Mansfield Park"] near so well as P. & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Knight Print: Book
'Anna liked it ["Mansfield Park"] better than P & P - but not so well as S & S - could not bear Fanny.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anna Austen Print: Book
'Anna liked it ["Mansfield Park"] better than P & P - but not so well as S & S - could not bear Fanny'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anna Austen Print: Book
'Miss Lloyd preferred it ["Mansfield Park"] altogether to either of the others'. ["Pride and Prejudice" and "Sense and Sensibility"]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Martha Lloyd Print: Book
'Miss Lloyd preferred it ["Mansfield Park"] altogether to either of the others'. ["Pride and Prejudice" and "Sense and Sensibility"]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Martha Lloyd Print: Book
'My Mother - not liked it "[Mansfield Park"] so well as P. & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Cassandra Leigh Austen Print: Book
'Cassandra - thought it quite as clever, tho' not so brilliant as P. & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Cassandra Elizabeth Austen Print: Book
'Miss Burdett - Did not like it ["Mansfield Park"] so well as P. & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Miss] Burdett Print: Book
'Mrs James Tilson - Liked it ["Mansfield Park"] better than P. & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs James] Tilson Print: Book
'Fanny Cage - did not much like it ["Mansfield Park"] - not to be compared with P. & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Cage Print: Book
'Mrs Augusta Bramstone - owned that she thought S & S. - and P. & P. downright nonsense.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Augusta Bramstone Print: Book
'Mrs Augusta Bramstone - owned that she thought S & S. - and P. & P. downright nonsense.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Augusta Bramstone Print: Book
'The Kintbury Family - very much pleased with it ["Mansfield Park"]; preferred it to either of the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fowle Print: Book
'The Kintbury Family - very much pleased with it ["Mansfield Park"]; preferred it to either of the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fowle Print: Book
'Miss Sharpe - "I think it "Mansfield Park"] excellent... but since you beg me to be perfectly honest, I must confess I prefer P & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Miss] Sharpe Print: Book
'I have read M P["Mansfield Park"]... I will add that although it is superior in a great many points in my opinions to the other two Works, I think it has not the Spirit of P & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alethea Bigg Print: Book
'I have read M P ["Mansfield Park"]... I will add that although it is superior in a great many points in my opinions to the other two Works, I think it has not the Spirit of P & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alethea Bigg Print: Book
'Charles - did not like it ["Mansfield Park"] near so well as P. & P. - thought it wanted Incident.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Austen Print: Book
'Mrs Dickson. - "I have bought M P. - but it is not equal to P. & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Dickson Print: Book
'Mrs Creed - preferred S & S and P & P. - to Mansfield Park.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Creed Print: Book
'Mr Sherer - did not think it ["Emma"] equal to either M P - which he liked the best of all - or P & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mr] Sherer Print: Book
'Mr Sherer - did not think it ["Emma"] equal to either M P - which he liked the best of all - or P & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mr] Sherer Print: Book
'Mr and Mrs Leigh Perrot - saw many beauties in it ["Emma"], but could not think it equal to P. & P. - Darcy & Elizabeth had spoilt them for anything else.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mr] Leigh Perrot Print: Book
'Mr and Mrs Leigh Perrot - saw many beauties in it ["Emma"], but could not think it equal to P. & P. - Darcy & Elizabeth had spoilt them for anything else.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Leigh Perrot Print: Book
'Countess Craven - admired it ["Emma"] very much, but did not think it equal to P & P. - which she rqanked as the very first of it's [sic] sort.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Countess] Craven Print: Book
'Mrs Digweed - did not like it ["Emma"] so well as the others...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Digweed Print: Book
'Mrs Digweed - did not like it ["Emma"] so well as the others...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Digweed Print: Book
'Mrs Digweed - did not like it ["Emma"] so well as the others...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Digweed Print: Book
'Miss Harriet Moore - admired it ["Emma"] very much, but M.P. still her favourite of all'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Moore Print: Book
'Mrs Brandreth - thought the 3d vol: [of "Mansfield Park"] superior to anything I had ever written - quite beautiful!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Brandreth Print: Book
'Mrs Brandreth - thought the 3d vol: [of "Mansfield Park"] superior to anything I had ever written - quite beautiful!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Brandreth Print: Book
'Mrs Brandreth - thought the 3d vol: [of "Mansfield Park"] superior to anything I had ever written - quite beautiful!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Brandreth Print: Book
'Mrs Lefroy - preferred it ["Emma"] to M.P - but like[d] M.P. least of all.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Lefroy Print: Book
'Mrs Lutley Sclater - liked it ["Emma"] very much, better than M.P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Lutley Sclater Print: Book
'Mrs Wroughton - did not like it so well as P. & P.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Wroughton Print: Book
[List of favourite things of 1945]:
'My favourite Books: The Keys of the Kingdom. The Good Companions
Authors: Daphne du Maurier
Poems: Squinency Wort. The Hound of Heaven
Writers: Shaw. Galsworthy'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'The novels of John Galt were always much to my taste. I fancy I have read every book that came from his pen, including his "Lives of the players", and once every year I peruse "Sir Andrew Wyllie"; also that most realistic production, the "Annals of the Parish": both books undeserving of the neglect which has befallen them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Glass Bertram Print: Book
'The novels of John Galt were always much to my taste. I fancy I have read every book that came from his pen, including his "Lives of players", and once every year I peruse "Sir Andrew Wyllie"; also that most realistic production, the "Annals of the Parish": both books undeserving of the neglect which has befallen them.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Glass Bertram Print: Book
'The novels of John Galt were always much to my taste. I fancy I have read every book that came from his pen, including his "Lives of players", and once every year I peruse "Sir Andrew Wyllie"; also that most realistic production, the "Annals of the Parish": both books undeserving of the neglect which has befallen them.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Glass Bertram Print: Book
Journals of Mary Shelley
"We read part of l'Abbe Barruels histoire de Jacobinism"
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Journals of Mary Shelley
"We read Abbe Barruel"
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'"I had often read Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress", recalled [...] William Brown, "and considered myself like the apostate in the iron cage, and drew my own conclusions".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Brown Print: Book
'I pursued a similar plan with others of the magazines whenever I got a chance, especially "Bentley's Miscellany", which contained in my young days "Jack Sheppard".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Glass Bertram Print: Serial / periodical
'When William Lovett arrived in London [from Newlyn, in the 1820s] he possessed a Cornish accent but no useful knowledge, and immediately set about remedying these twin defects with the aid of "Lindley Murray's Grammar".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Lovett Print: Book
'Finished reading the four last volumes of the "Histoire des Ordres Religieux". Began "La Beata", a story of Florentine life by T.A. Trollope. I am also reading Sachetti's Novelle, and Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Finished reading the four last volumes of the "Histoire des Ordres Religieux". Began "La Beata", a story of Florentine life by T.A. Trollope. I am also reading Sachetti's Novelle, and Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Read the Introduction to Savonarola's poems, by Audin de Rians, "The Spectator" and the "Athenaeum"'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Unknown
'In the evening read Renan "Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse" aloud to G.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Read Hallam on the study of Roman law in the Middle Ages'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Looked into the "Marmi" of Doni... read Saccheti and Boccaccio's capital story of Fra Cipolla - one of his few good stories - and the Little Hunchback in the Arabian Nights, which is still better. Read Nardi in the evening'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Read Roscoe's Life of Lorenzoi de Medici. Headache still. Read some of Sachetti's stories and spent the evening alone with G.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Began again the Life of Savonarola by Villani. Read of "Ecstasy".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Read Mrs Jameson's "Legendary Art".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'copied out the Lives of some saints from Mrs Jameson'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'During our stay [in Malvern] I read Mrs Jameson's book on the Legends of the Monastic orders... and began Marchese's Storia di San Marco'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Looked into the Archivo Storico and Read some "Ricordi", and "Lives" by Vespasiano'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Looked through Machiavelli's works'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Read Villari, making chronological notes. Then Muratori on Proper Names'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Began Politian's letters, and read Giannotti on the Government of Florence'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Read Cicero "de Officiis" and began Petrarch's letters'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot Print: Book
'Read "La Tancia", and Gingenue, Roman Epic'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'began the IXth chapter of Varchi in which he gives an account of Florence'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Went to the British Museum. Found some details in Ammirato's Famiglie Nobili Fiorentini... In the evening I read Muratori on the Confraternita'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Went to the British Museum. Found some details in Ammirato's "Famiglie Nobili Fiorentini"... In the evening I read Muratori on the Confraternita'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Read Sachetti and the Letters of Filelfo'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'In the evening looked over the 9th book of Varchi again'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Read Sacchetti, and Luigi Pulci's novel, and part of Lasca's story of Lorenzo and the Medico Manente'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Read passage from Du Bois Reymond's book on Johannes Mueller, a propos of visions. Finished Libro 1 of Machiavelli's Istorie. Read "Blackwood"'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'As to what they read [at the Gower Street School in the 1880s] -- and [...] Lucy Harrison [headmistress] read aloud to them untiringly -- it must be what went deepest and lifted highest -- Shakespeare, Dante in Cary's translation, Blake, Wordsworth, and [...] [Miss Harrison's] own favourites, Emily Bronte, Christina Rossetti, the Brownings, Coventry Patmore [...] A reading which all [...] [Miss Harrison's] pupils heard often, and never forgot, was from Alice Meynell's "Preludes" of 1875 -- the sonnet "To a Daisy"'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Harrison, headmistress, Charlotte Mew, and other pupils at Gower Street school Print: Book
'As to what they read [at the Gower Street School in the 1880s] -- and [...] Lucy Harrison [headmistress] read aloud to them untiringly -- it must be what went deepest and lifted highest -- Shakespeare, Dante in Cary's translation, Blake, Wordsworth, and [...] [Miss Harrison's] own favourites, Emily Bronte, Christina Rossetti, the Brownings, Coventry Patmore [...] A reading which all [...] [Miss Harrison's] pupils heard often, and never forgot, was from Alice Meynell's "Preludes" of 1875 -- the sonnet "To a Daisy"'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Harrison, headmistress, Charlotte Mew, and other pupils at Gower Street school Print: Book
'[Alida Klementaski] and Harold Monro first met at a poets' club dinner at the Cafe Monico on 14 March 1913. The subject was the nineties poet John Davidson [...] Alida, in a borrowed Liberty dress, was the reader, and Harold Monro realized, when he heard her, that there were women, as well as men, for whom poetry was life.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alida Klementaski
'Finished "La Mandragola", second time reading for the sake of Florentine expressions, and began "La Calandra"'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Finished "La Mandragola", second time reading for the sake of Florentine expressions, and began "La Calandra"'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
[at Englefield Green] 'I have finished Pulci there, and read aloud the "Chateau D'If" to G.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Juvenal this morning, and Nisard - "Poetes Latins de la Decadence" in the evening'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Reading once again the "Processi" of Savonarola and Vol. III of Boccaccio'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Began "Il Principe".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Reading the "Purgatorio" again, and the "Compendium Revelationum" of Savonarola'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Reading Aeschlyus, "Theatre of the Greeks", Klein's "History of the Drama" etc.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Went to hear Mr and Mrs Wigan read Tennyson and "the Rivals" at Apsley House'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr and Mrs Wigan Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'I have been reading Villemarque's "Contes populaires des Anciens Bretons".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'In the 4th ed. [of [italics]A Tour through Italy[end italics], [italics]A Classical Tour through Italy, An. MDCCCII[end italics], 4 vols. (London, 1817) [...] [John Chetwode Eustace] relates the legends of the Unterberg (1.76-77), some of which F[elicia]H[emans] copied into her commonplace book, 20-22 (Houghton Library MS Eng 767).'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Felicia Hemans Print: Book
'By a quaint coincidence I received your letter directed (I suppose) by Phillip van Artevelde with Philip himself (not the man but the book) and I wish to tell you that I think him a noble fellow. I close with him in most that he says of modern poetry... etc.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
Felicia Hemans to the Reverend Samuel Butler, 19 February 1828: 'I do not know whether you are at all a Lover of German Literature, but there is a poem in that Language, a beautiful nuptial benediction pronounced by a Father over his child [...] which some parts of your letter [about his daughter's forthcoming marriage] recalled to my mind. I have copied Madame de Stael's translation of it, and take the liberty of including it for you.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Felicia Hemans Print: Book
'... therefore was my satisfaction great to receive (as I did this morning) a copy of your works with your own friendly autograph. I need not say how much I feel the honour you have done me in translating some of my poems... I have not yet had time and leisure sifficient to read your translations from myself carefully; but from what I have seen, ... they are not dry bones, but seem full of a living warmth in fact a Poet's [underlined] translation of poetry.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'I now thank you very much for your able inauguration essay on Architecture and live in expectation of its successors.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'That same night, in a perfect, clear, still moonlight, I lay in a tent, obsessed by insomnia... And I
will interpolate that, for myself, I had been reading, actually, "The Red Badge of Courage" by the
light of a candle stuck onto a bully-beef case at my camp-bed head.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford Print: Book
'Donna che tanto al mio bel sol piacesti
Che ancor d'preggi tuoi parla sovente
Lodando ora il bel crine, ora il ridente
Tuo labbro ed ora i saggi detti onesti'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb
Felicia Hemans to a new friend in Dublin, early 1831: 'Some "Quarterly Reviews" have lately been sent to me, one of which contains an article on Byron, by which I have been deeply and sorrowfully impressed.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Felicia Hemans Print: Serial / periodical
'[B]e not thrown into wild delight because his genius has shone forth--misfortune & rage have occasioned this & whenever he may speak himself [underlined] Lord Byron will succeed--self is the sole inspirer of his genius he cannot like Homer Dante Virgil Milton Dryden Spencer Gray--Goldsmith [underlined] Tasso write on other subjects well[--]but what he feels he can describe extravagantly well--& therefore I never did doubt that he would one day or other write again as at first--but for God sake do not let this circumstance make you forget what a Rogue he is'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb Print: Book
'I must tell you an act of kindness of William Lamb--he has been looking over and correcting Ada Reis for me'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Lamb Manuscript: Unknown, William Lamb would have read either fair copies or proofs from the printer.
'Thank you for being pleased with your visit and not displeased with Graham [Hamilton]'.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Godwin Manuscript: Unknown
'I must tell you that Lord Byron said Mrs Lee [Augusta Leigh?] & Lady Byron had read all my letters [and] verses'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Augusta Leigh Manuscript: Unknown
'I must tell you that Lord Byron said Mrs Lee [Augusta Leigh?] & Lady Byron had read all my letters [and] verses'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Annabella Byron (n?e Milbanke) Manuscript: Unknown
'he entered a competition held by Tit-Bits. The prize money was twenty guineas, and it was offered for a "humorous condensation" of a sensational serial which the paper had been running. The serial was called What's bred in the bone [title in italics], and it was by Grant Allen, a scientist-turned novelist like Wells...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical
'Bennett selected the things that interested him - notably novelists such as Henry James, Thomas Hardy, and his friend George Paston. It was through a review of a book by H. G. Wells that the two men first became friends, Bennett taking the initiative and writing to Wells in September 1897 to say how much he liked his work, and to ask him how well he knew the Potteries, which Wells had mentioned in several of his stories.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'I have been reading Fawcett's Economic condition of the Working Classes, Mill's Liberty, looking into Strauss's Second Life of Jesus, and reading Neale's History of the Puritans of which I have reached the fourth volume'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'began Hallam's Middle Ages'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'This evening read again Macaulay's Introduction'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Reading Renan's Histoire des Langues Semitiques. Ticknor's Spanish Literature'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Finished reading "Averroes and l'Averroisme", and "Les Medecins Juifs". Reading "First Principles".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Reading; First book of Lucretius, 6th book of the Iliad; Samson Agonistes, Warton's History of English Poetry; Grote 2nd vol; Marcus Aurelius; Vita Nuova; vol IV, Chapter 1 of the Politique positive; Guest on English Rhythms, Maurice's Lectures on Casuistry'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Reading; First book of Lucretius, 6th book of the Iliad; Samson Agonistes, Warton's History of English Poetry; Grote 2nd vol; Marcus Aurelius; Vita Nuova; vol IV, Chapter 1 of the Politique positive; Guest on English Rhythms, Maurice's Lectures on Casuistry'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Aloud [these past two days] I have read Bright's speeches and "I promessi sposi". To myself I have read Mommsen's Rome'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Began Nisard's History of French Literature - Villehardouin, Joinville, Froissart, Christine de Pisan, Philippe de Comines, Villon'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'[in the past week I have read] part of 22nd Idyll of Theocritus, Sainte Beuve aloud to G. two evenings... Monday evening [was occupied] with looking through Dickson's Fallacies of the Faculty'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'I am reading Maundeville's "Travels".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
Mary Berry to Mrs Cholmeley, 3 February 1799: 'I hope you have read the Irish debates on the Union. I think you will have found in them much abuse, little eloquence, and very little argument [...] I myself was shown a letter by Mathew (Col. Mathew), which, from its handwriting, and the office manner in which it was drawn up, I am sure must have come from a clerk of the Parliament'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Manuscript: Letter
'PBS reads Diogenes Laertius.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Perct Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Kipling had now been supplemented with Henty, Ballantyne, Rider Haggard and John Buchan, all with their own tales of imperial derring-do to tell theimpressionable young colonial'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lawrence Durrell Print: Book
'Kipling had now been supplemented with Henty, Ballantyne, Rider Haggard and John Buchan, all with their own tales of imperial derring-do to tell theimpressionable young colonial'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lawrence Durrell Print: Book
'He lapped up those French writers who kicked against those conventions - Rabelais, Villon, Baudelaire, Rimbaud'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lawrence Durrell Print: Book
'like any bright young intellectual of his day, he was greatly influenced by Freud and writers on sex, such as Havelock Ellis and Norman Haire, who had taken their cue from Freud's liberating initiative'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lawrence Durrell Print: Book
'He was also interesting himself in poets such as Keats, Fitzgerald and Yeats'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lawrence Durrell Print: Book
'He consumed works of western philosophy, from Rousseau to Wyndham Lewis. All this he added to his diet of sexology - Freud, Remy de Gourmont, de Sade and Krafft-Ebing. And with the Mediterranean in mind, he read D.H. Lawrence's "Sea and Sardinia" and Norman Douglas's "South Wind"'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lawrence Durrell Print: Book
'He consumed works of western philosophy, from Rousseau to Wyndham Lewis. All this he added to his diet of sexology - Freud, Remy de Gourmont, de Sade and Krafft-Ebing. And with the Mediterranean in mind, he read D.H. Lawrence's "Sea and Sardinia" and Norman Douglas's "South Wind"'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lawrence Durrell Print: Book
'He consumed works of western philosophy, from Rousseau to Wyndham Lewis. All this he added to his diet of sexology - Freud, Remy de Gourmont, de Sade and Krafft-Ebing. And with the Mediterranean in mind, he read D.H. Lawrence's "Sea and Sardinia" and Norman Douglas's "South Wind"'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lawrence Durrell Print: Book
'He [?my father?] also made me read, and give him a verbal account of, many books which would not have interested me sufficiently to induce me to read them of myself: among others, Millar?s Historical View of the English Government, a book of great merit for its time, and which he highly valued; Mosheim?s Ecclesiastical History, McCrie?s Life of John Knox, and even Sewell?s and Rutty?s Histories of the Quakers.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Stuart Mill Print: Book
'The house was behind the post office and below the town library, and in a few years not even the joys of guddling, girning and angling matched the boy's pleasure in Emerson, Hawthorne, Ambrose Pierce, Sidney Lanier and Mark Twain. Day after day... he carried a large washing basket up the stairs to fill it with books, choosing from upwards of twelve thousand volumes, then downstairs to sit for hours in corners absorbed in mental worlds beyond the narrow limits of Langholm.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Christopher Grieve Print: Book
'The house was behind the post office and below the town library, and in a few years not even the joys of guddling, girning and angling matched the boy's pleasure in Emerson, Hawthorne, Ambrose Bierce, Sidney Lanier and Mark Twain. Day after day... he carried a large washing basket up the stairs to fill it with books, choosing from upwards of twelve thousand volumes, then downstairs to sit for hours in corners absorbed in mental worlds beyond the narrow limits of Langholm.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Christopher Grieve Print: Book
'Aloud I read the concluding part of Walter Scott's "Life" which we had begun at Harrogate, two volumes of Froude's "History of England", and Comte's correspondence with Valat'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Reading Quintus Fixlein aloud to G. in the evening. Grote on Sicilian history'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'[Trubner] brought Allen Grant's volume on the Colour Sense, of which I read the early chapters in the Evening'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Bain on the Nervous mechanism - and looked for comparison into Foster's'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Re-read "Laws of Operation".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Unknown
'Read Homer, Bain, St Beuve'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Unknown
'Read Homer, Bain, St Beuve'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'It was at this time that I read the remaining seven volumes of the "Spectator"; to which I added the "Rambler", the "Tatler", and some others of the "British Essayists". I also read the poetical works of Milton, Addison, Goldsmith, Gray, Collins, Falconer, Pomfret, Akenside, Mrs. Rowe, with others which I cannot now clearly call to mind. I remember, however, to have read Gay's poems. These gave me more than usual satisfaction. I was much amused with his "Trivia, or the Art of Walking London Streets" but I was especially pleased with his admirably burlesque "pastorals". These just squared with my humour, for I had then, as I have ever had, an utter dislike to the sickening stuff that is called the pastoral poetry...I must not omit to mention the pleasure I derived from reading a poem called "The Village Curate", which, I think, has fallen into unmerited oblivion.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
'It was at this time that I read the remaining seven volumes of the "Spectator"; to which I added the "Rambler", the "Tatler", and some others of the "British Essayists". I also read the poetical works of Milton, Addison, Goldsmith, Gray, Collins, Falconer, Pomfret, Akenside, Mrs. Rowe, with others which I cannot now clearly call to mind. I remember, however, to have read Gay's poems. These gave me more than usual satisfaction. I was much amused with his "Trivia, or the Art of Walking London Streets" but I was especially pleased with his admirably burlesque "pastorals". These just squared with my humour, for I had then, as I have ever had, an utter dislike to the sickening stuff that is called the pastoral poetry...I must not omit to mention the pleasure I derived from reading a poem called "The Village Curate", which, I think, has fallen into unmerited oblivion.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
'It was at this time that I read the remaining seven volumes of the "Spectator"; to which I added the "Rambler", the "Tatler", and some others of the "British Essayists". I also read the poetical works of Milton, Addison, Goldsmith, Gray, Collins, Falconer, Pomfret, Akenside, Mrs. Rowe, with others which I cannot now clearly call to mind. I remember, however, to have read Gay's poems. These gave me more than usual satisfaction. I was much amused with his "Trivia, or the Art of Walking London Streets" but I was especially pleased with his admirably burlesque "pastorals". These just squared with my humour, for I had then, as I have ever had, an utter dislike to the sickening stuff that is called the pastoral poetry...I must not omit to mention the pleasure I derived from reading a poem called "The Village Curate", which, I think, has fallen into unmerited oblivion.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
Mary Berry to Anne Damer, from Nice, January 1803: 'In spite of my headaches yesterday, I contrived to read nearly three volumes of Madame de Stael's Delphine [...] It is certainly interesting [...] It is well written, too'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Print: Book
Lady Theresa Lewis reproduces 1805 letter from Mary Berry (writing as Catherine Fanshawe) to Catherine Fanshawe, in response to poem written by Fanshawe as Berry, and lent to her in manuscript; having praised the piece and offered some specific criticisms, she closes with an injunction that Fanshawe 'show it sparingly to the few who may be worthy, and on no account distribute any copies without [her] [...] licence and authority'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Manuscript: Unknown
Mary Berry, Journal, 21 August 1807: 'Read a little of the "Lamento di Cecco," which, having often heard of, I had never seen before. It is a beautiful, simple, but not vulgar pastoral, in the Tuscan patois; but after the first three or four stanzas, not very difficult to understand. If it were, there are notes, which swell a poem of forty stanzas into a tolerable-sized quarto volume!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Print: Book
Mary Berry, Journal, 20 April 1808: 'At night finished Miss Warren's novel ["Conrade, or the Gamesters" by galloping over half the pages; human patience could not regularly wade through a series of adventures without "ensemble", of violent situations without interest or probability, and of characters equally pious or equally profligate.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Print: Book
[Read] 'Purgatorio'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Finished Monier Williams'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
[Read] 'Romanes, 'Theism'.
Tiele, History of Religions.
Odyssey.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
[Read] 'Sayce and Promessi Sposi'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
[Read] 'Sayce and Promessi Sposi'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Finished the Discours Preliminaire'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'I do sometimes wish for my library here, where it costs trouble to other people to get books for me, and yet I have done well enough lately with Montaigne, and a bit of Moliere with the boys, now and then, and I Promessi Sposi with Fanny discovering thereby that I can read Italian almost like French or English, which I was not aware of'.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
Mary Berry, Journal, 10 September 1808, during stay at Bothwell Castle, seat of Lord Douglas: 'Lord and Lady Rosslyn arrived at four o'clock [...] Lord Rosslyn gave me a letter to read from Captain Adam to his father, praising the conduct of Ronald at Vimeira in the most satisfactory manner. I went away to read it, which I did not do without tears.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Manuscript: Letter
Mary Berry, Journal, 7 June 1809: 'Mrs Cholmley and two of her daughters and Walter Scott breakfasted with us. Shortly after came Sir G. and Lady Beaumont, Robert Walpole and Lady Louisa Stuart, and Sir W. Pepys and F. Cholmley. Somebody was to read Joanna Baillie's tragedy, "The Family Legend;" this somebody was obliged to be me, as nobody else knew her hand, or had ever seen the play. I read the first three acts, Cholmley the fourth, and I again the fifth. It had a vast effect upon Walter Scott, and one that was very pleasing, from the evident feeling of one poet from another.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Manuscript: Unknown
Mary Berry, Journal, 7 June 1809: 'Mrs Cholmley and two of her daughters and Walter Scott breakfasted with us. Shortly after came Sir G. and Lady Beaumont, Robert Walpole and Lady Louisa Stuart, and Sir W. Pepys and F. Cholmley. Somebody was to read Joanna Baillie's tragedy, "The Family Legend;" this somebody was obliged to be me, as nobody else knew her hand, or had ever seen the play. I read the first three acts, Cholmley the fourth, and I again the fifth. It had a vast effect upon Walter Scott, and one that was very pleasing, from the evident feeling of one poet from another.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: F. Cholmley Manuscript: Unknown
Lord Webb Seymour to Mary Berry, 16 July 1809:
'I hope you will congratulate [John] Playfair for me and for yourself, upon his late publication -- "a Peerage" in five volumes, at ten guineas a volume. Lord Galloway [...] makes it a rule never to subscribe to any book, but an application some time ago from a person of the name of Playfair [...] induced him to relax his rule [...] At length the work appeared, and I found Lord Galloway grievously disappointed by the trifling stuff and fulsome flattery with which the production of this profound man abounded.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lord Galloway Print: Book
Mary Berry, Journal, 19 May 1811, on stay with Joanna Baillie at Hampstead: 'Sat by the fire the whole day. Joanna Baillie gave us her drama upon Hope to read; it is only two acts, and I was soon through it. Very poetical, and much fancy, as all her things have; but this did not equal my expectation [...] It is certainly a dramatic story, but not dramatically managed.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry
'I wanted to write about Malcolm's Life and Sothey's new letters, and other things; but I must stop now'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'Read Louvets memoires'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Print: Book
Mary Berry, Journal, 27 April 1791: 'Florence. -- Went to see the Laurentian Medicean Library [...] The librarian, a very civil Canonico Bandini, showed us the Virgil of the fourth century, which they call the oldest existing; it is very fairly written, but less easy to read than the one in the Vatican. We saw, too, the Horace that belonged to Petrarch, with some notes in it by his own hand. It is in large quarto, and not a beautiful manuscript from the number of notes and scoliastes interrupting and confusing the text.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Manuscript: Unknown
'She read a great deal, among her books being one called "Pride and Prejudice", "Which is at present the fashionable novel. It is written by a sister of Charlotte Smith's and contains more strength of character than other productions of this kind".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke Print: Book
'He was reading an article by Darwin on Diseased Volition'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Unknown
'Annabella could read the new novels, "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion" (recommended by Augusta, and contrast that kind of real life with the kind she had learned to know better)'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella (Annabella), Baroness Byron Print: Book
'Annabella could read the new novels, "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion" (recommended by Augusta, and contrast that kind of real life with the kind she had learned to know better)'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella (Annabella), Baroness Byron Print: Book
'By the age of ten he had gone through E.W. Lane's three-volume translation of "The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night", Scott's Waverley novels, Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass", the adventure stories of Captain Marryat, everything of Harrison Ainsworth, and other, now forgotten, works'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Somerset Maugham Print: Book
'In the evening read Louvet's memoirs'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Print: Book
'Read Louvet's memoirs all day'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Print: Book
'Finish Louvet's memoirs'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Print: Book
'S reads aloud to us in the evening out of Adolphus's "Lives"'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Absorbed as always in books, Willie read seriously in both French and German literature. His favourites in French were the "Maximes" of La Rochefoucauld, "La Princesse de Cleves" (which inspired his play "Caesar's Wife"), the tragedies of Racine, the novels of Voltaire, Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le Noir" and "La Chartreuse de Parme", Balzac's "Pere Goriot", Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", the works of Anatole France, the exotic tales of Pierre Loti and the well-crafted stories of Maupassant'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham Print: Book
'Absorbed as always in books, Willie read seriously in both French and German literature. His favourites in French were the "Maximes" of La Rochefoucauld, "La Princesse de Cleves" (which inspired his play "Caesar's Wife"), the tragedies of Racine, the novels of Voltaire, Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le Noir" and "La Chartreuse de Parme", Balzac's "Pere Goriot", Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", the works of Anatole France, the exotic tales of Pierre Loti and the well-crafted stories of Maupassant'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham Print: Book
'Absorbed as always in books, Willie read seriously in both French and German literature. His favourites in French were the "Maximes" of La Rochefoucauld, "La Princesse de Cleves" (which inspired his play "Caesar's Wife"), the tragedies of Racine, the novels of Voltaire, Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le Noir" and "La Chartreuse de Parme", Balzac's "Pere Goriot", Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", the works of Anatole France, the exotic tales of Pierre Loti and the well-crafted stories of Maupassant'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham Print: Book
'Absorbed as always in books, Willie read seriously in both French and German literature. His favourites in French were the "Maximes" of La Rochefoucauld, "La Princesse de Cleves" (which inspired his play "Caesar's Wife"), the tragedies of Racine, the novels of Voltaire, Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le Noir" and "La Chartreuse de Parme", Balzac's "Pere Goriot", Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", the works of Anatole France, the exotic tales of Pierre Loti and the well-crafted stories of Maupassant'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham Print: Book
'Brooks loved literature, and during their long walks together he introduced Willie to the most important contemporary English writers: the theological works of Cardinal Newman, the witty novels of George Meredith, the "Imaginary Portraits" of Pater, the rapturous poetry of Swinburne and Fitzgerald's sensual translation of "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ellingham Brooks Print: Book
'read Political Justice & the empire of the Nairs'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
Sir Uvedale Price to Mary Berry, 29 March 1814: 'Since I wrote to you last, I have read "L'Allemagne," not in the usual way of reading, [italics]car je ne commencais pas, par le commencement[end italics]. My neighbour Peploe, who has read it, called upon me just as I had received it. He told me the first volume was highly entertaining; the second less so [...] the third very abstruse [...] He liked, however, particular parts [...] He told me, at the same time, that the subject of the third volume was distinct from those of the other two, being entirely on German philosophy. Upon this information, Lady Caroline [Carpenter] and my daughter having eagerly seized on the first volume, I began with the third, in which I found so many new and striking thoughts and reflections that, in order to recollect and dwell upon them again, I marked them as I went on'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Uvedale Price Print: Book
Sir Uvedale Price to Mary Berry, 29 March 1814: 'Since I wrote to you last, I have read "L'Allemagne," not in the usual way of reading, [italics]car je ne commencais pas, par le commencement[end italics]. My neighbour Peploe, who has read it, called upon me just as I had received it. He told me the first volume was highly entertaining; the second less so [...] the third very abstruse [...] He liked, however, particular parts [...] He told me, at the same time, that the subject of the third volume was distinct from those of the other two, being entirely on German philosophy. Upon this information, Lady Caroline [Carpenter] and my daughter having eagerly seized on the first volume, I began with the third, in which I found so many new and striking thoughts and reflections that, in order to recollect and dwell upon them again, I marked them as I went on'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Peploe Print: Book
Sir Uvedale Price to Mary Berry, 29 March 1814: 'Since I wrote to you last, I have read "L'Allemagne," not in the usual way of reading, [italics]car je ne commencais pas, par le commencement[end italics]. My neighbour Peploe, who has read it, called upon me just as I had received it. He told me the first volume was highly entertaining; the second less so [...] the third very abstruse [...] He liked, however, particular parts [...] He told me, at the same time, that the subject of the third volume was distinct from those of the other two, being entirely on German philosophy. Upon this information, Lady Caroline [Carpenter] and my daughter having eagerly seized on the first volume, I began with the third, in which I found so many new and striking thoughts and reflections that, in order to recollect and dwell upon them again, I marked them as I went on [...] I have now returned again to the first, and am reading the whole through [italics]de suite[end italics], and I find great pleasure in reading on without interruption, and great pleasure also in observing, [italics]en passant[end italics], the passages I had marked'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Uvedale Price Print: Book
Mary Berry, Journal, 29 May 1814: 'The Princess [of Wales] sent for me at three o'clock. She made Lady Charlotte read to me the letters that had passed between the Queen and her on the subject of the drawing-rooms [i.e. two gatherings, to take place in June 1814, from which the Prince of Wales wished his wife to be excluded]. They were good, but too long, and sometime marked by Whitbread's lack of taste, who dictated them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Manuscript: Letter
Mary Berry, Journal, 29 May 1814: 'The Princess [of Wales] sent for me at three o'clock. She made Lady Charlotte read to me the letters that had passed between the Queen and her on the subject of the drawing-rooms [i.e. two gatherings, to take place in June 1814, from which the Prince of Wales wished his wife to be excluded]. They were good, but too long, and sometime marked by Whitbread's lack of taste, who dictated them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Manuscript: Letter
Mary Berry, Journal, 5 July 1814: 'The Princess [of Wales] sent for me to read a letter that she had sent to the Speaker [re proposed increase to her allowance].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Manuscript: Letter
'I read Carnot's memorial - he is a common place man'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read a little of Petronius - a most detestable book... in the evening read Louvet's memoirs'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'S. reads aloud to us in the evening out of Adolphus's lives'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Mary Berry on the Life and writings (including memoirs) of the Princess Dashkoff, published 1840: 'The whole work -- of which I saw only the first part, which comes down to 1783, when she returned to Russia after her tour through Italy -- is the picture, not only of a human mind and character placed in most extraordinary circumstances, and acting a most extraordinary part, but endowed by nature with those extraordinary powers, and that energy, which I have ever thought [...] always accompanied by [...] warm, pure, and ardent affections of the heart.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Print: Book
Lord Francis Jeffrey to Mary Berry, 23 April 1842 (in letter begun 22 April): 'I still read a good deal [...] I have just finished the last number of the "Edinburgh Review," and have been charmed more than ever, I think, with that splendid paper of Macaulay's on Frederic of Prussia. I have read it twice over already, with thrillings of admiration whcih make my very weak heart leap rather too strongly; but it is delightful.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lord Francis Jeffrey Print: Serial / periodical
Mary Berry to Joanna Baillie, 24 October 1844: 'I have been reading "Mrs. Grant's Letters" with considerable amusement. She often writes very well, and [italics]thinks[end italics] well, within her horizon; but her horizon is a narrow one, and her mistakes of character often laughable.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Print: Book
Mary Berry to the Countess of Morley, 24 December 1848: 'Talking of Macaulay, I hope you have got his book, as the [italics]very[end italics] most entertaining reading I ever met with ... The first edition of 3,000 copies was sold in the first week; another, of 3,000 more, is to come out on Thursday next.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Print: Book
'[Gabriel Harvey] bought and studied Guazzo's [italics]Civil Conversation[end italics] in the early 1580s.'
Century: 1500-1599 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'Throughout [Gabriel] Harvey's copy of [Lord Henry Howard's "A Defensative against the poyson of supposed prophesies"] are underlinings and comments [on the necessity of patience, Howard's work having contained attacks on Harvey's astrologer brother]'.
Century: 1500-1599 / 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'An annotated copy of John Hart's "Orthographie" which undoubtedly belonged to [Gabriel] Harvey [...] is replete with his comments on spellings and punctuations [...] On sig. Diiir where the text states "a writing is corrupted when any worde or sillable hath more letters, than are used of voyces in the pronunciation" Harvey cites as examples: "Comptroller, Bloudde, Adde, Speake".'
Century: 1500-1599 / 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'Despite [Gabriel] Harvey's dissatisfaction with his progress in Italian, in 1580 he managed to read the "First Decade" of Machiavelli's "Discorsi"'.
Century: 1500-1599 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'Although he read Rabelais and several other French authors in the original, it is unlikely that [Gabriel] Harvey's mastery of this language approached that of Italian'.
Century: 1500-1599 / 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'On sig. AIv of [John] Blundevill, ["The fower chiefest offices belonging to Horsemanship"], [Gabriel] Harvey inscribes: "I use Mr Astley [John Astley's "The Art of Riding"(1584)], for the compendious, & fine Art: and Mr Blundevill for the larger & fuller Discourses upon the Art"'.
Century: 1500-1599 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'[One] branch of [Gabriel] Harvey's marginalia [...] has to do with his study of the techniques of warfare. Extensive notes in this area are found in his copies of [...] Machiavelli (Peter Whitehorne's 1573 translation of the "Arte of Warre"), and Whitehorne's "Certaine wayes for the ordering of Soldiours" (1574).'
Century: 1500-1599 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
Gabriel Harvey's favourite authors on warfare, listed in his copy of Machiavelli, "The Arte of Warre", after 1595:
'Mie principal Autors for Warr, after much reading, & long consideration: [...] For the Art, Vegetius, Machiavel & Sutcliff: for Stratagems, Gandino, & Ranzovius: for Fortification, Pyrotechnie, & engins, Tetti, & Digges [Stratioticos]: for the old Roman most worthie Discipline & Action, Caesar: for the new Spanish, & Inglish excellent Discipline & Action, Sir Ro[ger]: Williams.'
Century: 1500-1599 / 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
Gabriel Harvey's favourite authors on warfare, listed in his copy of Machiavelli, "The Arte of Warre", after 1595:
'Mie principal Autors for Warr, after much reading, & long consideration: [...] For the Art, Vegetius, Machiavel & Sutcliff: for Stratagems, Gandino, & Ranzovius: for Fortification, Pyrotechnie, & engins, Tetti, & Digges [Stratioticos]: for the old Roman most worthie Discipline & Action, Caesar: for the new Spanish, & Inglish excellent Discipline & Action, Sir Ro[ger]: Williams.'
Century: 1500-1599 / 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'Early examples of [Gabriel Harvey's] marginalia in [the fields of cosmology and astronomy] are found in the large 1527 folio containing Sacrobosco's "Textus de Sphaera", Bonetus's "Annuli ... super astrologiam" [...] and Euclid's first book of geometry translated into Latin by Boethius. On the title-page is Harvey's signature and the date "1580", which seems to have been the period for many of his annotations in this volume.'
Century: 1500-1599 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'Early examples of [Gabriel Harvey's] marginalia in [the fields of cosmology and astronomy] are found in the large 1527 folio containing Sacrobosco's "Textus de Sphaera", Bonetus's "Annuli ... super astrologiam" [...] and Euclid's first book of geometry translated into Latin by Boethius. On the title-page is Harvey's signature and the date "1580", which seems to have been the period for many of his annotations in this volume.'
Century: 1500-1599 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'Next to [John] Balgrave's modest prefatory poem [in "The Mathematical Jewel" (1585)] "The Authour in his own defence", [Gabriel] Harvey comments: "An Youth, & no University-man. The more shame for sum Doctors of Universities, that may learn of him".'
Century: 1500-1599 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'On sig. A2 of "A New Letter of Notable Contents" (1593) [Gabriel] Harvey refers to [Barnabe Barnes, "Parthenophil and Parthenophe" as one of the recently-read books received from [John] Wolfe [publisher for whom Harvey acted as reader].'
Century: 1500-1599 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
Virginia F. Stern notes 'a few MS. notes and underlinings' in Gabriel Harvey's copy of Joannes Boccatius, "Compendium Romanae historiae" (1535).
Century: 1500-1599 / 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'In a poor little struggling Unitarian periodical, the Monthly Repository [...] a youth, named Thomas Noon Talfourd, was about this time [1816] making [...] first attempts at authorship. Among his earliest papers [...] was one "On the System of Malthus" [...] It was prodigiously admired by [...] some of my family, who read it, and lived on it for awhile, but it served to mislead me about Malthus'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Martineau family Print: Serial / periodical
'S. reads rights of Man. C. in an ill humour - she read the Italian'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Clara Mary Jane (Claire) Clairmont Print: Book
'Read the Italian & talk all day'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Read some of Miss Bailey's plays - Tahourdin calls in the evening Shelley reads Moores journal aloud'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read Agathon part of which I like but it [is] not so good as Peregrine'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'finish Agathon - I do not like it. Wieland displays some most detestable opinions - he is one of those men who alter all their opinions when they are about 40 and then thinking that it will be the same with every one think themselves the only proper monitors of youth'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Shelley reads Mungo Parks travels loud'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read and finish Mungo Parks travels - they are very interesting & if the man was not so prejudiced they would be a thousand times more so. but those Institutions must always have Christians'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Called one morning on the Rev S Hilliard & saw Bunyan's "Pitcher" and several pages of his writings in some documents there preserved.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Print: Book
To Miss Hunt, Bath Sept 27, 1794
'I have the great store of Spanish lately; the "Teatro Critico Universale" by Feyjoo, a very clever work in 14 volumes; and I am now reading post-haste [italics] Mariana's "History of Spain", of which I have only read half, but am determined to finish it before I go. It is not so interesting as some other histories, but one must know it.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Smith Print: Book
'Miss Berry [...] told me [Harriet Martineau] how she found on her table, on her return from a ball, a volume of plays [Joanna Baillie's "Plays on the Passions"]; and how she kneeled on a chair to look at it, and how she read on till the servant opened the shutters, and let in the daylight of a winter morning.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Print: Book
The elderly Harriet Martineau reflects upon her altered reading capacity: 'I could not now read "Lalla Rookh" through before breakfast, as I did when it appeared. I cannot read new novels [...] while I can read with more pleasure than ever the old favourites, -- Miss Austen's and Scott's. My pleasure in Voyages and Travels is almost an insanity'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
Harriet Martineau, Journal, 9 January 1838: 'Read "Pride and Prejudice" again last night. I think it as clever as before.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
Harriet Martineau, Journal, 9 January 1838: 'Finished Judges, in Pictorial Bible, which is a great treat to me. Finished "Pride and Prejudice." It is wonderfully clever, and Miss Austen seems much afraid of pathos.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
Harriet Martineau, Journal, 11 January 1838: 'Read "Northanger Abbey." Capital: found two touches of pathos.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
Harriet Martineau, Journal, 18 January 1838: 'Read much of "Emma" this evening'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'Returned Pratt's "Gleanings in England" to the [D.S?] library having only read a few of the letters which did not please me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'I took [books] to the library and brought Aikin's "Description of the Country between 30 and 40 miles around Manchester", nevertheless he has Sheffield which is 42 miles of. There are some excellent maps & beautiful prints. It says that the pastoral in the spectator of Colin and Phoebe was written by a Mr Byrom ... Mr E says it is a very valuable book.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'I finished Aikin's "Description &c"... I began to read my "Evenings at Home" again. It is a book written by Mr Aikin and Mrs Brabauld.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'I finished Aikin's "Description &c"... I began to read my "Evenings at Home" again. It is a book written by Mr Aikin and Mrs Brabauld.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'We got the "Monthly Magazine" from Miss Haynes who takes it in. Mr E. says it is the best published. I drew a copy of Stanley Hall near Bolton le Moor out of Aikin.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
[Written on end papers of manuscript book of Dawson's diary] 'this book was Read with much Interest by me May 1864, the Stags herein must be the Present Bell & Dragon. Francis Cain.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Cain Manuscript: Sheet
[Transcribed into a ms volume] Title 'Lines by Mrs Hemans'; Text 'Bring flowers, young flowers, for the festal board/ To wreathe the cup ere the wine is poured;/ Bring flowers! they are springing in wood and vale,/ Their breath floats out on the southern gale; ...' [total = 6 x 6 lines verses]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
'During his holidays he found on his mother's dressing-table an old torn copy of Gerard's "Herbal", having the names and figures of some of the plants with which he had formed an imperfect acquaintance; and he carried it back with him to school.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Banks Print: Book
'He was covered with a fine cloth of a manufacture totally new to us; it was tied on exactly as represented in Mr. Dalrymple's book, p. 63; his hair was also tied in a knot on the top of his head, but there was no feather stuck in it; his complexion brown but not very dark.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Banks Print: Book
'The men in these boats were dressed much as they are represented in Tasman's figure, that is, two corners of the cloth they wore were passed over their shoulders and fastened to the rest of it just below their breasts; but few or none had feathers in their hair.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Banks Print: Book
'I have just read "Mrs. Pankhurst's Own Story" and Mrs. Swanwick's autobiography, "I have been Young". Both books show that by this time there was a tremendous demand on the part of women for the franchise'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hannah Mitchell Print: Book
'I have just read "Mrs. Pankhurst's Own Story" and Mrs. Swanwick's autobiography, "I have been Young". Both books show that by this time there was a tremendous demand on the part of women for the franchise'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hannah Mitchell Print: Book
'Our own attitude and our feeling of amateur enterprise have been summed up by Professor Bronislaw Malinowski, who in our first year's "Report" (Lindsay Drummond, 1938) describes how he first met one of us reading a paper to the Institute of Sociology.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: unknown Manuscript: Sheet, Academic paper
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Title] 'The grave of a poetess (Mrs` Tighe at Woodstock near Kilkenny)'; [text] 'I stood beside thy lowly grave;/ Spring-odours breath'd around/ And music, in the river-wave/ pass'd with a lulling sound ...' [total = 13 x 4 lines verses]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[transcribed in what appears to be Lady Caroline's hand]: 'With modest sidelong look and downcase glance / Behold the well matched couple now advance / His hand held hers. The other grasped her hip[...]'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: Title 'Address to Lord Byron by Dr Lamartine'; [Text] 'Toi, dont le monde encore ignore le vrai nom/ Esprit mysterieux, mortel ou demon/...' [total = 58 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Title] 'The Illuminated City' ; [Text] 'The hills all glow'd with a festive light/ For the Royal city rejoiced by night/ ... [by] Mrs Hemans' [total = 5 x 8 line verses]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Title] 'From the Forest Sanctuary'; [Text] 'But the dark hours wring forth the hidden might/ Which hath lain bedded in the silent soul/ A treasure all undreamed of ; - as the night/ ... [by] Mrs Hemans' [total = 8 x 9 line verses, probably not a continuous extract]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
'The gum-trees were like those in the last bay, both in leaf and in producing a very small proportion of gum; on the branches of them and other trees were large ants' nests, made of clay, as big as a bushel, something like those described in Sir Hans Sloane's "History of Jamaica", vol. II. pp. 221 to 258, but not so smooth.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Banks Print: Book
'While botanising to-day I had the good fortune to take an animal of the opossum ("Didelphis") tribe; it was a female, and with it I took two young ones. It was not unlike that remarkable one which De Buffon has described by the name of "Phalanger" as an American animal. It was, however, not the same. M. de Buffon is certainly wrong in asserting that this tribe is peculiar to America, and in all probability, as Pallas has said in his "Zoologia" the "Phalanger" itself is a native of the East Indies, as my animals and that agree in the extraordinary conformation of their feet, in which particular they differ from all the others.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Banks Print: Book
'This I should suppose to be the gum mentioned by Dampier in his voyage round the world, and by him compared with "Sanjuis draconis", as possibly also that which Tasman saw upon Van Diemen's Land, where he says he saw gum on the trees, and gum lac on the ground.' (See his voyage in a collection published at London in 1694, p. 133)
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Banks Print: Book
'All I can say is that when seen from the top of a building, from whence the eye takes it in at one view, it does not look nearly so large as it seems to be when you walk about it. Valentijn, who wrote about and before the year 1726, says that in his time there wre within the walls 1242 Dutch houses, and 1200 Chinese; without 1066 Dutch and 1240 Chinese, besides twelve arrack houses. This number, however, appeared to me to be very highly exaggerated, those within the walls especially.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Banks Print: Book
' "Well, because I do like Ernest Raymond's books and I read all of them as far as I can." '
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'Well, I've read John Buchan's books before. That's the reason.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'My life is serious enough without worrying over things like that, so I don't read the papers-only read d'Alroy and Ann Temple. Anyhow-if there's a war I shall be in it,
so it doesn't make any difference.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Untitled]; [Text]' ?Oh! ask not, hope not thou too much/ of sympathy below/ For are the hearts whence one same touch/ Bids the sweet fountains flow/ ?' [total = 16 lines but not a continuous extract]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Untitled]; [Text] 'Oh that I had the wings of a dove/ that I might flee away and be at rest/ So prayed the Psalmist to be free/ From mortal bond and earthly thrall/ And such, or soon, or late, shall be/ Full oft the heart breathed [?] prayer of all/ ?' [total = 4 x 8 lines verses follow the 2 line quote]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Untitled]; [Text]' ? Now I feel/ What high prerogatives belong to Death/ He hath a deep, though voiceless eloquence, /To which I leave my ? His solemn veil/ ... Mrs Hemans' [total = 12 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Title] 'Adieu/ John Mackintosh/ The earnest student'; [Text] 'Adieu to God what words can else express/ The parting, and the prayer that soars to heaven/ When two fond hearts, long link'd in ternderness/ By the decree of fate at length are riven/ ...'; [Total = 12 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Title] 'To one at rest/ by the author of/ the Three Wakings'; [Text] 'And needest thou our prayers no more, Safe folded mid the blest/ How changed are thou since last we met, To keep the day of rest/ Young with the youth of angels; Wise with the growth of years/ For we have passed since thou has gone, A week of many tears/ ...24th Sept 1871'; [Total = 11 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
Letter 255
April 7th 1940
'I?ve got this sudden craze for the Michael Angelo Sonnetts & have set about half a dozen of them (in Italian ? pretty brave, but there are people who speak good Italian, and after Rimbaud in French, I feel I can attack anything!)'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Britten Print: Book
'On looking over the Articles of a General Factor in the village, where I was transacting some business, a little book of very tasteful and inviting appearance presented itself to me in a glazed puce coloured cover, with its title, concisely expressed, as a label, in the centre within a border of beautiful design, printed in gold "Recollections of Filey by John Edwards". I said to myself, John Edwards. I know; a very pleasant unassuming man he is. I eagerly opened the Book and, on turning the pages over was charmed with its style of topography; and pleased to notice a reference to the [?] in History of Filey ... Indeed, it is a Poem which deserves to be known at Filey, at Scarbro' and everywhere.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Print: Book
'Laura, who by this time was reading "Old St Paul's" at home, simply romped through this Little-Go'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Laura Thompson Print: Book
'... it is his son that is the Rev. Henry Harrington who published those very curious, entertaining & valuable remains of his Ancestor under the Title "Nugae Antiquae", which my Father & all of us were formerly so fond of.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Burney Print: Book
'I will not tell you my exact state of health day by day, but will give you a diary of my reading, which is perhaps a good index of my physical state.
Friday morning. Full of buck. "Tartarin sur les Alpes".
Friday afternoon. Wanted soothing. "Letters from a Silent Study".
Saturday morning. Very depressed. "Pickwick Papers".
Saturday afternoon. A little better. "Esmond".
Sunday morning. Quite well thank you! "Butler's Analogy".
Sunday afternoon. Quite well thank you! "Esmond and Stonewall Jackson".
As a guide I may point out that "Pickwick" cheers me up when I am most depressed, while "Butler's Analogy" taxes all my strength.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Donald William Alers Hankey Print: Book
'I will not tell you my exact state of health day by day, but will give you a diary of my reading, which is perhaps a good index of my physical state.
Friday morning. Full of buck. "Tartarin sur les Alpes".
Friday afternoon. Wanted soothing. "Letters from a Silent Study".
Saturday morning. Very depressed. "Pickwick Papers".
Saturday afternoon. A little better. "Esmond".
Sunday morning. Quite well thank you! "Butler's Analogy".
Sunday afternoon. Quite well thank you! "Esmond and Stonewall Jackson".
As a guide I may point out that "Pickwick" cheers me up when I am most depressed, while "Butler's Analogy" taxes all my strength.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Donald William Alers Hankey Print: Book
'Don't worry about me; at last I am a serious soldier. I have a pile of books on ordnance, and gunnery, and ammunition, and explosives etc., etc., littering my table, to say nothing of Napier's "Peninsular War", and a "Life of Napolean"! [sic] So when my major made a surprise descent yesterday afternoon from Curepipe, he found me immersed in an essay on Rifling, and was rather pleased!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Donald William Alers Hankey Print: Book
'at ten o'clock yesterday evening little Jem Parsons (the cabin boy), and his friend the black terrier, came on deck, and sat themselves on a gun-carriage, to read by the light of the moon. I looked at the boy's book, (the terrier, I suppose, read over the other's shoulder,) and found that it was "The Sorrows of Werter". I asked who had lent him such a book, and whether it amused him? He said that it had been made a present to him, and so he had read it almost through, for he had got to Werter's dying; though, to be sure, he did not understand it all, nor like very much what he understood; for he thought the man a great fool for killing himself for love. I told him I thought that every man a great fool who killed himself for love or for any thing else: but he had no books but "The Sorrows of Werter"? - oh dear yes, he said, he had a great many more; but he had got "The Adventures of a Louse", which was a very curious book, indeed; and he had got besides "The Recess", and "Valentine and Orson", and "Roslin Castle", and a book of Prayers, just like the Bible; but he could not but say that he liked "The Adventures of a Louse" the best of any of them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jem Parsons Print: Book
'Except a brief visit to Ruthwell, I have scarcely been from home since my arrival - my excursions in the world of literature have scarcely been wider. Rousseau's "Contrat Social" - in spite of the frightful notoriety which circumstances gave it - seems little calculated for a remote posterity.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I would not let Martha [Lloyd] read First Impressions [later published as "Pride and Prejudice"] again upon any account, & am very glad that I did not leave it in your power. - She is very cunning, but I see through her design; she means to publish it from Memory, & one more perusal must enable her to do it."
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Martha Lloyd Manuscript: Sheet, MS of novel
'The American Lady improved as we went on - but still the same faults in part recurred. - We are now in Margiana, & like it very well indeed. - We are just going to set off for Northumberland to be shut up in Widdrington Tower, where there must be two or three sets of Victims already immured under a very fine Villain.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Austen Family Print: Book
'I am gratified by her [Fanny Knight] having pleasure in what I write - but I wish the knowledge of my being exposed to her discerning Criticism, may not hurt my stile [sic], by inducing too great a solicitude...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Knight Manuscript: novel in MS
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
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Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
'I took Radcliffe's "Tour" to the Library; I was not so much entertained with it, as I expected tho her descriptions are very fine.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Brought Donald Campbell's "Journey Over Land to India" [from the Library]. We had a very high character given of it & the little I have read has not disapointed us.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'I finished D. Campbell's "Journey over land to India". It is divided into three parts ... the story of Mr [Alli?] who was shipwrecked and imprisoned with him is very affecting.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Brought Mrs Radcliffe's "Mysteries of Udolpho"; I wish I had not read it before, for upon a second reading it loses half its intrest'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Wrote out of Zimmerman on "Solitude" the introduction to it. [Notes that it is a 1797 edn when borrowed on 26 Aug. 1798].'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Took Zimmermann to the library [In margin: 'vestry']. It consists for the most part of declamation, tho' it is very instructive; I have not finishe'd it but it was time to return it.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Took the 1st vol of Staunton to the library [borrowed on 7 Sept], & brought Townson's "Travels" ... The 1st part of Staunton brings the embassador into the Yellow Sea, so it is the second, which we must expect the most entertainment as it gives a very particular account of the Chinese custom &c.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Read a beautiful story in Pratt [borrowed on 11 Oct] concerning a decayed merchant & his daughter who had retired into Wales & were unexpectedly relieved by the Great John Howard.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Thought the following remarks in Miss Williams was exceeding applicable to the manufacturers of Sheffield: "There is a spirit in that class, in all countries more favourable to inquiry & consequently more hostile to unconditional submission" Vol 2 p.227.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Miss Williams "Tour" is very entertaining; besides describing the scenery (which she does in a masterly manner) she gives short sketches of the government of the different cantons & compares the state of Switzerland to Paris.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Remember the Past!' '"Remember the Past" Oh since Fate has bereft me/...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'The Tear' 'When the soft tear steals silently from the eye/...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'To Fanny' 'Oh! Name him not unless it be/...' 'T Haynes Bayly'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'Farewell to...' 'Fare thee well! Tis meet we part, /...' 'July 6th 1835/Julia'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Julia Print: Unknown
'To Selina' 'I have known thee in the sunshine/of thy beauty and thy bloom/...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'The Bridesmaid' 'The bridal is o'er the guests are all gone/...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'"Deck not with Gems"' 'Deck not with gems that lovely form forme/...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Julia Print: Unknown
'The Last Green Leaf' 'The last green leaf hangs lonely now/...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'To A Dilatory Correspondent' 'Much as thy Silence I admire/...' [4, 6 line stanzas]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'Took Beckman's "History of Inventions" to the Library; I have been very much entertained with it. Brought the "Gent. Mag" for 1793.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Returned Pratt's "Gleanings in England" to the SS Library having only read a few of the letters which did not please me;'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'I think Mrs Montague [sic] has fully vindicated Shakespeare from the objections of Voltaire [...] Her three dialogues of the dead at the end of her essay, are I think very good ones.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Read the last play in the Series on the passions. The subject of it is Hatred. It is a tragedy & the title is De Montfort. There is one rather curious mistake in this play. In act I sc. 2 De Montfort says [...quotes several lines of text]. In act 3 sc. I De Montfort says again [...again quotes] [De Montfort forgets name of a character twice]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'There is an advertisement prefixed to this number of the "Copper Plate Magazine", in which is given a list of the plates that have already been published in it amongst which I observe views of Norton Hall & of Sheffield.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Advertisement, Serial / periodical
'Finished the last vol of Beckmann's "History of Inventions"; I do not know the book that contains a greater variety of information mixed with so much amusement, than these 3 volumes.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Dr Ferris, since I have been here, has lent me [...] at the same time Mrs Galando's "Letters", a foolish slander, as it seems, against Mrs Siddons'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Windham Print: Book
'Isle of Wight by Anne Maria Sargeant A light so varied bursts upon my view, ...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'From Charlemagne a poem by Lucien Bonaparte.' [followed by English translation, 'copied']
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'The Bride Maid The bridal is over, the guests are all gone... Jany 18 1829'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'transcript of passages from chapter 4 under the commonplce book heading "non jurors"'
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Fortescue Aland
'Lookd over a new vol of provincial poems by a neighbouring poet Bantums "Excursions of Fancy" and poor fancys I find them' [lists vols by other local poets]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Clare Print: Book
'Read Bacons essay on the idea of compleat garden divided into every month of the year [...] What beautiful essays these are.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Clare Print: Book
'I have been reading over Mrs Barbaulds "Lessons for Childern" to my eldest child who is continually tearing me to read them I find by this that they are particularly suited to the tastes of childern as she is never desirous of hearing anything read a second time but them'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Clare Print: Book
'"The story of Eyes and No Eyes in Evenings at Home is intended only to illustrate the difference between inattention and vigilance, but the exercise in narration is a subsequent and separate one, it is in the lucidity, completeness and honesty of statement."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'I must include. under the general title of these [fairy legends], the stories in "Evenings at Home" of the Transmigrations of Indur, the Discontented Squirrel, the Travelled Aunt, the Cat and her Children, and Little Fido.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
[footnote includes a quote from Evenings and the following:] 'Nevertheless, the germs of all modern conceit and error respecting manufacture and industry ads rivalsto Art and Genius, are concentrated in "Evenings at Home", and Harry and Lucy S...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
[Half a page in praise of Evenings, beginning:] 'No one can be so injudicious, or so unjust, as to class the excellent "Evenings at Home" amongst books of mere entertainment. Upon a close examination, it appears to be the best book for young people from seven to ten years old, that has yet appeared. We shall not pretend to enter into a minute examination of it; because, from what we have already said, parents can infer sentiments, and we wish to avoid tedious, unnecessary detail.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria Edgeworth Print: Book
'We have heard a boy of nine years old, who had never been taught elocution by any reading-master, read simple, pathetic passages, and natural dialogues in "Evenings at Home" in a manner which would have made even Sterne's critic forget his stop-watch.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: [ a boy known to Maria Edgeworth Print: Book
'Several children, who were reading "Evenings at Home", observed that in the story of Juliet and the fairy order...' [ the children comment on the story].
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: [ a group of children known to Maria Edgeworth Print: Book
'S----was reading in "Evenings at Home" the story of "A Friend in need is a Friend Indeed" ...[when he commented on the word choice in a certain sentence].'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Print: Book
'There is a slight attempt at the kind of composition we mean, in a little trial in "Evenings at Home"; and we have seen children read it with great avidity.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: [children known to Maria Edgeworth] Print: Book
'The first books which are now usually put into the hands of a child are Mrs. Barbauld's "Lessons"; they are by far the best books of the kind that have ever appeared.' (p406), [ the following pages discuss specific problematic passages]
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria Edgeworth Print: Book
Letter from Maria Edgeworth to A.L.Barbauld, dated 26/2/1806, tells about this younger brother, who has just left the 'College of Dublin' and 'he has just finished a poem called the "Transmigrations of Indur" - the plan taken from your tale in Evenings at Home.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: C.S. Edgeworth Print: Book
'It would be well if both tales and books werwe always calculated to ... In the "Evenings at Home", or "Juvenile Budget", all this appears to be effected in it's utmost extent...' [more praise follows].
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Hamilton Print: Book
'Yesterday morning I received the enclosed note from that most conceited and not over-well-bred Mons. de Lamartine. I desired my friend Madame Belloc to use her own discretion in reporting my criticisms on his Histoire des Girondins, but requested that she would convey to him the thanks and admiration of our family for the manner in which he mentioned the Abbe Edgeworth, and our admiration of the beauty of the writing of that whole passage in the work...
I feel, and I am sure so will you and Mr. Butler, "What an egotist and what a puppy it is!" But ovation has turned his head.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria Edgeworth Print: Book
Sir John Hammerton looking back on his early days in Glasgow when he left school and became a correspondence clerk, he said of Cassell's Library "What an Aladdin's cave it proved to me! Addison, Goldsmith, Bacon, Steele, DeQuincey ..., Charles Lamb. Macaulay and many scores of others whom old Professor Morley introduced to me -- what a joy of life I obtained from these, and how greatly they made life worth living!"
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir John Hammerton Print: Book
'My dear boys, when I was your age, there were no such children's books as ther are now...Now, among those very stupid old-fashioned boy's books was one which taught me [to use my eyes]...It's name was Evenings at Home, and in it was a story called "Eyes and no Eyes", a regular old-fashioned, prim, sententious story.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Kingsley Print: Book
'...one classical in my early days, called "Evenings at Home". It contained, among many well-written lessons, one, under the title of "Eyes and No Eyes", which some of my older hearers may remember, and which I should myself be sorry to forget."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'I think of putting this letter in the post-office to night. My hour's since morning have been spent in reading Ariosto and "Six weeks at Longs." The latter end of this day will thus be better than the beginning.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'...he proclaimed himself a disciple of Rousseau. But he can hardly have followed the teaching of "Emile" very closely, since...'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
Remark that this publication was 'Abt the Test Act', so presumably read it.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Hamilton Print: Book
'There was a novel about young women, which I think now must have been "Sense and Sensibility": I could make nothing of it, but this did not keep me from reading it.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Muir Print: Book
'Then, when I was twelve we had a really good poetry book which contained extracts from "The Excursion", part of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", "The Eve of Saint Agnes", "Adonais", "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", and Mathew Arnold's "Tristram and Iseult". We were given "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" and "The Pied Piper" to learn by heart in consecutive years. I never liked "The Pied Piper", which, being written consciously as a child's poem, made me feel conscious, and most of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" seemed unreal to me... The poems in the book which I liked best were "The Eve of Saint Agnes" and "Tristram and Iseult"...'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Muir Print: Book
'I wasted a great deal of time in wrong reading from eleven to fourteen, always hoping for the enjoyment which rarely came, but going on with surprising persistence. A sense of overpowering gloom is connected in my mind with Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris", which I read in English, and an impression of a livid brightness with "The Scarlet Letter"; but that is all. Of Carlyle's "French Revolution" all that remains is a sentence like a radiant hillside caught through a rift in a black cloud: the passage where he describes the high-shouldered ladies dancing with the gentlemen of the French Court on a bright summer evening, while outside the yellow cornfields stretched from end to end of France'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Muir Print: Book
'there was nothing in the house which was worth reading, apart from the Bible, "The Pilgrim's Progress", "Gulliver's Travels", and a book by R.M. Ballantyne about Hudson Bay.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Muir Print: Book
'Maybe to neutralise the Penny Dreadful, Cassells brought out the Penny Classics. These had a bluish-green cover and were world famous novels in abridged form, but sixty or seventy pages. And W.T. Stead brought out the Penny Poets. The covers of these were pimply surface-paper, a bright orange colour, and they contained selections from Longfellow, Tennyson, Keats, and many others. I first read "Hiawatha" and "Evangeline" in the Penny Poets and thought them marvellous; so marvellous that I began to write 'poetry' myself. Stead also brought out another penny book; this had a pink cover and contained selections from the ancient classics: stories from Homer, the writings of Pliny the younger, Aesop's "Fables". I took a strong fancy to Aesop, he was a Greek slave from Samos, in the sixth century BC, and workpeople were only just beginning to be called "wage slaves". I read all these; non-selective and Catholic my reading...'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Stamper Print: Book
'So that, whatever may have been its deeper cause, the love which filled my imagination was of a kind that seemed, to me, to have little to do with what I meant by sex. "Love" was something I had learned about from "David Copperfield" and "Under the Greenwood Tree" and from the stories in "The Woman's Weekly", which my mother occasionally bought. And of course, from the poetry I was beginning to enjoy. I was naively oblivious to the sexual innuendoes of Keats and Tennyson but their romantic raptures set me trembling like a tuning fork. "Come into the garden, Maud" roused nothing of the derision, or even downright ribaldry, that it would surely rouse in a boy of today.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Norman Nicholson Print: Book
'I had not heard of "Wind in the Willows" until I read it during the summer holiday of my seventeenth year!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Norman Nicholson Print: Book
'Our syllabus was large, covering at least twelve set books: two plays of Shakespeare's, two volumes of Milton and two of Keats; Chaucer, Sheridan, Lamb, Scott's "Old Mortality" and the first book of "The Golden Treasury", with its marvellous pickings of Coleridge, Shelly, Byron and, especially, Wordsworth, which excited me, at that age, more than any other poetry written.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Norman Nicholson Print: Book
'Our syllabus was large, covering at least twelve set books: two plays of Shakespeare's, two volumes of Milton and two of Keats; Chaucer, Sheridan, Lamb, Scott's "Old Mortality" and the first book of "The Golden Treasury", with its marvellous pickings of Coleridge, Shelly, Byron and, especially, Wordsworth, which excited me, at that age, more than any other poetry written.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Norman Nicholson Print: Book
'On the wall at the side of the chimney Dad put up the bookshelves which Dodie began to fill with secondhand penny books. Over the years we had Conrad and Wodehouse, Eric Linklater and Geoffrey Farnol, Edgar Wallace, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Mark Twain, Arnold Bennett, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Buchan, and a host of others, good, bad and awful, and we read the lot, some of them over and over.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: family of Rose Gamble Print: Book
'On the wall at the side of the chimney Dad put up the bookshelves which Dodie began to fill with secondhand penny books. Over the years we had Conrad and Wodehouse, Eric Linklater and Geoffrey Farnol, Edgar Wallace, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Mark Twain, Arnold Bennett, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Buchan, and a host of others, good, bad and awful, and we read the lot, some of them over and over.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: family of Rose Gamble Print: Book
'On the wall at the side of the chimney Dad put up the bookshelves which Dodie began to fill with secondhand penny books. Over the years we had Conrad and Wodehouse, Eric Linklater and Geoffrey Farnol, Edgar Wallace, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Mark Twain, Arnold Bennett, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Buchan, and a host of others, good, bad and awful, and we read the lot, some of them over and over.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: family of Rose Gamble Print: Book
'Later on I found at the bottom of a cupboard some of volumes -Addison's "Spectator", Pope's "Homer", and a few other things. My grandmother -who also devoured books in great gulps -gave me a "Robinson Crusoe", and lent me volumes containing four "Waverley Novels" apiece. Much about the same time my father got bound up a set of Dickens's novels he had bought in weekly parts. They were in the popular quarto edition with drawings by Fred Barnard, John Mahony and others. These were a real treasure -and all the more so as my father was an ardent Dickens "fan" who rather despised Scott as a "romantic" and a "Tory". His mother (born in 1815, so old enough to have read the "Waverley Novels" when they were still comparatively new things) rather sniffed at Dickens, and definitely preferred both Scott and Thackeray. She gave me "Vanity Fair" as an antidote to "David Copperfield" and added a Shakespeare, and a bundle of "paperback" editions -Fielding, Smollett, Fennimore Cooper and Captain Marryatt.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas A. Jackson Print: Book
'We had read at school in our Reading Books, gorgeous bits from Macaulay's "History" -the Trial of the Seven Bishops and the Relief of Derry -and it was therefore natural that I should pounce with my penny at the sight of a copy of his essay on "Warren Hastings", which hit my eye on almost my first visit to the Row... I read it, I remember, on the Embankment -lying in the sun on my belly on the flat top of the ornamental arch, near Cleopatra's needle, up which a boy could climb... The series which included this edition of "Warren Hastings" gave an obvious first step along this road. It was one of Cassells National Library, a series of literary classics edited by Henry Morley, Professor of English Literature at London University, sold for 3d. paper and 6d. cloth. New or secondhand they opened an enticing field for adventurous exploration. So did a parallel series of shilling volumes the Universal Library issued by Routledge, batches of which used to be dumped upon the secondhand market and sold for 4d a copy.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas A. Jackson Print: Book
'We had read at school in our Reading Books, gorgeous bits from Macaulay's "History" -the Trial of the Seven Bishops and the Relief of Derry -and it was therefore natural that I should pounce with my penny at the sight of a copy of his essay on "Warren Hastings", which hit my eye on almost my first visit to the Row... I read it, I remember, on the Embankment -lying in the sun on my belly on the flat top of the ornamental arch, near Cleopatra's needle, up which a boy could climb... The series which included this edition of "Warren Hastings" gave an obvious first step along this road. It was one of Cassells National Library, a series of literary classics edited by Henry Morley, Professor of English Literature at London University, sold for 3d. paper and 6d. cloth. New or secondhand they opened an enticing field for adventurous exploration. So did a parallel series of shilling volumes the Universal Library issued by Routledge, batches of which used to be dumped upon the secondhand market and sold for 4d a copy.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas A. Jackson Print: Book
'There is a project on foot about translating one D'Aubuisson [a] Frenchman's geology - a large book, for the first edition I am to have 60 guineas - the same sum for every succeeding edition. Brewster was very diligent in forwarding it; and tho' I neither like the book or the terms excessively, I feel much o[blige]d to him for his conduct.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'Waugh (the Review-man) sent me a book the other day, with a wish and an assurance that I "would write a very elegant and spirited critique on it" - which I am not so certain of as the magistrate pretends to be, but shall attempt notwithstanding. It is poetry, by Joanna Baillie, about Wallace and Columbus and patient Griseld, and so forth. I am to begin forthwith; should have begun indeed already, but Schiller and others stand in the way.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'Those latter volumes of the Allemagne will perplex you, I fear. The third in particular is very mysterious; now and then quite absurd. Do not mind it much.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'We quite run over with Books. She [JA's mother] has got Sir John Carr's Travels in Spain from Miss B. & I am reading a Society-Octavo, an Essay on the Military Police & Institutions of the British Empire, by Capt. Pasley of the Engineers, a book which I protested against at first, but which upon trial I find delightfully written & highly entertaining. I am as much in love with the Author as I ever was with Clarkson or Bucahanan, or even the two Mr Smiths of the city. The first soldier I ever sighed for; but he does write with extraordinary force & spirit.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Cassandra Leigh Austen Print: Book
'And what are their Biglands & their Barrows, their Macartneys & Mackenzies, to Capt. Pasley's Essay on the Military Police of the British Empire, & the Rejected Addresses?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Book
'And what are their Biglands & their Barrows, their Macartneys & Mackenzies, to Capt. Pasley's Essay on the Military Police of the British Empire, & the Rejected Addresses?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Book
'there has been so much motion that it has been next to impossible for a person to work. I have read lately the "Newcomes" by Thackeray "Stuart of Dunleath" by Mrs Norton & "Coningsby" by Disraeli'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Battiscombe Print: Book
'Miss Benn dined with us on the very day of the Books [copies of "Pride and Prejudice"] coming, & in the eveng we set fairly at it & read half the 1st vol. to her - prefacing that having intelligence from Henry that such a work wd soon appear we had desired him to send it whenever it came out - & I beleive [sic] it passed with her unsuspected. She was amused, poor soul! [italics] that [end italics] she cd not help you know, with two such people to lead the way; but she really does seem to admire Elizabeth. I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Book
'Our 2d evening's reading to Miss Benn had not pleased me so well, but I beleive [sic] something must be attributed to my Mother's too rapid way of getting on - & tho' she perfectly understands the Characters herself, she cannot speak as they ought. - Upon the whole however I am quite vain enough & well satisfied enough...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Cassandra Leigh Austen Print: Book
'I am exceedingly pleased that you can say what you do, having gone thro' the whole work ["Pride and Prejudice"] - & Fanny's praise is very gratifying; - my hopes were tolerably strong of [italics] her [end italics], but nothing like a certainty. Her liking Darcy & Elizth is enough. She might hate all the others if she would. I have her opinion under her own hand this morning, but your Transcript of it which I read first, was not & is not the less acceptable. - To [italics] me [end italics] it is of course all praise - but the more exact truth which she sends [italics] you [end italics] is good enough.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Cassandra Austen Print: Book
'I am exceedingly pleased that you can say what you do, having gone thro' the whole work ["Pride and Prejudice"] - & Fanny's praise is very gratifying; - my hopes were tolerably strong of [italics] her [end italics], but nothing like a certainty. Her liking Darcy & Elizth is enough. She might hate all the others if she would. I have her opinion under her own hand this morning, but your Transcript of it which I read first, was not & is not the less acceptable. - To [italics] me [end italics] it is of course all praise - but the more exact truth which she sends [italics] you [end italics] is good enough.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Knight Print: Book
'Lady Robert is delighted with P & P - and really [italics] was [end italics] so as I understand before she knew who wrote it - for, of course, she knows now.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Robert Kerr Print: Book
'And Mr Hastings - I am quite delighted with what such a Man writes about it ["Pride and Prejudice"]. - Henry sent him the Books after his return from Daylesford.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Warren Hastings Print: Book
'Fanny & I are to go on with Modern Europe together, but hitherto have advanced only 25 Pages, something or other has always happened to delay or curtail the reading hour.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Book
'In the forenoon read Liardets book on Seamanship, so as to prepare myself for the duties of 1st Lieut which I expect will only come too soon.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Battiscombe Print: Book
'Reading Macauleys "history of England" for the 2nd time'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Battiscombe Print: Book
'I have been reading Macauleys "history of England", and have got thro 5 volumes, it is very interesting'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Battiscombe Print: Book
'I am reading Macauleys "history of England", it is so interesting that it keeps me up at night, later than I ought to remain, it is a book, that when once a person has commenced it, he finds it impossible to leave off, until he has finished it -'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Battiscombe Print: Book
'I have finished Macaulay's "history of England" and am now reading his speeches, they are interesting.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Battiscombe Print: Book
'I have finished Macaulay's "history of England" and am now reading his speeches, they are interesting.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Battiscombe Print: Book
'I have been reading some French books lately viz, "Mathilde" par Eugene Sue and "Les mariages de paris" par Edmond About '-
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Battiscombe Print: Book
'Reading a book by Alexr Dumas fils called "Antonine", a stupid book in my opinion.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Battiscombe Print: Book
'This morning the King's proclamacion against drinking, swearing and debauchery was read to our ships' companies in the fleet; and indeed it gave great satisfaction to all.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Broadsheet
'To Westminster-hall and bought, among other books, one of the Life of our Queene. Which I read at home to my wife; but it was so sillily writ that we did nothing but laugh at it: among other things, it is dedicated to that Paragon of virtue and beauty, the Duchesse of Albermarle.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'So to Pauls churchyard and there bought "Montelion", which this yeardoth not prove so good as the last was; and so after reading it, I burned it. After reading of that and the Comedy of "The Rump", which is also very silly, I went to bed.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'It's funny isn't it. Looks as if they want to get him out of the way. He's a bit too forward looking for them I think. And he's been giving one or two straight talks with the Archbishop too. I was reading Hannen Swaffer on Sunday and he said it seemed that Churchill's the stumbling block to any planning ahead.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Newspaper
'We did not begin reading [the proof-sheets of "Mansfield Park"] till Bentley Green. Henry's approbation hitherto is even equal to my wishes; he says it is very different from the other two, ["Pride and Prejudice" and "Sense and Sensibility"] but does not seem to think it at all inferior...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Austen Manuscript: Sheet, proof sheets
'I finished the Heroine last night & was very much amused by it. I wonder James did not like it better. It diverted me exceedingly.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Book
'I finished the Heroine last night & was very much amused by it. I wonder James did not like it better. It diverted me exceedingly.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Austen Print: Book
'It is Eveng. We have drank tea & I have torn through the 3d vol. of the Heroine, & do not think it falls off. - It is a delightful burlesque, particularly on the Radcliffe style.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Book
'Henry is going on with Mansfield Park; he admires H. Crawford - I mean properly - as a clever, pleasant Man.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Austen Manuscript: Sheet, proof sheets
'I in my chamber all the evening, looking over my Osborns works and new Emanuel Thesaurus's "Patriarchae".'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'And in the garden reading "Faber fortunae" with great pleasure. So home to bed.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'Read B[ishop]. Andrew's Devotions & various other prayers. Read Blair's Sermon 'On our ignorance of good & evil in this life' [...] Read portions of Bryant 'On the plagues of Egypt' [...] In the Evening read Archp. Tellotison's Sermon 'On the happiness of heaven', which I found interesting & in simple language... Read sev.l Poetical pieces suitable to this sacred day among others Edmaston's delightful sonnet.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Print: Book
'Used B[isho]p Andrew's exct Prayers both mg & aftn - read one of Blair's sermons morng. Evg read one of B[isho]p Moore's sermons.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Print: Unknown
'He is about to go when he sees a copy of Bombers Moon by Negley Farson (8/6?). He picks it up to look at it. It interests him and he stands reading this completely oblivious.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'Henry has this moment said that he likes my M[ansfield] P[ark] better & better; - he is in the 3d vol. - I beleive [sic] now he has changed his mind as to foreseeing the end; - he said yesterday at least, that he defied anybody to say whether H.C. would be reformed, or would forget Fanny in a fortnight.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Austen Manuscript: Sheet, proof sheets
'Henry has finished Mansfield Park, & his approbation has not lessened. He found the last half of the last volume [italics] extremely interesting [end italics].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Austen Manuscript: Sheet, proof sheets
'In addition to their [Mr and Mrs Cooke's] standing claims on me, they admire Mansfield Park exceedingly. Mr Cooke says "It is the most sensible Novel he ever read" - and the manner in which I treat the Clergy delights them very much.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr and Mrs Cooke Print: Book
'We have called upon Miss Dusautoy and Miss Papillon & been very pretty. - Miss D. has a great idea of being Fanny Price [the heroine of JA's novel, "Mansfield Park"], she & her younest sister together, who is named Fanny.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Miss] Dusautoy Print: Book
'My dear Anna - I am very much obliged to you for sending your M.S. [a story by Anna Austen that remained unfinished and has never been published] It has entertained me extremely, all of us indeed. I read it aloud to your G[rand] M[other] & A[un]t C[assandra]. - and we were all very much pleased...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Manuscript: Sheet
'We have just finished the 1st of the 3 Books I had the pleasure of receiving yesterday; I read it aloud - & we are all very much amused, & like the work quite as well as ever. - I depend on getting through another book before dinner, but there is really a great deal of respectable reading in your 48 pages. I was an hour about it. - I have no doubt that 6 will make a very good sized volume.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Manuscript: Sheet
'Now we have finished the 2d book - or rather the 5th - I do think you had better omit Lady Helena's postscript; - to those who are acquainted with P. & P it will seem an imitation.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Manuscript: Sheet
'We are reading the last book. - They must be two days going from Dawlish to Bath; They are nearly 100 miles apart'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Manuscript: Sheet
'Thursday. We finished it last night, after our return from drinking tea at the Great House. - The last Chapter does not please us quite so well, we do not thoroughly like the Play; perhaps from having had too much of Plays in that way lately.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Manuscript: Sheet
'We have been very much amused by your 3 books, but I have a good many criticisms to make - more than you will like [extensive criticism of the MS follows]... You are now collecting your People delightfully, getting them exactly into such a spot as is the delight of my life; - 3 or 4 families in a Country Village is the very thing to work on.' [further comment and criticism follows]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Manuscript: Sheet
'My dear Anna, I hope you do not depend on having your book back again immediately. I keep it that your G:Mama may hear it - for it has not been possible yet to have any public reading. I have read it to your Aunt Cassandra however - in our own room at night, while we undressed - and with a great deal of pleasure.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Manuscript: Sheet
'My dear Caroline, I wish I could finish Stories as fast as you can. - I am much obliged to you for the sight of Olivia, & think you have done for her very well; but the good for nothing Father, who was the real author of all her Faults & Sufferings, should not escape unpunished.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Manuscript: Sheet
'Your official opinion of the Merits of "Emma", is very valuable & satisfactory.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Murray Manuscript: Sheet, MS of novel
'Your late Works, Madam, and in particular Mansfield Park reflect the highest honour on your Genius & your Principles; in every new work your mind seems to increase its energy and powers of discrimination. The Regent has read & admired all your publications'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Prince Regent Print: Book
'Your late Works, Madam, and in particular Mansfield Park reflect the highest honour on your Genius & your Principles; in every new work your mind seems to increase its energy and powers of discrimination. The Regent has read & admired all your publications'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Prince Regent Print: Book
'Your late Works, Madam, and in particular Mansfield Park reflect the highest honour on your Genius & your Principles; in every new work your mind seems to increase its energy and powers of discrimination. The Regent has read & admired all your publications'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Prince Regent Print: Book
'Accept my sincere thanks for the pleasure your Volumes have given me: in the perusal of them I felt a great inclination to write & say so.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Stanier Clarke Print: Book
'You were very good to send me Emma - which I have in no respect deserved. It is gone to the Prince Regent. I have read only a few Pages which I very much admired - there is so much nature - and excellent description of Character in every thing you describe.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Stanier Clarke Print: Book
'I have been most anxiously waiting for an introduction to Emma, & am infinitely obliged to you for your kind recollection of me, which will procure me the pleasure of her acquaintance some days sooner than I shd otherwise have had it. - I am already become intimate in the Woodhouse family, & feel that they will not amuse & interest me less than the Bennetts, Bertrams, Norriss & all their admirable predecessors - I [italics] can [end italics] give them no higher praise.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Countess of Morley Print: Book
'I have been most anxiously waiting for an introduction to Emma, & am infinitely obliged to you for your kind recollection of me, which will procure me the pleasure of her acquaintance some days sooner than I shd otherwise have had it. - I am already become intimate in the Woodhouse family, & feel that they will not amuse & interest me less than the Bennetts, Bertrams, Norriss & all their admirable predecessors - I [italics] can [end italics] give them no higher praise.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Countess of Morley Print: Book
'I have been most anxiously waiting for an introduction to Emma, & am infinitely obliged to you for your kind recollection of me, which will procure me the pleasure of her acquaintance some days sooner than I shd otherwise have had it. - I am already become intimate in the Woodhouse family, & feel that they will not amuse & interest me less than the Bennetts, Bertrams, Norriss & all their admirable predecessors - I [italics]can [end italics] give them no higher praise.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Countess of Morley Print: Book
'I have been most anxiously waiting for an introduction to Emma, & am infinitely obliged to you for your kind recollection of me, which will procure me the pleasure of her acquaintance some days sooner than I shd otherwise have had it. - I am already become intimate in the Woodhouse family, & feel that they will not amuse & interest me less than the Bennetts, Bertrams, Norriss & all their admirable predecessors - I [italics] can [end italics] give them no higher praise.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Countess of Morley Print: Book
'I have been very much entertained by your story of Carolina & her aged Father, it made me laugh heartily, & I am particularly glad to find you so much alive upon any topic of such absurdity, as the usual description of a Heroine's father.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Manuscript: Sheet
'went to Westminster-hall and there bought Mr Grant's book of observations upon the weekly bills of Mortality - which appear to me, upon first sight, to be very pretty.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'At my office all the morning, reading Mr Holland's discourse of the Navy, lent me by Mr Turner; and am much pleased with them, they hitting the very diseases of the Navy which we are troubled with nowadays. I shall bestow writing of them over and much reading thereof.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'and then to the office and there examining my Copy of Mr Hollands book till 10 at night; and so home to supper and bed.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'and so to the office again and made an end of examining the other of Mr Hollands books about the Navy, with which I am much contented'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'I'm not keen to read books dealing with the current situation. War's grim enough, I prefer to
choose books without war interest. For that reason I try and get books
of the humourous kind, such as "Night on Wheels" by Ian Hay, and "The Diary of a Provincial
Lady" by E.M. Delafield. Books that provoke a laugh. During the winter months reading's been
my main hobby. As I'm a quick reader, naturally I choose fairly thick books of average size with
medium print. Never the large type. I like
a substantial book, not one that I can finish quickly. On the other hand I don't like books of the
size of "Gone with the Wind" or "Anthony Adverse", some 900 pages.
Either of these books should have been issued in two volumes.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'This day I read the King's speech to the parliament yesterday; which is very short and not very obliging, but only telling them his desire to have a power of indulging tender consciences, not that he will yield to have any mixture in the uniformity of Church discipline.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys
'An author's name carries weight with me, but results are sometimes disappointing - e.g. I enjoyed Evelyn Waugh's "Decline and Fall", and so I bought "Vile Bodies" only to find it not so good.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'An author's name carries weight with me, but results are sometimes disappointing - e.g. I enjoyed Evelyn Waugh's "Decline and Fall", and so I bought "Vile Bodies" only to find it not so good.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'January 14. "To be happy with you seems such an impossibility! It requres a luckier star than mine! It will never be...The world is too brutal for me." [Keats to Fanny Brawne, August 1820]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'January 2...What I chiefly admire in Jane Austen is that what she promises, she performs, i.e. if Sir T. is to arrive, we have his arrival at length, and it's excellent and exceeds our expectations. This is rare; it is also my very weakest point. Easy to see why...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'January 5... J. and I read "Mansfield Park" with great enjoyment. I wonder if J. [Middleton Murry] is as content as he appears? It seems too good to be true.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'Oh, I like funny books, like Thorne Smith, you know, nothing too serious. ("For whom the Bell Tolls", Hemingway, was very good).'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'I like good modern books - I'm very fond of American books - or Dorothy Conyer's - good racy stories. I hate detective stories, I like Naomi Jacobs' early ones. I read 'props' three times - I do like well written books. I hate anything in the first person....I won't read war books...I like 'How Green was My Valley"...and 'Conflict' by Faith Baldwin - it was really interesting: I read it about the time China came in the war with us.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'I've read one book since the war "A Yank At Oxford". I liked that.....'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'I liked Rebecca and 'Gone with the Wind".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'I like autobiography and I love a good thriller - I can't bear funny books other than Stephen Leacock. I don't like a man who sets out to be funny.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'I enjoy most autobiographies and biography - you know Negley Farson's Travels - at the moment I'm reading Thackeray. I've never read "Pendennis" and I'm simply adoring it - I love detective stories too - I read the "Forsyte Saga" again - it's wonderful, isn't it...Do you know for the first year of the war I hardly read anything
"Take Courage": there they were wanting a dictator and when they got him, well he wasn't the hero they thought - I do think Civil War is awful - then of course, I loved all those "Heavenly Trouser" ones.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'I enjoy most autobiographies and biography - you know Negley Farson's Travels - at the moment I'm reading Thackeray. I've never read "Pendennis" and I'm simply adoring it - I love detective stories too - I read the "Forsyte Saga" again - it's wonderful, isn't it...Do you know for the first year of the war I hardly read anything
"Take Courage": there they were wanting a dictator and when they got him, well he wasn't the hero they thought - I do think Civil War is awful - then of course, I loved all those "Heavenly Trouser" ones.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'I like Travel books - something uplifting - teaches you something. Of course, I like dirty books too....Have you read John Blunt - you ought to - "Mein Kampf". Oh, I liked "Rebecca" and "Gone with the Wind".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'I can no longer settle to fiction to anything like the extent I did before the war. Could read nothing but Jane Austen's Emma when war broke out. I read about the same amount of non-fiction, but far more biographies and autobiographies.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'Up and to my office; and then walked to Woolwich, reading Bacon's "faber Fortune", which the oftener I read the more I admire.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'Thence with Mr Moore to the Wardrobe and there sat while my Lord was private with Mr Townsend about his accounts an hour or two - we reading of a merry book against the Presbyters called "Cabbala", extraordinary witty.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'Thence with Mr Moore to the Wardrobe and there sat while my Lord was private with Mr Townsend about his accounts an hour or two - we reading of a merry book against the Presbyters called "Cabbala", extraordinary witty.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Moore Print: Book
'And then met my uncle Thomas by appointment, and he and I to the Prearogative Office in Paternoster Row and there searched and found my Uncle Day's will and read it over and advised upon it, and his wife's after him.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Manuscript: Sheet
'Thence home and I spent most of the evening upon Fullers "Church History" and Barcklys "Argenis"; and so after supper to prayers and to bed'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'And so home with great ease and content, especially out of the content which I met with in a book I bought yesterday; being a discourse of the state of Rome under the present Pope, Alexander the 7th - it being a very excellent piece.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'At night made an end of the discourse I read this morning, and so home to supper and to bed.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'I to my booksellers and there spent an hour looking over "Theatrum Urbium" and "Flandria illustrata", with excellent cuts, with great content.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'and so after dinner, by water home, all the way going and coming reading "Faber fortunae", which I can never read too often.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'I should have written to you to-day to thank you for your flattering and kind-hearted mention of myself in the new Preface to Rookwood; if the weather had been finer I intended riding out to tell you how warmly I felt it, and how much sincere delight your friendship affords me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Dickens Print: Book
'Mrs C read me part of Murray's Power of religion.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mrs] Cole Print: Book
'I am reading for the second [time] "The System of Nature", by Holbach and Diderot, if every one would read it, they would soon discover, by reasoning the most correct & conclusive that man has hitherto been taught nothing but the most pernicious [underlined] errors - the consequence of which is his present moral [underlined] degradation & deplorable wretchedness [underlined], alas! that the bandage cannot be torn from his eyes but by slow degrees - ~"bit-by-bit" reforms. It would seem that his prejudices [underlined] were his only sores [underlined] - & that he is willing to endure all that sensation can endure rather than have these sores touched'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anna Doyle Wheeler Print: Book
'And so home to supper; and after reading a good while in the Kings "works", which is a noble book - to bed.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'Up, and after being trimmed, I alone by water to Erith, all the way with my song-book singing of Mr Laws's long recitative Song in the beginning of his book.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'. I first heard of Barr?s in an article be Edward Delille in the Fortnightly. Next I read a criticism of this very book in the latest volume issued of Anatole France?s La Vie Litteraire.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'Thursday, 7th January,
Offered Pat 19th January or 16th March for his friend?s lecture.
Smith does not expect to leave for the Coast until about October. He expects to go with Adams.
Read: ?History of Florence? ( Machiavelli)'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Sunday, 21st February,
Discussion group ? nothing doing ? arrived late. Members busy with a game in which, with the help of a pin and a newspaper they lost or won pennies. Whisper it not in Gath ? I joined in and ? extreme of immorality ? lost !
Read ? ?The American? (Henry James)'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Sunday, 28th March,
Discussion Group ? annual meeting.
Read ? ?Tartarin sur les Alpes? (Daudet).'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Tuesday, 30th March,
Club ? Annual meeting. All officers re-elected except Will Evans who stood down. The Players are taking up all his time. Bal. Lear takes his place. I look forward to a record year. We have adopted the course on the ?English Historical Novel? for our programme and intend to vary this on alternate weeks with single lectures, debates etc ?
Read -- ?La Peau de Chagrin? etc, (Balzac)'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Thursday 8th July
I am enjoying ? between books - the ?Everyman? ?Little Flowers of St. Francis?, and find it very lovely if at times a little amusing. Cannot however stomach the bodily uncleanness of the ?out and out? Franciscans. It does not read well. The miracles are often very beautiful and often rather funny.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'This evening the fine trajedy of Racine "Andromaque" was read I did not hear all the play but I have read it before'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth (Betsey) Wynne Print: Unknown
'In the evening I wrote to Mary Montalban and to her husband, and we read "Les Plaideurs" which made us laugh like fools'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Wynne and others Print: Unknown
'Thursday 29th July
?Sybil? ? (Disraeli)
[...]
I went to see Mother tonight and completed the preliminary draft for my syllabus on the Historical novel.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Monday 16th August
?John Inglesant? ? (J.H. Shorthouse).
I finished Sybil and think it certainly is a fine book for our syllabus purposes.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Monday 23rd August
I was more than usually disgusted with the ?Mail? for blatantly howling of our ?recovery of the Ashes? on a poster. On the street of one poor game out of five! A result due to our refusal to play them out.
?To Right the Wrong? ( Edna Lyall)' .
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'We found some of the prisoners here engaged in reading, while waiting till the officers returned from their breakfast. One was perusing a treatise on "Infidelity; its Aspects, Causes and Agencies"; another the "Home Friend - a weekly miscellany"; a third, the "Saturday Magazine"; a fourth, the "History of Redemption"; and a fifth, the "Family Quarrel - an humble story".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'Wednesday 3rd November.
?War of Steel and Gold? ? (Henry. N. Brailsford).'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Tuesday 14th December.
?Cheap Jack Zita? (Baring Gould)'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Friday 17th December.
French Class again tonight. I don?t know whether they liked me last time. Took Mother?s class. Only 3 present. Rather jolly. I think I could teach French if I did a little preliminary grinding at grammar. They are doing Themoin?s method and reading ?Le Voyage de M. P?rrichon?. I?d like to do this on the stage. I don?t know of anything quite so funny in English drama.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Monday 20th December
?Au dessus de la m?l?e? ? (Romain Rolland).
This is the first time I have managed to get hold of this book. Mother was very friendly with Madeleine Rolland, the author?s sister, during our stay in Paris, during the war. I find it interesting, but only as a good sketch of fine pacifist thought, but even more as a vivid reproduction of that almost forgotten period ? the war ? and the extraordinary chaos in which mind and intellect were swallowed up over three quarters of Europe.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Wednesday 22 December.
I have just finished ?Au dessus de la M?l?e?. It revives all my anger at the treacherous laziness of those who experienced the war, in failing to preach the gospel of ?never? again. Why, why do we let the governments go on? Secret diplomacy, concession hunting, financial wrangling. Calculated ?inspiring? of the press. It is horrible. I used to believe the Press to be sincere, if misguided. But I have been reading the ?Mail? lately, and the easily recognizable note of sincerity is absolutely lacking.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'19th March, Saturday.
Spent the afternoon reading and lounging. [...] ?Jocaste? and ?Le Chat Maigre? A. France.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'30th September 1928 (Sunday)
We saw the Clichy party to their tram, then [illegible] Henry and I had a coffee at the Express du Havre and finally parted for home at 11.45. A good day. I brought away the 1st book of Romain Rolland?s ?Jean Christophe? and devoured half of it before going to sleep.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'1st October 1928 (Monday).
Dug further into ?Jean Christophe? in the Luncheon hour. Am thoroughly enjoying this great book. I hope the other volumes are as good as ?L?Aube? though Mme. Bisseux thinks not.
?Jean Christophe? (1st ?L?Aube?) Romain Rolland'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'2nd September 1928 (Tuesday)
Sunday?s ?Observer? suggests a clean break with the line of diplomatic action brought to light by the revelations regarding the Anglo-French naval pact. Even the old ?Observer? admits that England has only just missed dealing the foulest blow at the cause of international peace since the war. America is wholly on the qui vive now especially as the Presidential elections are in full swing and the pact is getting the fullest possible publicity. It is curious that their note on the subject should be so restrained. Either they are in earnest in their pacifist pretensions or they are so sure of the failure of any negotiation that they are willing to risk a big bluff. England has not come off very well out of either the League session or the Pact fiasco so let?s hope that Chamberlain?s diplomacy has suffered a final setback.
[...]
Finished Rolland?s book.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Monday, 15th October 1928
?Vie de Tolstoy? (Romain Rolland)'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'1st January 1929 (Tuesday)
In the eveningthe usual German sing-song. I to bed early. Re-reading ?Back to Methuselah?.
?Back to Methuselah? (George Bernard Shaw)'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'4th January 1929.
?Back to Methuselah?. G. B. Shaw'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'7th January 1929 Monday.
This evening reading a book bought from Raincy, and writing to Teddie.
?Beyond? Galsworthy.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'8th January 1929
?Beyond? is a charming book. Sad both in its story and in the writer?s outlook, it is yet most delightful reading, and a most beautiful argument. It is a story of love and marriage, that has but few bright spots in the actual events of the narrative, and yet would make anyone long to love in the heroic, ?int?grale? manner of its heroine. To be either the subject or the object of such a passion would make a full life, with reference to the years of its duration.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'12th January 1929.
During the afternoon I read Bordeaux?s ?Robe de laine?, but not with much enjoyment. I do not care for Bordeaux though I do not know why.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'17th February 1929 (Sunday).
After a long and very cosy dinner I started for home. I missed the train owing to my having to climb the great gate as B. had forgotten his key. Stayed in a little caf? until 11.35, and then home very tired. I brought away (Jean Christophe)? ?Les Amis?. This is the second of this series which I have read.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'24th February 1929 (Sunday)
Finished reading ?Les Amis? before luncheon. Rolland is the most ?beautiful? writer I know and this book is as good as his best. I would like to have all his works and to read the whole of this ?Jean Christophe? series.
After luncheon I read ?Dorian Gray? for a while, then a light tea, and off to Levallois. Stopped at Gare St. Lazare for my papers, ?Le Temps?, ?Observer? and ?Monde?.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'21st March 1929.
?Le Petit Pierre? (Anatole France).'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'I made acquaintance yesterday with the famous poet Rousseau, who lives here [Vienna] under the peculiar protection of Prince Eugene, by whose liberality he subsists. He passes here for a free-thinker, and, what is still worse in my esteem, for a man whose heart does not feel the encomiums he gives to virtue and honour in his poems. I like his odes mightily, they are much superior to the lyrick productions of our English poets, few of whom have made any figure in that kind of poetry.'
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
'I read a great deal of "Agathon" a very fine German novel taken from a grecian manuscript written by Wieland. It is very interesting and expressed with equal grace, elegance and nature. One thing which shows that no man is free of a vanity in which he seeks to hide is that the Author takes every opportunity to mention himself and appears afraid that "Agathon" should make you forget Weiland'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Eugenia Wynne Print: Book
'As I began to mend, the Governor, to keep me from brooding too much, gave orders that I was to have all the reading matter I wanted within the limits of the prison library, and my book changed just as often as I liked and at any hour of the day. To a man eager to improve his acquaintance with standard literature such a privilege was immeasurably great, and for the next six weeks or so I browsed among the Victorian novelists - Austin [sic?], the Brontes, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Meredith, Lytton, Kingsley, Reade, Hughes, Trollope and others.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Stuart Wood [pseud?] Print: Book
From Elizabeth Missing Sewell's Journal, 20 June 1845:
'The Meyricks have been here today. Mr. Meyrick told Edwards [Sewell's brother] there was no doubt that Newman is going over to Rome, which agrees but little with an observation made by Dr. Pusey to G. F. a short time since that no one could know how devoted a servant of the Church Newman was till after his death. The Church though may mean the Catholic or Universal Church, and so Rome may be included. It is a horrid, startling notion, but a sermon of Newman's I was reading to-night would be a great safeguard against being led into mischief
by it. "Obedience, the remedy for religious perplexity."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
Second confinement in the Prison at Hull:
'I remember how when the light began to fail of evenings, I often risked punishment by getting up to my window to finish an essay by Macaulay, whose style charmed me, or one of those vibrant, pulpitating lectures on hero-worship by Carlyle!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Stuart Wood [pseud?] Print: Book
'At Maidstone, both on this occasion and subsequently when I served several months in separate confinement as a convict preparatory to going to Parkhurst, I was able, through the chaplain's kindness, to study not only Greek philosophy, but also Locke, Hume, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Fechner, Lotze, etc. Being a very rapid reader and having some ability in getting at the gist of a book I got through a fair amount of really interesting reading. ... In the summer I grabbed a book as soon as it was light enough to read, say, four o'clock, read till and during breakfast, dinner, supper and continued till 9:30 or 10 o'clock at night, an average of 8 to 10 hours a day. There were times, of course, when the burden of prison life bred a spirit of discontent and restlessness which books could not assuage.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Stuart Wood [pseud?] Print: Book
'I return the first two volumes of Julia with many thanks - It seems to me, that the most proper way of testifying my gratitude to the amiable Jean Jacques for the pleasure he has afforded me, is to do what in me lies to extend the circle of his admirers - I shall begin with you - Do read this book -'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Bailie Welsh Print: Book
'I have finished Julia - Divine Julia! What a finshed picture of most sublime virtue!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Bailie Welsh Print: Book
'The routine of the "Scourge" has grown familiar; and one tires of unbroken fine weather and smooth seas. No resource for me but the officers' little library. Therefore I must have been sleepily pouring over Dana's "Two Years before the Mast": a pleasant, rough kind of book, but with something too much hauling of ropes and "handing" of sails it in. ...I have been reading also "The Amber Witch", a most beautiful German story, translated into English, by Lady Duff Gordon.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel Print: Book
'Reading - for want of something better - "Macaulay's Essays". He is a born Edinburgh Reviewer, this Macaulay; and, indeed, a type-reviewer - an authentic specimen-page of nineteenth century "literature". He has the right, omniscent tone, and air, and the true knac; of administering reverential flattery to British civilisation, British prowess, honour, enlightenment, and all that, especially to the great nineteenth century and its astounding civilisation, that is, to his readers. It is altogether a new thing in the history of mankind, this triumphant glorification of a current century upon being the century it is...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel Print: Book
'After breakfast, when the sun burned too fiercely on deck, went below, threw off coat and waistcoat for coolness, and began to read Macaulay's essay on Bacon - "the great English teacher", as the reviewer calls him. And to do the reviewer justice, he understands Bacon, knows what Bacon did, and what he did not; and therefore sets small store by that illustrious Chimera's new "method" of investigating truth...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel Print: Book
'Three weeks of sickness, sleepness nights, and dismal days: and the "light" reading that I have been devouring I find to weigh very heavy. Yet the "Three Mousquetaires" of Dumas is certainly the best novel that creature has made. How is it that the paltriest feuilletoniste in Paris can always turn out something at least readable (readable, I mean, by a person of ordinary taste and knowledge) and that the popular providers of that sort of thing in London - save only Dickens - are also so very stupid, ignorant and vicious a herd? Not but the feuilleton-men are vicious enough; but then vice wrapped decently in plenty of British cant, and brutified by cockney ignorance, is triply vicious. Dumas's "Marquis de Letoriere", too, is a pleasant enough little novelette: but I have tried twice, and tried in vain, to get through a mass of letterpress called "Windsor Castle", by Ainsworth; and another by one Douglas Jerrold, entitled "St Giles and St James".
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel Print: Book
'Three weeks of sickness, sleepness nights, and dismal days: and the "light" reading that I have been devouring I find to weigh very heavy. Yet the "Three Mousquetaires" of Dumas is certainly the best novel that creature has made. How is it that the paltriest feuilletoniste in Paris can always turn out something at least readable (readable, I mean, by a person of ordinary taste and knowledge) and that the popular providers of that sort of thing in London - save only Dickens - are also so very stupid, ignorant and vicious a herd? Not but the feuilleton-men are vicious enough; but then vice wrapped decently in plenty of British cant, and brutified by cockney ignorance, is triply vicious. Dumas's "Marquis de Letoriere", too, is a pleasant enough little novelette: but I have tried twice, and tried in vain, to get through a mass of letterpress called "Windsor Castle", by Ainsworth; and another by one Douglas Jerrold, entitled "St Giles and St James".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel Print: Book
'Three weeks of sickness, sleepness nights, and dismal days: and the "light" reading that I have been devouring I find to weigh very heavy. Yet the "Three Mousquetaires" of Dumas is certainly the best novel that creature has made. How is it that the paltriest feuilletoniste in Paris can always turn out something at least readable (readable, I mean, by a person of ordinary taste and knowledge) and that the popular providers of that sort of thing in London - save only Dickens - are also so very stupid, ignorant and vicious a herd? Not but the feuilleton-men are vicious enough; but then vice wrapped decently in plenty of British cant, and brutified by cockney ignorance, is triply vicious. Dumas's "Marquis de Letoriere", too, is a pleasant enough little novelette: but I have tried twice, and tried in vain, to get through a mass of letterpress called "Windsor Castle", by Ainsworth; and another by one Douglas Jerrold, entitled "St Giles and St James".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel Print: Book
'And have I read no books, then, save bad ones? That I have. Amongst those sent to me from home is an old Dublin copy of Rabelais, in four volumes, imprinted by Philip Crampton, of Dame Street - and has kept me in good wholesome laughter for a fortnight - laughter of the sort that agitates the shoulders, and shakes the diaphragm, and makes the blood tingle; than which no medicine can be more cordial to me - I have read the cause of his effects in Galen.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel Print: Book
'Have been reading in "Tait's Magazine" an elaborate review of a new book by the indefatigable Government literator, Macaulay - no less than a "History of England".'
'NB: Bothwell, V.D.L. 4 August 1851 - I have read the book itself here; for, having become one of the most popular books in the world, it is even in the village library of Bothwell. Mem. - It is a clever, base, ingenious, able and shallow political pamphlet in two volumes. This writer has the rare art of colouring a whole narrative by an apparently unstudied adjective or two, and telling stories of frightful falsehoods by one of the most graceful of adverbs. What is worse, the fellow believes in no human virtue - proves Penn a pimping parasite, because he hated penal laws; and makes a sort of Bromwicham hero out of the dull Dutch Deliverer'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel Print: Book
From Elizabeth Missing Sewell's Journal, 7 November 1868:
'Began Lacordaire's [italics]Conferences de Notre Dame[end italics]. He starts with premises open to much discussion, and all his arguments fall to the ground unless one can accept the premises.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
'I read in the evening the "Mysteries of Udolpho" which Lucy sent me'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Wynne Print: Book
'He said, handing me a document, ?Here is the report on your novel.? I read it. It was very laudatory on all counts, & quite free from fault finding except as to one trifling & quite inessential point. There was a rider that in John Buchan?s opinion it would not be popular. Lane said, I will publish your novel.?
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett
'The individual...was a fellow-worker of mine for nigh two years in Dartmoor. He had, in his younger days, passed through the workhouse; read the pestilent literature of rascaldom which has educated so many criminal characters in this country; then graduated in the "School", and ultimately became a noted burglar. His reading in prison had been pretty extensive, while his intelligence would have insured him a position in society above that of a labouring man... I could not help looking upon it as a very novel experience, for even this grotesque world, to have to listen to a man who could delight in a literary discussion, quote all the choice parts of Pope's "Illiad", and boast of having read Pascal and Lafontaine in the original, maintain, in sober argument, that "thieving was an honourable pursuit", and that religion, law, patriotism and bodily disease were the real and only enemies of humanity.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'It is a considerable time since I saw Leslie's review of La Place'[s] essay on chances - and remarked with considerable surprise - the bold avowall of his sentiments on Hume's doctrine - "The Christian Instructor" attacks him with considerable asperity - and, I think, success. Hume's essays, I have not read - and therefore cannot condemn - The evidence of testimony, too, no doubt has its limits - But as far as I can judge, all that is urged either by La Place or His reviewer - does not at all affect Christianity.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Serial / periodical
'It is a considerable time since I saw Leslie's review of La Place'[s] essay on chances - and remarked with considerable surprise - the bold avowall of his sentiments on Hume's doctrine - "The Christian Instructor" attacks him with considerable asperity - and, I think, success. Hume's essays, I have not read - and therefore cannot condemn - The evidence of testimony, too, no doubt has its limits - But as far as I can judge, all that is urged either by La Place or His reviewer - does not at all affect Christianity.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I had almost forgotten to thank [you] for my books - they are just such as I wanted. "Blair" is an excellent piece - and very cheap. I am only sorry you sent it at all: I was in no particular want of it & you ought certainly to have done with the money whatever your situation required. - One is apt to be put about, when obliged to equip for such an expedition as yours. - The Italian grammar is hardly calculated for me - but answers in the mean time. The Novelle morale is an excellent book for the purpose'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I was re[a]ding lately, Stewart's "life of Robertson", Smith's "wealth of nations", and Kames' "Essays on the principles of morality". The first is a sensible sort of book - unworthy, however, of Stewart. Dr Smith is a man of much research, & appears to understand completely all the bearings of his complicated subject. I have read his first and second volumes with much pleasure. He always writes like a philosopher. With regard to Lord Kames - his works are generally all an awkward compound of ingenuity and absurdity and in this volume the latter quality it appears to me, considerably preponderates. It is Metaphysical; upon Belief, identity, Necessity &c &c and I devoutly wish that no friend of mine may ever come to study it - unless he wish to learn -
To weave fine cobwebs fit for scull
That's empty when the moon is full.
- and in that case he cannot study under a more proper master.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'There is a very extraordinary passage in Rousseau's Thoughts on Fanaticism. It is printed in his Thoughts, published by Debrett, Vol.i. page 11.
Bayle (says he) has acutely proved that Fanaticism is more pernicious than Atheism. This is incontestable. What he has been very careful, however, not to mention, and, what is not less true is, that Fanaticism, although sanguinary and cruel, is still an exalted passion, which elevates the heart of man, raises him above the fear of death, multiplies his resources exceedingly, and which only wants to be better directed, to be productive of the most sublime virtues. (He adds) The argumentative spirit of controversy and philosophy, on the contrary, attaches us to life, enervates and debases the soul, concentrates all passions in the baseness of self-interest, and thus gradually saps the real foundation of all society.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington Print: Book
'For the rest - I continued reading Newton's "Principia" with considerable perseverance & little success - till on arriving a short way into the third book - I discovered that I had too little knowledge of Astronomy, to understand his reasoning rightly. And I forthwith sent to Edinr for De Lambre's "abr?g? d'Astronomie"; and in the mean time, betook myself to reading Wood's "optics". I cannot say much about this book. Its author intermeddles not with the abstruse parts of the science - such as the causes of reflection & refraction?the reason why transparent bodies, at given angles of incidence, reflect their light almost entirely (concerning which, I meet with many learned details, in the Encyclopedia Britan) - but contents himself with demonstrating, in a plain enough manner, the ordinary effects of plane & spherical mirrors - and of lenses of various kinds - applying his doctrines, to the explanation of various optical instruments & remarkable phenomena. But in truth, I know little about it, I read it with too great velocity. - I also read Keil's "introductio ad veram Physicam"; but I shall let it pass till next time I write. In fine De Lambre arrived; & I have read into his fourth Le?on -and like it greatly.I intended to have told you some of his observations - but I would not overwhelm you with ennui all at once - and therefore, I shall be silent at present. - [italics]ne quid nimis[end italics] [moderation in all things - editor's note] ? as the proverb saith'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'My habits have been so much deranged by change of place, that I have not yet got rightly settled to my studies. I have read little since I saw you: and of that little, I doubt, I have not made the best use. Have you seen Playfairs introductory essay in the Encyclopedia? I am sure you will like it. It is distinguished for its elegance & perspicuity. I perused it some weeks ago, and thought it greatly preferable to Stewarts. Indeed I have often told you, that I am somewhat displeased with myself because I cannot admire this great philosopher, half as much as many critics do. He is so very stately - so transcendental - and withal so unintelligible, that I cannot look upon him with the needful veneration. I was reading the second volume of his "Philosophy of the human mind", lately. It is principally devoted to the consideration of Reason. The greater part of the book is taken up with statements of the opinions of others; and it often required all my penetration to discover what the Author's own views of the matter were. He talks much about Analysis & Mathematics, and disports him very pleasantly upon geometrical reasoning; but leaves what is to me the principal difficulty, untouched. Tell me if you have read it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I took Bail]ly's "histoire d'Astronomie", out of the College library, last time I was over the firth. [He seems] to write with great eloquence & perspicuity; but I have read little of him.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'Three weeks ago, I finished M. Bailly's "histoire de l'Astronomie Modern[e.]" His acquaintance with the science seems to have been more extensive than profound; his stile is elegant - perhaps somewhat too florid, and interspersed with metaphors which an English critic might be tempted sometimes to call conceited - I wish I were an Astronomer - Is it not an interesting reflection to consider, that a little creature such as man-tho' his eye can see the heaven but as it were for a moment - is able to delineate the aspects which it presented long ages before he came into being - and to predict the aspects which it will present when ages shall have gone by. The past the present & the future are before him.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'What I deplore is that laziness and dissipation of mind to which I am still subject. At present I am quieting my conscience with the thought that I shall study very diligently this winter. Heaven grant it be so! for without increasing in knowledge what profits it to live? Yet the commencement has been inauspicious. Three weeks ago I began to read Wallace's "Fluxions" in the Encyclopaedia, and had proceeded a little way, when the "Quarterly Review", some problems in a very silly Literary and Statistical Magazine of which the the schoolmasters are supporters, Madm de Sta?l's "Germany", etc. etc., have suspended my operations these ten days. After all I am afraid that this winter will pass as others have done before it - unmarked by improvement; and what is to hinder the next, & its followers till the end of the short season allotted me to do so likewise?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I have read thro' that clear & candid but cold hearted narration of David Hume - and now seven of Toby Smollet[t]'s eight chaotic volumes are before me. To say nothing of Gibbon (of whom I have only read a volume) - nor of the Watsons the Russel[l]s the Voltaires &c &c known to me only by name. Alas! thou seest how I am beset. - It would be of little avail to criticise Bacons "Essays": it is enough to say, that Stewarts opinion of them is higher than I can attain. For style, they are rich & venerable - for thinking, incorrect & fanciful.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'Some time ago, I bought me a copy of La Rochefoucault. It has been said that the basis of his system is the supposition of selflove being the motive of all our actions. It rather seems, as if he had laid down no system at all. Regarding man as a wretched, mischievous thing, little better than a kind of vermin, he represents him as the sport of his passions, above all of vanity, and exposes the secret springs of his conduct always with some wit, and (?bating the usual sacrifices of accuracy to smartness), in general, with great truth & sagacity'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'My sole solaces have been Dumas, & Nolan?s delightful companionship at Brussels.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
From Letter V, "Letters on Daily Life":
'I wonder whether you ever met with an old-fashioned story called "Eyes and no Eyes." It was written, I think, by Mrs. Barbauld. I read it when I was a child. It went to show that two persons going for a walk through the same fields might return home with totally different impressions made upon them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
In Letter XXI, "Letters on Daily Life" (addressed to 'C___'), on the
correspondent's supposedly having mentioned to her her feeling that 'government of the thoughts' was 'an impossibility':
'I can recollect the book which first brought to me the conviction that such mental control was a duty. It was a volume of short essays and stories, called [italics]The Contributions of Q.Q.[end italics], by Jane Taylor, the well-known author of [italics]Hymns for Infant Minds[end italics]. It brought me a new idea just at the time when I most needed the help [...] I am glad to be able to acknowledge thankfully the aid that this old-fashioned, book, with its quaint title, afforded me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
'I quite agree about Napier's book. I did not think that any man would venture to write so true, bold and honest a book; it gave me a high idea of his understanding, and makes me very anxious about his [italics]caractere[end italics].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'Read "Laurie Todd" by Galt. It is excellent; no surprising events, or very striking characters, but the humorous and entertaining parts of common life, brought forward in a tenour of probable circumstances. Read Raffles's Life. A virtuous, active, high-minded man; placed at last where he ought to be: a round man, in a round hole'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'I have been reading aloud Beauvilliers book of Cookery. I find as I suspected that garlic is power; not in its despotic shape but exercised with the geatest discretion'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'Get, and read, Macaulay's Papers upon the Indian courts and Indian Education. They are admirable for their talent and their honesty. We see why he was hated in India, and how honourable to him that hatred is'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'Have you read Macaulay's Lays? they are very much liked. I have read some but I abor all Grecian and Roman subjects'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'Did you ever read Pere Goriot by Balzac or La Messe de L'Athee they are very good and perfectly readable for ladies and clergymen'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'Did you ever read Pere Goriot by Balzac or La Messe de L'Athee they are very good and perfectly readable for ladies and clergymen'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'Read Travels in the East called Eothen, they are by a Mr Kinglake of Taunton a Chancery Barrister, and are written in a very lively manner; they will amuse Lord Grey who I presume is regularly read to every day'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'I think "Ireland and its Leaders" worth reading and beg of you to tell me who wrote it if you happen to know, for you though you call yourself solitary live much more in the world than I do while I am in the Country'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'Began, with a view of comparing notes, Macchiavel's "Historie Fiorentino"...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Read Hawkesworth's "Life of Swift"....'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Read the 1st Book of Macchievel's "Discorsi sopra Livio"...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Looked over Malone's "Enquiry into the Authenticity of Ireland's Shakesperian Papers"; a learned and decisive piece of criticism...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Finished the "Italian"...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Looked over the "Beggar's Opera". The slang of low iniquity, is happily given in this strange drama...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Finished Barrington's "Observations on the Ancient Statutes"; a well conceived and elaborate work...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Finished the "Memoirs of Grammont"; which exhibit, with less wit and spirit than I expected, a shameful picture of the voluptuousness, intrigues, and abandoned profligacy, of the Court of Charles II...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Finished the 'Novel of "Nourjahad" in the evening. Nothing, I think, can be more happily conceived for its purpose, than the plan of this little romance...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Began Dalrymple's "Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland"; and read the two introductory sections, containing a masterly review of our political affairs...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Read Haslam on Insanity....'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Read Mandeville's "Fable of the Bees", and his "Enquiry into the Origin of Virtue"...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Read Mandeville's "Fable of the Bees", and his "Enquiry into the Origin of Virtue"...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Dipped into Bacon's "Essays"; so pregnant with just, original, and striking observations on every topic which is touched, that I cannot select what pleases me most...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Finished Lord Bacon's Letters, edited by Birch. It is grievous to see this great man, who appears from various passages fully sensible of his vast powers and attainments, and impressed with a just confidence of the weight he would have with posterity, eternally cringing...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Read Cambridge's "Scribleriad". The mock heroic is well sustained throughout; but the Poem is deficient in broad humour...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'With Madame de Staal's Memoirs, so strongly praised by the excellent Baron Grimm, I was a good deal disappointed: she has nothing to tell and does not tell it very well. She is neither important, nor admirable for talents or virtues. Her life was not worth recording.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'I always tell you all the books worth notice that I read, and I rather counsel you to read Jacob's "Spain", a book with some good sense in it, and not unentertaining; also, by all means, the first volume of Franklin's Letters. I will disinherit you if you do not admire everything written by Franklin. In addition to all other good qualities, he was thoroughly honest'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'Brougham's pamphlet accidentally happens to be very dull. It is not of much importance but there was no absolute necessity for its being so. Wit and declamation would be misplaced, but a clever man may be bright and flowing while he is argumentative and prudent. He makes out a great case in general: and nobody would accuse Lord Lonsdale and the Bishop of undue precipitation if they were to make some sort of reply to the charge of particular delinquencies levelled against them'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith
'I recommend you to read Hall, Palmer, Fearon and Bradburys Travels in America, particularly "Fearon". There is nothing to me so curious and intersting as the rapidity with which they are spreading themselves over that vast continent'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'I recommend you to read Hall, Palmer, Fearon and Bradburys Travels in America, particularly "Fearon". There is nothing to me so curious and intersting as the rapidity with which they are spreading themselves over that vast continent'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'I recommend you to read Hall, Palmer, Fearon and Bradburys Travels in America, particularly "Fearon". There is nothing to me so curious and intersting as the rapidity with which they are spreading themselves over that vast continent'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'I recommend you to read Hall, Palmer, Fearon and Bradburys Travels in America, particularly "Fearon". There is nothing to me so curious and intersting as the rapidity with which they are spreading themselves over that vast continent'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'Looked into Marsh's "Michaelis"...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Finished Malone's "Life of Dryden", prefixed to an Edition of his Prose Works. By the drudgery of searching deeds, wills, genealogies, registers, and recods of all sorts, Malone has discovered some new facts, and detected a few mistakes, respecting Dryden and his Famly, of very little consequence...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Read Daines Barrington's curious "Observations on the Notes of Birds"...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Read Mrs. Radcliffe's "Tour to the Lakes". Much might be expected from this Lady's well known powers of description, exerted on so congenial a theme...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'I have been reading Galiani's correspondence. I had no conception that Abbes and ladies wrote to each other in such a style and feel ashamed of my Simplicity and innocence'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'I have read Galiani's letters, but they are so utterly insignificant, that there is nothing more to be said of them than that they are not worth speaking about. I scarcely ever read a more insignificant collection of letters'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
Elizabeth Missing Sewell, in letter to '_____', from Albano, April 1861 [re Remains of Roman theatre at Tusculum]:
'The seats of this Theatre are quite perfect [...] We sat down there, and L -- read out Macaulay's Lay of the Battle of Lake Regillus.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: L anon Print: Book
'I think Adam Blair beautifully done?quite beautifully. It is not every lady who confesses she reads it; but if you had been silent upon the subject, or even if you had denied it, you would have done yourself very little good with me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'Have you read Mathilda? If you have, you will not tell me what you think of it, you are as cautious as Wishaw. I mentioned to Lord Normanby, that it was the book selected as a victim for the next No of the Edinburgh Review, and that my brethren had complimented me with the Knife?Lady Normanby gave a loud shriek.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'I have been reading the Duke of Rovigo - a fool, a Villain, and as dull as it is possible for any book to be about Buonaparte'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'You must get La Peyrouse's Voyage - and Vancouver's, and a book just come out on practical education by a Mr Edgeworth - [italics] Edgeworth on Practical Education [end italics] i vol. 4to I believe. It is written conjointly by Father and daughter, and is the result of 20 years reflection and Experiment. I have heard some extracts from it which delighted me very much'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'...Sir Joshua Reynolds's Lectures. Mitford's History of Greece. Orme's History of Hindoostan. Vertot's Revolutions of Portugal and Sweden. Bossuet's Oraisons Funebres, Petit Careme de Massillon. Select Sermons of Dr Barrow. Burke's Settlement of the English Colonies in America. Alison on Taste.
The first book, though written on painting, full of all wisdom. The second, a good history. The third, highly entertaining, fourth ditto. The fifth, a splendid example of sound eloquence. The sixth, piety, pure language, fine style. The seventh, lofty eloquence. The eighth, neat and philosophical. The ninth, feeling and eloquence. Here I think is is much wisdom as you can get for eight guineas. But remember to consult your family physician, your mother. I only know the general powers of these medicines; but she will determine their adaptation to your particular constitution'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'...Sir Joshua Reynolds's Lectures. Mitford's History of Greece. Orme's History of Hindoostan. Vertot's Revolutions of Portugal and Sweden. Bossuet's Oraisons Funebres, Petit Careme de Massillon. Select Sermons of Dr Barrow. Burke's Settlement of the English Colonies in America. Alison on Taste.
The first book, though written on painting, full of all wisdom. The second, a good history. The third, highly entertaining, fourth ditto. The fifth, a splendid example of sound eloquence. The sixth, piety, pure language, fine style. The seventh, lofty eloquence. The eighth, neat and philosophical. The ninth, feeling and eloquence. Here I think is is much wisdom as you can get for eight guineas. But remember to consult your family physician, your mother. I only know the general powers of these medicines; but she will determine their adaptation to your particular constitution'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Unknown
'I have just been reading Allen's account of your Administration. Very well done, for the cautious and decorous style; but it is really quite shameful that a good stout answer has not been written to your calumniators'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Serial / periodical
'It was my intention to review Ferriar's "Theory of Apparitions"; but it is such a null, frivolous book, that it is impossible to take any notice of it'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'M. reads Miss Bailey's plays'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'S. reads Bryan Edwards History of the West Indies. M. reads Ethwald and eats oranges - in the evening Shelley reads aloud the view of the French Revolution for a short time'.
[text as far as Ethwald in PBS' hand, thereafter MG]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'S. reads Bryan Edwards History of the West Indies. M. reads Ethwald and eats oranges - in the evening Shelley reads aloud the view of the French Revolution for a short time'.
[text as far as Ethwald in PBS' hand, thereafter MG]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'In the afternoon read Miss Bailie's plays'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Not very well - Shelley very unwell - read de Montfort - and talk with S. in the evening read View of the French Revolution'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read some of Kirke White's letters - slavish beyond all measure - begin History of the West Indies by Bryan Edwards'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Read Bryan Edwards's account of the West Indies'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read Bryan Edwards all evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
"Consider what Lord Bacon says: 'Sense sends over to Imagination before Reason have judged...See Advancement of Learning, Part 2, P.47 of first Edition".
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake Print: Book
[italics]'S. Livy p.532 - Cumis, (adeo minimis etiam rebum prava religio inserit Deos) mures in aede Jovis aurum rosisse 556. 2 vol. Maie says that if we had met the Emperor Julian in private life he would have appeared a very ordinary man The fables of Aesop in Greek. - Boethius consolation of philosophy - how in the reign of Theodoric [underlined] a Christian? [end underlining] gr - Lord Bacon's works - Gibbon likes Boethius - [end italics] Mary reads Gibbon (100).'
[italic text is by PBS, non-italic by MG]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'read Corinne (42)'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Rise - talk and read Corinne' / 'nurse the baby and read Corinne'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Have you ever read Alroy by Disraeli?' [includes quotations from Alroy].
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'I have read Bragelonne'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'At present I am going for Macaulay's History and no novels at all.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
.'.. poor old Jack Sheppard. I doubt not Ainsworth meant to be moral.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'All the reading up is Macaulay, p.530 to 535 and then p. 616 to 630'. [The context of the reference suggests the text is Macaulay's History of England. RLS has been referring to pages 530-535, and 616-630 in his research for the play he is writing entitled Monmouth.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'Hogg reads the life of Goldoni aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Jefferson Hogg Print: Book
'[italics to indicate Shelley's hand] S. has read the life of Chaucer - Ochley's History of the Saracens. Mad. du Stael sur la litteratur - to page 113. of the third Vol. of Livy. [end italics]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'read le diable boiteux [...] in the evening read le diable boiteux and play at chess'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read Ovid with Hogg (fin. 2nd fable). Shelley reads Gibbon and pastor fido with Clary - in the evening read Esprit des Nations (72). S. reads Pastor Fido (102) and Gibbon (vol 12 - 364) and the story of Myrrha in Ovid'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Shelley and Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'[italics to denote Shelley's hand] Mary reads the 3rd fable of ovid. S & Clare read Pastor Fido. S. Reads Gibbon - (To recollect the life of Rienzi - Fortifiocca)[end italics]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Shelley and Claire Clairmont Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James IIThe Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James IIThe Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin
"Bacon & Newton would prescribe ways of making the world heavier to me, & Pitt would prescribe distress for a Medical potion;" in same letter he talks about Mr Hayley's library being nearly finished. Letter to Thomas Butts. Letter 31. 11th September 1801.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley - again, only those not mentioned in journal entries are indicated separately in the database]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Metamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley - again, only those not mentioned in journal entries are indicated separately in the database]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Metamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Percy Shelley's Reading List for 1815, compiled by Mary Shelley. Only texts not referred to in journal entries are given separate database entries here]
'Pastor Fido
Orlando Furioso
Livy's History
Seneca's Works
Tasso's Girusalame Liberata
Tassos Aminta
2 vols of Plutarch in Italian
Some of the plays of Euripedes
Seneca's Tragedies
Reveries of Rousseau
Hesiod
Novum Organum
Alfieri's Tragedies
Theocritus
Ossian
Herodotus
Thucydides
Homer
Locke on the Human Understanding
Conspiration de Rienzi
History of arianism
Ochley's History of the Saracens
Mad. de Stael sur la literature'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Percy Shelley's Reading List for 1815, compiled by Mary Shelley. Only texts not referred to in journal entries are given separate database entries here]
'Pastor Fido
Orlando Furioso
Livy's History
Seneca's Works
Tasso's Girusalame Liberata
Tassos Aminta
2 vols of Plutarch in Italian
Some of the plays of Euripedes
Seneca's Tragedies
Reveries of Rousseau
Hesiod
Novum Organum
Alfieri's Tragedies
Theocritus
Ossian
Herodotus
Thucydides
Homer
Locke on the Human Understanding
Conspiration de Rienzi
History of arianism
Ochley's History of the Saracens
Mad. de Stael sur la literature'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Percy Shelley's Reading List for 1815, compiled by Mary Shelley. Only texts not referred to in journal entries are given separate database entries here]
'Pastor Fido
Orlando Furioso
Livy's History
Seneca's Works
Tasso's Girusalame Liberata
Tassos Aminta
2 vols of Plutarch in Italian
Some of the plays of Euripedes
Seneca's Tragedies
Reveries of Rousseau
Hesiod
Novum Organum
Alfieri's Tragedies
Theocritus
Ossian
Herodotus
Thucydides
Homer
Locke on the Human Understanding
Conspiration de Rienzi
History of arianism
Ochley's History of the Saracens
Mad. de Stael sur la literature'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1816. The diary from May 1815-July 1816 is lost, so this list is our only record for Mary's reading in early 1816. Later in the year texts are referred to in diary entries so as far as possible these works are not given separate database references based on this list. An x marks the fact that Percy Shelley read the book too.]
x Moritz' tour in England
Tales of the Minstrels
x Park's Journal of a Journey in Africa
Peregrine Proteus
x Siege of Corinth & Parasina.
4 vols. of Clarendon's History
x Modern Philosophers
opinions of Various writers on the punishment of death by B. Montagu
Erskines speeches
x Caleb Williams
x 3rd Canto of Childe Harold
Schiller's arminian
Lady Craven's Leters
Caliste
Nouvelle nouvelles
Romans de Voltaire
Reveries d'un Solitaire de Rousseau
Adele et Theodore
x Lettres Persannes de Montesquieu
Tableau de Famille
Le vieux de la Montagne
x Conjuration de Rienzi
Walther par La Fontaine
Les voeux temeraires
Herman d'Una
Nouveaux nouvelles de Mad. de Genlis
x Christabel
Caroline de Litchfield
x Bertram
x Le Criminel se[c]ret
Vancenza by Mrs Robinson
Antiquary
x Edinburgh Review num. LII
Chrononhotonthologus
x Fazio
Love and Madness
Memoirs of Princess of Bareith
x Letters of Emile
The latter part of Clarissa Harlowe
Clarendons History of the Civil War
x Life of Holcroft
x Glenarvon
Patronage
The Milesian Chief.
O'Donnel
x Don Quixote
x Vita Alexandri - Quintii Curtii
Conspiration de Rienzi
Introduction to Davy's Chemistry
Les Incas de Marmontel
Bryan Perdue
Sir C. Grandison
x Castle Rackrent
x Gulliver's Travels
x Paradise Lost
x Pamela
x 3 vol of Gibbon
1 book of Locke's Essay
Some of Horace's odes
x Edinburgh Review L.III
Rights of Women
De senectute by Cicero
2 vols of Lord Chesterfield's leters to his son
x Story of Rimini'
'Pastor Fido
Orlando Furioso
Livy's History
Seneca's Works
Tasso's Girusalame Liberata
Tassos Aminta
2 vols of Plutarch in Italian
Some of the plays of Euripedes
Seneca's Tragedies
Reveries of Rousseau
Hesiod
Novum Organum
Alfieri's Tragedies
Theocritus
Ossian
Herodotus
Thucydides
Homer
Locke on the Human Understanding
Conspiration de Rienzi
History of arianism
Ochley's History of the Saracens
Mad. de Stael sur la literature'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
[italics to indicate PB Shelley's hand] 'In the evening I walk alone a long way by the lake. Read Julie all day [end italics]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read ten pages of Quintius Curtius and Rousseau's reveries'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Read twelve page[s] of Curt. write - & read the reveries of Rousseau - S. reads Pliny's Letters'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'I read Reveries and Adele & Teodore de Mad.me de Genlis & Shelley reads Pliny's letters'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Shelley's 24th birthday. Write read [underlined] tableau de famille [end underlining] - go out with Shelley in the boat & read aloud to him the fourth book of Virgil - after dinner we go up to Diodati but return soon - I read Curt. with Shelley and finish the 1st vol. after which we go out in the boat to set up the baloon but there is too much wind. We set it up from the land but it takes fire as soon as it is up - I finish the Reveries of Rousseau. Shelley reads and finishes Pliny's letters. & begins the panegyric of Trajan'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'I translate in the evening and read le vieux de la Montagne'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read le vieux de la montagne and write'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'finish the old man of the mountains - translate & read one book of the conjuration de Rienzi'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'finish the old man of the mountains - translate & read one book of the conjuration de Rienzi'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read Walther and some of Rienzi'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
Letter to Miss Ewing April 18, 1779 'I do not know whether you will view this in the same light, but I think it is the most affecting and heroic instance of true friendship I have met with in real life. One can?t help comparing it with the lively and impressive portrait Rousseau draws of Clara and Eloisa.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Letter to Miss Ourry January 2 1794 'Then I have not put B. to school , or done half of what I meant.- I have seen Mary Wollstonecroft?s book, which is so run after here, that there is no keeping it long enough to read it leisurely, though one had leisure. It has produced no other convictions in my mind, but that of the authors possessing considerable abilities, and greatly misapplying them. To refute her arguments would be to write another and a larger book; for there is more pains and skill required to refute ill-founded assertions, than to make them. [and again on p. 272] 'Where a woman had those superior powers of mind to which we give the name genius, she will exert them under all disadvantages: Jean Jacques says truly, genius will educate itself, and, like flame, burst through all obstructions ?. [p. 268-277 is a criticism of Mary Wollstonecroft's work ]'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Letter to Mrs F--R (formerly Miss Ourry) April 11 1795 ??Innovation disconcerts us; new lights blind us; we detest the Rights of Man, and abominate those of Woman. Think then how I am prepared to receive your friend H.M.W.?s* new publication; though I admire her style, and confess that nobody embellishes absurdity more ingeniously. I am greatly inclined too to respect the purity of religious principles. Yet when I think of the associates with whom her political bigotry has connected her, I think I hear the Syrian leper entreating the prophet?s permission to bow a little occasionally in the house of their god Rimmon. [footnote] *Helen Maria Williams before she forsook her country and her principles'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Letter to Mrs Macintosh October 3 1796 'Have you read Lord Gardenstone?s Sketches, or detailed observations, I believe they are? It is very much the kind of reading that you like. I never met with one who thought exactly as I do of Shakspear, of David Hume, and of Queen Mary, but he. In politics we should never agree, I am &c., &c.? '
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
'Finish "les voeux temeraires" - write and read Rienzi'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read Hermann d'Unna'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'finish Hermann d'Unna and write - Shelley reads Milton - After dinner Lord Byron comes down and Clare and Shelley go up to Diodati - Read Rienzi'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'finish Hermann d'Unna and write - Shelley reads Milton - After dinner Lord Byron comes down and Clare and Shelley go up to Diodati - Read Rienzi'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read "Contes moreaux de Marmotel - Shelley reads the Germania of Tacitus'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Write & read "Contes Moreaux" - go down to the side of the lake to watch the waves - Lord Byron comes down - after dinner read Rienzi'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Write & read "Contes Moreaux" - go down to the side of the lake to watch the waves - Lord Byron comes down - after dinner read Rienzi'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Finish "Caroline of Litchfield" and "Marmotel's tales". Read Bertram and Christabel and several articles of the quarterly review'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read Chrononhotonthologus'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Read Fazio - Love and madness. & some of Rienzi - work - in the evening finish the antiquary'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Read Fazio - Love and madness. & some of Rienzi - work - in the evening finish the antiquary'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'In the evening read the letters of Emile'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'finish the letters of Emile and read a part of Clarissa Harlowe'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read Vol VII of Clarissa - Shelley reads the letters of Emile'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Clarendon all day - Shelley writes to Albe [Byron] and other things - he finishes Lacratelle's history of the French Revolution - we walk out for a short time after dinner S. reads Lucian'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Clarendon - finish the life of Holcroft - read Glenarvon in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Not well - read Glenarvon all day and finish it'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Yesterday came out the King's Declaracion of war against the French; but with such mild invitations of both them and [the] Dutch to come over hither, with promise of their protection, that everybody wonders at it.'
Editorial note: The passage Pepys remarks on runs 'We do declare, That if any of the French or Low-Country Subjects, out of affection to Us or our Government, or because of the oppression they meet with at home, shall come into Our Kingdomes, they shall be by Us protected in Their Persons and Estates, and especially those of the Reformed Religion...'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Broadsheet
'Thence to walk all alone in the fields behind Grays Inne, making an end of reading over my dear "Faber Fortunae" of my Lord Bacon's'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'Yes I know Sudermann ? his play ?Magda? was one of Mrs Pat. Campbell?s great parts ? and I believe he was the author of a book called ?The Song of Songs? that Billie Wood lent me ? and that I was shocked to find you reading. I have just got through Susan Glaspell?s ?Road to the Temple?, and C.E.Montague?s ?Right off the Map?. For lighter reading I?ve had Rose Macauley?s ? Keeping up Appearances?, and I?m reading all sorts of things about Shelley for my possible literature class. The present one is ?Shelley and the Unromantics?. The author lives in Birkenhead.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Winifred Agnes Moore Print: Book
'Yes I know Sudermann ? his play ?Magda? was one of Mrs Pat. Campbell?s great parts ? and I believe he was the author of a book called ?The Song of Songs? that Billie Wood lent me ? and that I was shocked to find you reading. I have just got through Susan Glaspell?s ?Road to the Temple?, and C.E.Montague?s ?Right off the Map?. For lighter reading I?ve had Rose Macauley?s ? Keeping up Appearances?, and I?m reading all sorts of things about Shelley for my possible literature class. The present one is ?Shelley and the Unromantics?. The author lives in Birkenhead.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Winifred Agnes Moore Print: Book
'Yes I know Sudermann ? his play ?Magda? was one of Mrs Pat. Campbell?s great parts ? and I believe he was the author of a book called ?The Song of Songs? that Billie Wood lent me ? and that I was shocked to find you reading. I have just got through Susan Glaspell?s ?Road to the Temple?, and C.E.Montague?s ?Right off the Map?. For lighter reading I?ve had Rose Macauley?s ? Keeping up Appearances?, and I?m reading all sorts of things about Shelley for my possible literature class. The present one is ?Shelley and the Unromantics?. The author lives in Birkenhead.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Winifred Agnes Moore Print: Book
'I am at present reading Julian Benda?s ?Belphegor?, a plea for a return to intellectual standards as against the Bergson, R?guy, Claudel, crowd ? and I?m with him all the time. You should try to get his ?La trahison des clercs? ? it has a great vogue here. It?s a book I should like to have myself, in French.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Winifred Agnes Moore Print: Book
'I am really appreciating all the books and seem at the moment to be reading only French. I have not by any means exhausted them yet. ?Mahatma Gandhi? I am reading at the moment, but someone yesterday lent me Katherine Mayo?s ?Mother India?, and all my thoughts are boulevers?es [upset] by the horrors she pictures.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Winifred Agnes Moore Print: Book
'I am busy also getting through the Keynes book, and chuckling over the fact that he wrote this book to make clear that Cambridge and London were a bit archaic as to the fundamentals of their economics. I stood for an hour arguing the main thesis (of course not worked out) with Harold one night at Euston. He had to walk home to Battersea Park in consequence.
A year or so before I had covered reams with letters of vituperation against Prof: Pigou, till Stanley became furious ? also on the point. I don?t think it should need so large a book to get it over, I am also going to read Dodsworth when Gerry isn?t looking.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Winifred Agnes Moore Print: Book
'I have just read Gabouis ?Perfide Albion ? Entente Cordial?, quite good and informative ? this in English from the local library, and in French ?Les Anges Noirs? de Mauriac. Also Alexander Werth?s ?Before Munich? and a collection of the speeches of Daladier 1934 ? 1940, (these in English). At the moment I have ?Rond Point des Champs Elys?es? de Paul Maraud, and ?The French at Home? of Philip Carr.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Winifred Agnes Moore Print: Book
'Now about my reading, -- I have L?on Daudet?s ?Clemenceau?. The book is more interesting to me for the light it throws on L?on Daudet than on its subject ? a person (Clemenceau) that I find thoroughly repugnant. I suppose I ought to read Ren? Benjamin?s ?life?, as I heard him lecture on it at Bordeaux, but certainly I do not find the ?Tiger? a pleasant person in any way at all. But I find Daudet rather attractive, and indeed surprisingly reasonable in his criticism of people whose politics must have been the opposite of his own. The exception is Briand, but I cannot imagine any human being so disgusting as the person described by Daudet under that name ? it is impossible. Malvy and Caillaux also get it hot. But there are descriptions of the Goncourt group which I liked very much, and altogether I enjoyed the ?Frenchness? of the writer.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Winifred Agnes Moore Print: Book
'When I first ventured to write a sentence for publication, having a deep sense of my profound ignorance of the rules of punctuation, I applied myself to the study of Lindley Murray's grammar -- then the one accepted authority for English people. He gave seventeen rules for the right placing of the comma, and I thought it my duty to endeavour to master them. But my patience did not hold out [...] I threw aside the seventeen rules of punctuation, and in their stead placed on one mental page the simple definitions of the respective values of periods, colons, semi-colons, and commas which I had learnt as a child, and then took which ever common sense and observation pointed out as suitable to my purpose; and in the end I found that I had escaped any special criticism.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East - [including] .. Strachey's "Narrative History of Persia" ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone Print: Book
'Write - read Davy - In the evening read Curt. and Les Incas'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read Les Incas - Shelley reads Montaigne'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'work in the evening - & read Les Incas'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'and so to Deptford to enquire after a little business there; and thence by water back again, all the way coming and going reading my Lord Bacon's "Faber Fortunae", which I can never read too often.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'I left them there and walked to Deptford, reading in Wallsinghams "manuall", a very good book.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'and so away home by water, with more and more pleasure every time, I reading over my Lord Bacon's "Faber Fortunae".'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East ... : not much of books not connected with India. ... ;one book of Machiavelli's "History"; a novel and play of his ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone Print: Book
'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East ... : not much of books not connected with India. ... ; I also read all Bacon's "Essays" ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone Print: Book
'So home to dinner, and to discourse with my brother upon his translation of my Lord Bacon's "Faber Fortunae" which I gave him to do; and he hath done it but meanly, I am not pleased with it at all - having done it only literally, but without any life at all.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: John Pepys Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1816. The diary from May 1815-July 1816 is lost, so this list is our only record for Mary's reading in early 1816. Later in the year texts are referred to in diary entries so as far as possible these works are not given separate database references based on this list. An x marks the fact that Percy Shelley read the book too.]
x Moritz' tour in England
Tales of the Minstrels
x Park's Journal of a Journey in Africa
Peregrine Proteus
x Siege of Corinth & Parasina.
4 vols. of Clarendon's History
x Modern Philosophers
opinions of Various writers on the punishment of death by B. Montagu
Erskines speeches
x Caleb Williams
x 3rd Canto of Childe Harold
Schiller's arminian
Lady Craven's Leters
Caliste
Nouvelle nouvelles
Romans de Voltaire
Reveries d'un Solitaire de Rousseau
Adele et Theodore
x Lettres Persannes de Montesquieu
Tableau de Famille
Le vieux de la Montagne
x Conjuration de Rienzi
Walther par La Fontaine
Les voeux temeraires
Herman d'Una
Nouveaux nouvelles de Mad. de Genlis
x Christabel
Caroline de Litchfield
x Bertram
x Le Criminel se[c]ret
Vancenza by Mrs Robinson
Antiquary
x Edinburgh Review num. LII
Chrononhotonthologus
x Fazio
Love and Madness
Memoirs of Princess of Bareith
x Letters of Emile
The latter part of Clarissa Harlowe
Clarendons History of the Civil War
x Life of Holcroft
x Glenarvon
Patronage
The Milesian Chief.
O'Donnel
x Don Quixote
x Vita Alexandri - Quintii Curtii
Conspiration de Rienzi
Introduction to Davy's Chemistry
Les Incas de Marmontel
Bryan Perdue
Sir C. Grandison
x Castle Rackrent
x Gulliver's Travels
x Paradise Lost
x Pamela
x 3 vol of Gibbon
1 book of Locke's Essay
Some of Horace's odes
x Edinburgh Review L.III
Rights of Women
De senectute by Cicero
2 vols of Lord Chesterfield's leters to his son
x Story of Rimini'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1816. The diary from May 1815-July 1816 is lost, so this list is our only record for Mary's reading in early 1816. Later in the year texts are referred to in diary entries so as far as possible these works are not given separate database references based on this list. An x marks the fact that Percy Shelley read the book too.]
x Moritz' tour in England
Tales of the Minstrels
x Park's Journal of a Journey in Africa
Peregrine Proteus
x Siege of Corinth & Parasina.
4 vols. of Clarendon's History
x Modern Philosophers
opinions of Various writers on the punishment of death by B. Montagu
Erskines speeches
x Caleb Williams
x 3rd Canto of Childe Harold
Schiller's arminian
Lady Craven's Leters
Caliste
Nouvelle nouvelles
Romans de Voltaire
Reveries d'un Solitaire de Rousseau
Adele et Theodore
x Lettres Persannes de Montesquieu
Tableau de Famille
Le vieux de la Montagne
x Conjuration de Rienzi
Walther par La Fontaine
Les voeux temeraires
Herman d'Una
Nouveaux nouvelles de Mad. de Genlis
x Christabel
Caroline de Litchfield
x Bertram
x Le Criminel se[c]ret
Vancenza by Mrs Robinson
Antiquary
x Edinburgh Review num. LII
Chrononhotonthologus
x Fazio
Love and Madness
Memoirs of Princess of Bareith
x Letters of Emile
The latter part of Clarissa Harlowe
Clarendons History of the Civil War
x Life of Holcroft
x Glenarvon
Patronage
The Milesian Chief.
O'Donnel
x Don Quixote
x Vita Alexandri - Quintii Curtii
Conspiration de Rienzi
Introduction to Davy's Chemistry
Les Incas de Marmontel
Bryan Perdue
Sir C. Grandison
x Castle Rackrent
x Gulliver's Travels
x Paradise Lost
x Pamela
x 3 vol of Gibbon
1 book of Locke's Essay
Some of Horace's odes
x Edinburgh Review L.III
Rights of Women
De senectute by Cicero
2 vols of Lord Chesterfield's leters to his son
x Story of Rimini'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'read several papers in the Spectator - Locke - And Memoirs of Count Gramont'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East...: not much of books not connected with India [but included] Aitkin's "Essay on the Use of Natural History" ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone Print: Book
'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East...: not much of books not connected with India [but included] ... In poetry, ... a great deal of Fontaine ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone Print: Book
'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East...: not much of books not connected with India [but included] ...; all Boileau's "Satires", and a good number of his "Epistles", and "Mithridate". ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone Print: Book
'And a little to my Lord Chancellors, where the King and Cabinet met, and there met Mr Brisband, with whom good discourse; to White-hall towards night, and there he did lend me the "Third Advice to a paynter", a bitter Satyr upon the service of the Duke of Albemarle the last year. I took it home with me and will copy it, having the former - being also mightily pleased with it. So after reading it, I to Sir W. Penn to discourse a little'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Manuscript: Unknown
'This day in the barge I took Berchensha's translation of Alsted his "Templum"; but the most ridiculous book, as he hath translated it, that I ever saw in my life; I declaring that I understood not three lines together, from one end of the book to the other.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'and then by water down to Greenwich and thence walked to Woolwich, all the way reading Playfords "Introduction to Musique", wherein are some things very pretty.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'So home to look on my new books that I have lately bought; and then to supper and to bed.'
Pepys records the following in his diary the previous day (15 April): 'Thence I to my new bookseller's and there bought Hookers "Policy", the new edition, and Dugdale's history of the Inn's of Court, of which there was but a few saved out of the Fire - and Playford's new sketch-book, that hath a great many new fooleries in it.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East ... not much of books not connected with India. ... [but included] ; an abstract of St. Pierre's "Etudes de la Nature"; ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone Print: Book
'Read Beaumonts Hermophroditus [sic]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Not well - read the Martial Maid & the Wild goose chase of Beaumont and Fletcher'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Not well - read the Martial Maid & the Wild goose chase of Beaumont and Fletcher'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Pliny - transcribe - read Clarke's travels - Shelley writes and reads Apuleius and Spencer in the evening'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'read Pliny and Clarkes travels - Shelley writes his poem [The Revolt of Islam] - reads Hist. of Fr. Rev. and Spencer aloud in the evening'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads St Helena Manuscript'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Tacitus and St Helena manuscript'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish the 1st book of Tacitus - become unwell - read Davis's travels in america - Godwins cursory strictures - reply to the attacks of Dr Parr'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Tacitus and Julie'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Julie - S reads Homer'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Tacitus - Clarkes travels - transcribe for S. - S writes - reads several of the plays of Aeschylus and Spencer aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Shelley writes - reads Plato's Convivium - Gibbon aloud - Read several of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read a little of Tacitus - Several of Beaumont and Fletchers Plays - S. reads Volpone and the Alchymist aloud and begins Lalla Rookh'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'... et lisais les Contes Drolatiqe de nostre feu Maistre de Balzac ...' [and I was reading the amusing stories of our master Balzac]
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'I have been reading...Calvin.'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson
'Finish the 11th book of Tacitus - Read some of Beaumont & X Fletchers plays - work - S. write - reads some of the plays of Sophocles - & Antony & Cleopatra of Shakespeare and Othello aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'I am confined Teusday 2nd. Read Rhoda - Pastors Fire Side - Missionary - Wild Irish Girls - The Anaconda. Glenarvon - 1st Vol Percy's Northern antiquities'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read St. Leon aloud. Read Davis's travels in america - Tacitus'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'write the trans. of Spinoza from S's dictation; translate Cupid & Psyche - read Tacitus and Rousseau's confessions'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Rousseau's letters.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish Rousseau's letters'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Dante'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'read Dante - finish Lambs specimens. walk to Mr Olliers. read Zapolya'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'I read Tacitus - 3 of Hume's essays VIII IX X - some of the German theatre - write - walk - Shelleys [sic] reads Political Justice & 8 Cantos of his poem.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. finishes reading his poem aloud. - read from the German theatre'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'I feel that I can struggle on without Madame de Stael; but 'Adolphe' is an undiluted masterpiece.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Unknown
'Read the little thief - walk. S reads "France".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 2nd book of the Aeneid - read Dr Clarke's travels'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read part of the 7th book of Virgil - walk - finish the 3rd vol of Clarke'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Orage has sent me your communication as to Frank Harris. Naturally I was the reviewer. Harris was much moved by the review, & came down to see me. He is certainly one of the most extraordinary men I ever met.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'I made the mistake of reading your Shakespeare play before your Shakespeare criticism. So I had to read the play again. I cannot expertly criticize the critical book because I don?t know enough. . . . What of Coleridge I have ever had the patience to read is not to be compared to it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown
'I made the mistake of reading your Shakespeare play before your Shakespeare criticism. So I had to read the play again. I cannot expertly criticize the critical book because I don?t know enough. . . . What of Coleridge I have ever had the patience to read is not to be compared to it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown
'I got your book & letter this morning, & another letter on Friday. To my regret I have already swallowed the book, & as we go to Switzerland tomorrow . . . I write at once. I think the book in the main wonderful, & I read it greedily.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'Has it ever occurred to you what a fine story, really, "The Procurator of Judaea" might have been if Anatole France had possessed in any degree the gift of construction?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'Read Aminta with Shelley - he reads Vita del Tasso'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Shelley has finished the life of Tasso & reads Dante - read Pamela'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Shelley has finished the life of Tasso & reads Dante - read Pamela'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'begin Clarissa Harlowe in Italian - S. reads and finishes Dante's Purgatorio'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. unwell - he reads the Paradiso'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Clare reads the memoir of Madme Ma[n]son aloud to us'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'read Aristippus of Wieland - Shelley read[s] Rob Roy'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'and so away presently very merry, and fell to reading of the several "Advices to a Painter", which made us good sport; and endeed are very witty'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'Read 1st ode of Horace - Aristippe'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Les Abderites. S. finishes Aristippe'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Les Abderites. S. finishes Aristippe'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Shelley reads Manso's life of Tasso'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Mille et un nuits'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 2nd Canto of Oriosto [sic] & Mille et une nuits in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'He [Frank Harris] has written a book drawing the character of Shakespeare from the plays. Part of it has been privately printed, & it seems to me the most remarkable exegetical work of the kind ever done.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'I have also been making a study of "The Country House". You are one of the most cruel writers that ever wrote English. This statement I will die for. I don't know what made me read the book again . . . I need not inform you that I tinglingly admire your stuff and it enormously "intrigues" me. But I do seriously object to your attitude towards your leading characters.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'Only, here I met with a fourth "Advice to the painter", upon the coming in of the Dutch to the River and end of the war, that made my heart ake to read, it being too sharp and so true.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'There is nothing whatever of serious or permanent value in anything that Rostand ever wrote.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett
'and there however I got her to read to me the "History of Algier", which I find a very pretty book.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Pepys Print: Book
'I read to her out of the "History of Algiers", which is mighty pretty reading'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'making the boy read to me the life of Julius Caesar and Des Cartes book of music - the latter of which I understand not, nor think he did well that writ it, though a most learned man.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'I have already [read] The Song of Songs , and commented on it, a long time ago. As to the translation let me tell you at once what I think. It is a bad translation . . . '
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'I have read your prodigious & all-embracing "Love?s Pilgrimage". I should very strongly resent its being censored in England. It deals candidly, here and there, with sundry aspects of life which are not usually dealt with in English fiction, but which are dealt with quite as a matter of course in the fiction of all other countries except the United States.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'Read 37 Canto - Virgil - & Perigrine Proteus'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'finish the first book of Horace's odes - S reads and translates Plato's Symposium - he reads Peregrinus Proteus and Hume's England aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. translates the Symposium and reads the Maid's Tragedy of Beaumont'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read 42nd Canto - Livy - Anacharsis. Horace - and Shakespears Coriolanus - S. translates the Symposium & reads Philaster'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. translates the Symposium - & reads a king and no king'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. translates the Symposium - and reads a part of it to me - he reads the Laws of Candy'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Wednesday August 24th. Read Abbe Bar[ruel]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Thursday Aug-- 25th. Get up late [...] Go to the large & only boutique in Brunnen with [P. B.]
Shelley -- Remove [to] the house on the hill [...] Read Abbe Bar[ruel]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Friday August 26th. Boring Morning [...] Read Abbe Bar[ruel]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
From Claire Clairmont's account of voyage back from Switzerland to England with P. B. Shelley
and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin during 1814:
'Friday September 9th. [...] Read Sophie [i.e. Rousseau's Emile; goes on to quote and discuss
passage from this].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
From Claire Clairmont's account of voyage back from Switzerland to England with P. B. Shelley
and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin during 1814:
'Saturday Sept. 10th. [...] Breakfast with our Companions -- Write -- Read Emile -- Write a
story'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Thursday Sept. 15th. Read Emile -- Write i[n] my Common Place Book [...] Shelley reads us
the Ancient Mariner [...] Read in the Excursion -- the Story of Margaret very beautiful.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Friday Sept. 16th. Rise at nine -- Breakfast -- Read Rasselas -- & De l'origine de l'inegalite
[d]es Hommes'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday Sept. 18. Rise late. Read Emile.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday Sept. 19th. Rise late [...] Read the Curse of Kehama & Emile [...] Read the [S]orcerer &
Political Justice. Admire the Sorcerer very much'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Tuesday Sept. 20th. Rise late [...] Read Emile [...] Dine at Seven -- Shelley reads aloud
Thalaba till Bed time.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday Oct. 9th. [...] Read Political Justice [...] Shelley reads aloud part of Abbe Barruel
about the Illuminati'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Tuesday Oct. 11th. [...] Shelley reads [a]loud Abbe Barruel -- the Illuminati [...] read Political
Justice & talk with Shelley over the fire till -- 12 o'clock.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Wednesday Oct. 12 -- [...] Return [from Newgate Street] to dinner at six. Read Abbe Barruel.
To bed at ten.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday Oct 31st [...] Get up at nine. Breakfast. Read a Canto of Queen Mab & Louvet's
Memoirs. I am much interested in Louvet -- but like all French men he is so intolerably full of
himself & never lets the reader find out the merit he may possess [goes on to discuss this text
further, before recording activities later in day] [...] Sit up till eleven reading Louvet's
Memoirs. I never remember be more interested in any book [sic]. So many fine instances of
individual republican spirits displayed -- so many generous Women -- such constancy in
misfortune.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday Oct 31st [...] Get up at nine. Breakfast. Read a Canto of Queen Mab & Louvet's
Memoirs. I am much interested in Louvet -- but like all French men he is so intolerably full of
himself & never lets the reader find out the merit he may possess [goes on to discuss this text
further, before recording activities later in day] [...] Sit up till eleven reading Louvet's
Memoirs. I never remember be more interested in any book [sic]. So many fine instances of
individual republican spirits displayed -- so many generous Women -- such constancy in
misfortune.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Tuesday Nov. 1st. [...] Breakfast. Read Louvet's Memoirs.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Friday Nov. 4th. Rise at nine. Finish a novel called Manfrone or the one handed monk by
Mrs. Radcliffe.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Tuesday Nov. 8th. Rise at nine -- Read through the Man of Feeling who would have just suited
Fanny [Godwin] for a husband [...] [Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin] dines at two & goes to meet
Shelley [...] Read Political Justice [...] Read Paul & Virginia -- in the Evening. I admire the
descriptions [...] The Story is [...] in itself trifling & uninteresting -- the speeches and Characters
are inflated and unnatural.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday [...] May 1st. [...] Read 1st Canto of Dante's Paradiso'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday May [...] 2nd Rainy -- Read Floris & Fleur Blanche [sic] -- Cleomades et Clarimonde et Pierre de Provence et la Belle Maguelone -- Also 1st Chapter of Winkelmann [sic]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday May 16th. Read 4 Canto's [sic] of Dante's Purgatorio.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday May 17th. [...] Read 5th. 6th. 7th. & 8 Canto of Dante's Purgatorio.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Tuesday May 18th. [...] Read Alfieri's Tragedy of Mirra [...] Read 9 & 10th Canto of Dante's Purgatorio.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday May 19th. [...] Read 11th. & 12th. Cantos of Purgatorio [...] '.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Thursday May 20th. Read 13th. 14th. 15th. & 16th Cantos of Dante's Purgatorio.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday May 29th. [...] Read Tableau de Societe de P-- [...] Le Baune [sic].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday Jany. 29th. [...] Read another Irish Pamphlet -- also one of Chateaubriand's -- De Buonaparte et des Bourbons'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont
'Sunday Jany. 30th. Read Rousseau sur Les Arts & Les Sciences -- a piece of most extraordinary Prejudice and envious wailing -- It had better have been entitled a Disquisition on the Military Art since it teaches the way to make good Soldiers but not [...] Philosophers.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Unknown
'Wednesday March 1st. [...] Begin translating De la Servitude Volontaire d'Etienne de la Boetie'.
['Translate Etienne de la Boetie' also recorded in entries for 3, 5, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19,
20, and 21 March 1820; 'Finish translating Etienne de la Boetie' recorded in entry for 22 March].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday March 13th. [...] Read Dramatic Biography [makes detailed notes from vol. I part i in
this]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Tuesday March 14th. [...] Read Dramatic Biography'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday March 18th. [...] Read the Woman Hater of Beaumont & Fletcher. Excellent Spy
scene
which would apply to the present ministers.'
[...]
'Sunday March 19th. [...] Finish Woman-Hater of Beaumont & Fletcher. '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday April [...] 19 [...] Finish the fall of Sejanus by Ben Jonson begin the Woman's
prize or the Tamer tam'd by Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday April 22nd. Read Woman's Prize or Tamer tam'd Wit at several weapons also Wit
without money of Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday April 22nd. Read Woman's Prize or Tamer tam'd Wit at several weapons also Wit
without money of Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday April 22nd. Read Woman's Prize or Tamer tam'd Wit at several weapons also Wit
without money of Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Thursday April 27th. [...] Read Noble Gentleman of Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday April 30th. [...] Read Elder Brother [quotes two lines from Act II scene 1]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday May 10th. [...] Read Women Pleased [sic] and tragedy of Thierry & Theodoret of
Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday May 17th. [...] Read Vanburgh Plays.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Friday June 30th. Read the Life of Xenophon by Diogenes Laertius -- I am ill all day. .'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Tuesday July 4th. [...] Read Virgil -- Lines 100. Read Aristippe by Wieland.'
[subsequent readings from Aristippe recorded in entries for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 July
1820]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday July 16th. [...] Read Barber of Seville & Jerome Pointu.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday July 23rd. Read Florence Macarthy all day by Lady Morgan which I finish.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'S. reads the Persae of Aeschylus & Eustace's travels'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read a part of the 7 canto of Tasso - Livy - Montaigne and Eustace -S. reads Theocritus and Richard III aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 7 Canto's of Dante - Begin to translate A.[lfieri] - Read Cajo Graccho of Monti & Measure for Measure'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Saturday August 19th. [...] Read Parents Offering. [...] Do a Latin exercise from the
Odyssey.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'[Tuesday] Sept. 26th. [...] Read Keats' Endymion.
[...]
'Wednesday Sept. 27th. Do some Latin from Virgil [...] Finish Keats' Endymion.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday October 15th. [...] Read the Isabella or Pot of Basil by Keats [quotes four lines from
stanza 10].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday Nov. 8th. [...] Read Lamia by Keats.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Friday Nov. 10th. [...] Read Hyperion of Keats.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday Dec. 2nd. [...] Read 1 Canto of Purgatorio.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday Dec. 6th. [...] Read a Canto of Purgatorio.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday Dec. 11th. Begin the Observations of Macchiavelli upon the Decades of Livy.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'[Tuesday] Dec. 26th. [...] Read Allemagne by Madame de Stael.'
[readings from this text also recorded in journal entries for 27, 28, 29 December 1820; and 3
and 5 January 1821]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday Jany 10th. [...] Read Sintram by Baron de la Motte Fouque.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'[Tuesday] Feb. 27th. [...] Read Hyperion of Keats.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'[Tuesday] March 13th. [...] In the Evening read Das Lied von der Glocke [Schiller] and begin the
History of the Crusades by Michaud.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Read Livy - Manfredi of Monti - Shelley writes - Read 8 Canto of Dante'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read a chapter or two of Zimmermann on Solitude, and with that & ordinary business employed myself till four o clock.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
Published in The Woman Worker, newspaper:
'As I sat engaged with the very charming adventures of Zobeide, in the "Arabian Nights", and just as I had reached the spot where she comes upon the petrified town, with its stone men and women, and the stone queen with her golden crown, with the beautiful young man who alone had been spared, there came a loud rat-tat on the door.
I did not want to talk politics or the factory system, for I was very happy (it is the first time I have read this witching book, and I was in heaven), and scarcely cared to be reminded of the follies and sins of our present social system.
I was wandering in a romantic clime full of spices, fountains that spout pearls out of their mouths quite carelessly, and where the giants all come to grief - and did not want bothering with the memroy that I was one of a race that people a globe whirling through space at so many thousand miles per hour.
A round ball whose sides are covered with workhouses, prisons, law courts, and asylums, as well as nice houses, and dainty villas, and working men's cottages.
Good old Caliph Haroun Alraschid and a fariyland held me in thrall.
Ha, ha, but I must check this romantic attitude of mind; I am told it is leading me to paint factory life blacker than it is'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ethel Carnie Print: Book
'Finish Vita di Tasso - Read Timon of Athens - work - S finishes the Winter's Tale'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Saadye's [for Saabye's] Journal in Greenland'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Gil Blas'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish Gil Blas - read Livy'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish 1st Book of the Georgics - S. begins reading Winkhelmann's Histoire de l'art to me in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'read 2 Canto's of Dante with Shelley - he reads Livy and Winkhelmann aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary and Percy Shelley Print: Book
'Read Dante - S. reads Winkhelmann aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Dante - S. reads Winkhelmann aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Finish the Georgics - read 25th & 26th Cantos of Dante'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish the Inferno of Dante & the 9th book of Livy - S & I read Sismondi'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Sismondi - & Faublas'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Sismondi - & the Purgatorio'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Sunday May 27th. [...] Read Congres de Vienne de M. Pradt.'
[also records 'Read Congres de Vienne' on 28 May 1821, and 'Finish Congres de Vienne' on 4
June].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Read Montaigne - the Bible & Livy - Walk to the Coliseum - S. reads Winkhelmann'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'[Tuesday June [...] 5th. [...] Read Werther and begin Emile de Rousseau.'
[also records reading latter text on 7, 8, 9 June 1821]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Read the vision of Quivedo'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'read Bocaccio'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'read the Decameroni'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish the Decamerone'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Saturday September 1st. [...] Finish Anastasius and begin Lady Morgan's Italy.
[...]
'Sunday Sept -- 2nd. [...] Read Lady Morgan's Italy --
[...]
''Monday Sept. 3rd. Finish [...] 1st. Vol. Lady Morgan's Italy'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Since I left Rome I have read several books of Livy - Antenor - Clarissa Harlowe - The Spectator - a few novels - & am now reading the Bible & Lucan's Pharsalia - & Dante'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Saturday Nov. 3rd. [...] After dinner [...] begin Wieland's novel of Menander & Glycera.'
[reading/translation of this text also recorded in journal entries for 4, 5, 6, 8, 25 November
1821, with 'Finish Wieland's Menander and Glycera' recorded on 8 December].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Since I left Rome I have read several books of Livy - Antenor - Clarissa Harlowe - The Spectator - a few novels - & am now reading the Bible & Lucan's Pharsalia - & Dante'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Monday Dec. 10th. [...] Read Lady Morgan's Italy'.
[further readings in this text recorded in journal entries for 11, 12, 14, 15, 25, 27 December
1821, with 'Finish Lady Morgan's Italy' recorded on 28 December].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'[Tuesday] May 12-24th [...] Early in the morning I read Madame Roland
[...]
'Wednesday May 13th.-25th [...] Finish the Memoirs of Madame Roland.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
In journal entry for Wednesday 25 May, Claire Clairmont transcribes stanzas 28 and 29 from
Canto II of The King's Quair, by James I of Scotland.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Friday May [...] 27th. [...] After dinner read Die Cypressenkranze de la Baronne la Motte
Fouque.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday May [...] 30th. [...] After dinner Mr. Gambs reads aloud his tale of Skold. It pleases me
very much -- Its principal charm is the naturalness of [...] its descriptions [...] and the extreme
variety of the style.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont
'Wednesday [...] June 1st. [...] After dinner M. Gambs reads aloud the 3, 4, 5, and 6th. Canto of
Moses [goes on to comment upon this text in detail].'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont
'Friday [...] August 4th. [...] Read Life of Gothe [sic], Lecture on Modern History by M. Gambs.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont
'Friday August [...] 19th. [...] Read Le Distrait by Regnier [sic].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'[Tuesday] September [...] 27th. [...] Read all the morning Das Bild von Houwald with Mr.
G[ambs]. It is a charming tragedy in the romantic style and the novelty of the invention & yet
its naturalness is delightful [goes on to quote at length from Act I scene 5].'
[also records reading this text, with Chretien-Hermann Gambs, in journal entries for 28 and 29
September 1825]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday [...] Oct. 8th. [...] Read in the afternoon [following funeral of one of her pupils].
Histoire de la Revolution francaise par Antoine Fantin Desodoards [sic].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday [...] Oct. 9th. [...] I pack up [for family's departure from holiday home, following death
of a child] & read the whole day Memoirs of Madame Campan.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday October [...] 30th. [...] Read Paul & Virginia.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday October [...] 31st. [...] A note from Mr. Baxter with Lingard's [...] Reply to the attacks
of Shute, Bishop of Durham against the Catholic Religion which I read.'
[also records reading this text in journal entry for 1 November 1825]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday [...] Decbr. 5th. [...] read Evenings at Home with John.'
[also records reading this text on 6 December 1825].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
?You can tell Lang this. I heard from him, and will answer soon.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Letter
Elizabeth Barrett to her uncle, Samuel Moulton-Barrett, c. December 1816:
'I have finished "Telemaque," and have read one, or two of Racine's plays, which I like very much'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to her uncle, Samuel Moulton-Barrett, c. December 1816:
'I have finished "Telemaque," and have read one, or two of Racines plays, which I like very much'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to her uncle, Samuel Moulton-Barrett, November 1818:
'I have read "Douglas on the Modern Greeks." I think it a most amusing book ... I have not
yet finished "Bigland on the Character and Circumstances of Nations." An admirable work
indeed ... I do not admire "Madame de Sevigne's letters," though the French is excellent [...]
yet the sentiment is not novel, and the rhapsody of the style is so affected, so disgusting, so
entirely FRENCH, that every time I open the book it is rather as a task than a pleasure -- the
last Canto of "Childe Harold" (certainly much superior to the others) has delighted me more
than I can express. The description of the waterfall is the most exquisite piece of poetry that
I ever read [...] All the energy, all the sublimity of modern verse is centered in those lines'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to her uncle, Samuel Moulton-Barrett, November 1818:
'I have read "Douglas on the Modern Greeks." I think it a most amusing book ... I have not
yet finished "Bigland on the Character and Circumstances of Nations." An admirable work
indeed ... I do not admire "Madame de Sevigne's letters," though the French is excellent [...]
yet the sentiment is not novel, and the rhapsody of the style is so affected, so disgusting, so
entirely FRENCH, that every time I open the book it is rather as a task than a pleasure -- the
last Canto of "Childe Harold" (certainly much superior to the others) has delighted me more
than I can express. The description of the waterfall is the most exquisite piece of poetry that
I ever read [...] All the energy, all the sublimity of modern verse is centered in those lines'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Write - read Lucan & the Bible S. writes the Cenci & reads Plutarch's lives - the Gisbornes call in the evening - S. reads Paradise Lost to me - Read 2 Cantos of the Purgatorio'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Write - Finish the 5th book of Lucan - Read the bible & with S. two Canto's of the Purgatorio'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy and Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Write. Read Lucan & the wife for a Month - & 2 Cantos of Purgatorio with S. - he reads Philaster - & copies his tragedy'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Write. Read Lucan & the wife for a Month - & 2 Cantos of Purgatorio with S. - he reads Philaster - & copies his tragedy'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Beaumonts & Fletchers plays - and the Revolt of Islam aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Beaumont & Fletcher - Dante and Lucan - S. reads the Greek tragedians and Boccacio [sic] [...] He reads Paradise Lost aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Beaumont & Fletcher - Dante and Lucan - S. reads the Greek tragedians and Boccacio [sic] [...] He reads Paradise Lost aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Bocaccio [sic] - The Greek Tragedians & Calderon'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Copy Shelleys Prometheus - work - read Beaumont & Fletcher's plays'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Calderon with C.[harles] C.[lairmont] & Bocaccio [sic]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Shelley and Charles Clairmont Print: Book
'S. reads Bocaccio [sic] aloud - & Calderon with C.[harles] C.[lairmont]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'[Shelley] reads the Trionfe della Morte aloud in the evening & Calderon with C.[harles] C.[lairmont] & Mrs G.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'[Shelley] reads the Trionfe della Morte aloud in the evening & Calderon with C.[harles] C.[lairmont] & Mrs G.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Shelley, Charles Clairmont and Mrs Gisborne Print: Book
'Read Horace - work - S. reads B[eaumont] & F.[letcher] & Plato'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Horace - Memoires du Comte Grammont - S. writes his letter concerning Carlile - & reads Mme de Staels account of the Revolution - & Clarendon aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List of Percy Shelley's reading, 1819. Most texts are mentioned in journal entries so are not given separate entries here]
'Greek
The Greek Tragedians
Homers Iliad and Odyssey
Plato's Republic
Several of Plutarch's lives
The Memorabilia of Xenophon
Madame de Stael sur la Revolution Francaise
Calderon - Several of the tragedies and Auto's'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List of Percy Shelley's reading, 1819. Most texts are mentioned in journal entries so are not given separate entries here]
'Greek
The Greek Tragedians
Homers Iliad and Odyssey
Plato's Republic
Several of Plutarch's lives
The Memorabilia of Xenophon
Madame de Stael sur la Revolution Francaise
Calderon - Several of the tragedies and Auto's'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List of Percy Shelley's reading, 1819. Most texts are mentioned in journal entries so are not given separate entries here]
'Greek
The Greek Tragedians
Homers Iliad and Odyssey
Plato's Republic
Several of Plutarch's lives
The Memorabilia of Xenophon
Madame de Stael sur la Revolution Francaise
Calderon - Several of the tragedies and Auto's'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List of Percy Shelley's reading, 1819. Most texts are mentioned in journal entries so are not given separate entries here]
'Greek
The Greek Tragedians
Homers Iliad and Odyssey
Plato's Republic
Several of Plutarch's lives
The Memorabilia of Xenophon
Madame de Stael sur la Revolution Francaise
Calderon - Several of the tragedies and Auto's'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List of Percy Shelley's reading, 1819. Most texts are mentioned in journal entries so are not given separate entries here]
'Greek
The Greek Tragedians
Homers Iliad and Odyssey
Plato's Republic
Several of Plutarch's lives
The Memorabilia of Xenophon
Madame de Stael sur la Revolution Francaise
Calderon - Several of the tragedies and Auto's'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List of Percy Shelley's reading, 1819. Most texts are mentioned in journal entries so are not given separate entries here]
'Greek
The Greek Tragedians
Homers Iliad and Odyssey
Plato's Republic
Several of Plutarch's lives
The Memorabilia of Xenophon
Madame de Stael sur la Revolution Francaise
Calderon - Several of the tragedies and Auto's'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List of Percy Shelley's reading, 1819. Most texts are mentioned in journal entries so are not given separate entries here]
'Greek
The Greek Tragedians
Homers Iliad and Odyssey
Plato's Republic
Several of Plutarch's lives
The Memorabilia of Xenophon
Madame de Stael sur la Revolution Francaise
Calderon - Several of the tragedies and Auto's'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List of Percy Shelley's reading, 1819. Most texts are mentioned in journal entries so are not given separate entries here]
'Greek
The Greek Tragedians
Homers Iliad and Odyssey
Plato's Republic
Several of Plutarch's lives
The Memorabilia of Xenophon
Madame de Stael sur la Revolution Francaise
Calderon - Several of the tragedies and Auto's'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Begin Julie'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish Julie. Read the Fable of the Bees.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish Julie. Read the Fable of the Bees.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S reads Las Casas & Jeremiah aloud. read the F. of the bees'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy & F of the Bees. S. reads Solis' History of Mexico'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy. F. of the Bees - Copy S's poems. S reads the Hist. of Mexico - & Henry IV aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Finish Fable of the Bees - Read Catiline's Conspiracy'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Translate Sxxxxxa [Spinoza] with Shelley - Read Lettres Cabalistiques - S. finishes the Leviathan of Hobbes. reads the Bible aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley
'Translate Sxxxxxa [Spinoza]. Read Lettres Cabalistiques - S. reads Ezechiel aloud. Reads Political Justice -'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 1829:
'I meant to have taken with me today the following extract from the learned Abbe Barthelemi's introduction to his "Voyage of Anarcharsis". It consists of his opposition to a few of the charges generally & principally brought against Homer [including lack of dignity in presentation of noble characters] -- & pleased me very much when I read it for the first time a few days ago [goes on to transcribe passage in own English translation].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Read Macchiavelli Hist. of Castruccio Castracani - Translate Sxxxxxa [Spinoza]. S. reads a part of 4th B. of the Aenied aloud - read Condorcet's life of Voltaire - S. reads Locke.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Translate Sxxxxxa - Read life of Voltaire. finish life of Castruccio. - S. reads Political Justice - finishes the 4th Book & all we mean to read of 5th book of Virgil - Visit at Casa Silva. S. reads Locke'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Life of Voltaire - & Evenings at home'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S reads Fletcher's Tragedy of Bonduca aloud to me in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Robinson Crusoe. S. finishes the tragedy of Bonduca to me'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy and R Crusoe - S. reads Phaedon having read Phaedrus - reads the tragedy of Thierry and Theodoret to me'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S finishes the Trajedy to me'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Finish 40th Book of Livy - Finish Virgil - S. reads Riciadetto to me'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy - Mrs Macauly's hist. of England - Lucretius with S. - he reads Greek Romances & Ricciardetto aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy - Mrs Macauly's hist. of England - Lucretius with S. - he reads Greek Romances & Ricciardetto aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Ciceros 2nd oration - Hist. of Engd'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. begins Hist of Engd'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 8 September 1830:
'I have been reading lately with my brothers some of Racine's plays [...] It is several years
since I read them by myself; and if they disgusted me then, they are intolerable to me now.
The French have no part or lot in poetry [goes on to complain of what she perceives to be
excessive formality and orderliness of French neoclassical poetry]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett and younger Moulton-Barrett brothers Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 8 September 1830:
'I have been reading lately with my brothers some of Racine's plays [...] It is several years
since I read them by myself; and if they disgusted me then, they are intolerable to me now.
The French have no part or lot in poetry [goes on to complain of what she perceives to be
excessive formality and orderliness of French neoclassical poetry]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 1 June 1831:
'I recollect many years ago when I read one whole volume of Blackstone through, I also read a little treatise by a Mr Hawkins an INFINITE Tory, entitled "Reform in Parliament, the ruin of Parliament"'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Unknown
'I cannot tell you what they [the Miss Jaffrays] are reading. Perhaps Queechy ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Misses Jaffray Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 9 June 1832:
'I have been reading thro' the eight first chapters of Genesis in Hebrew [...] As I knew the
character[s] or something of the grammar before, I have not been fagging hard -- or indeed
[italics]at all[end italics] -- for Papa would not let me do so. Instead of fagging, I have read
Corinne for the third time, & admired it more than ever. It is an immortal book, & deserves
to be read three score & ten times.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, July 1832:
'I have read Hebrew regularly every day since I told you of my beginning Genesis, -- and I am
now more than half way through Genesis, & begin to relax a little from the lexicon. From its
being a primitive language it is very interesting in a philosophical point of view. I like to find
the roots of words & ideas at the same time [...] I am glad I thought of having recourse to it,
for if it had no other advantage, it has at least given a change of air to my mind. I have been
reading besides, two Italian novels -- one by Manzani [sic], entitled the Betrothed, which, tho'
heavy enough sometime, is very well written & very amiably written. The other is a
continuation of the story, by a different & an unequal writer'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 16 April 1832:
'I believe I ought to have written to you before to thank you for lending Synesius to me [...] I
have gone thro' the whole of Synesius; and notwithstanding his occasional diffuseness & self-
repetition [...] he does [italics]make you feel[end italics] that he is a poet.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 28 July 1835:
'I have been reading [...] Lord Brougham's Natural Theology, -- and have shaken my head
over it [...] It seems to me to have its most valuable parts in its notes, -- in the observations
there upon Hume's philosophy.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elzabeth Barrett, 13 October 1836:
'I have just read your delightful ballad. My earliest book was "Percy's Reliques," the delight of
my childhood; and after them came Scott's "Minstrelsy of the Borders," the favourite of my
youth; so that I am prepared to love ballads [...] Are you a great reader of the old English
drama? I am -- preferring it to every other sort of reading; of course admitting, and
regretting, the grossness of the age; but that, from habit, one skips, without a thought just as
I should over so much Greek or Hebrew which I knew I could not comprehend. have you read
Victor Hugo's Plays? (he also is one of my naughty pets), and his "Notre Dame?" I admit the
bad taste of these, the excess; but the power and the pathos are to me indescribably great.
And then he has [...] made the French a new language. He has accomplished this partly by
going back to the old fountains, Froissart, &c. Again, these old Chronicles are great books of
mine.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 14 December 1836:
'How much ignorance I have to confess in sackcloth, with respect to the old dramatists! -- for
indeed I have had little opportunity of walking with them in their purple & fine linen. Only
[italics]extracts[end italics] from Bea[u]mont & Fletcher -- & Ford, -- have past before my
eyes!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 1837:
'I will write out two passages from Justin Martyr, the only ones which struck me while I was
reading him, on the subject of the Lord's supper [transcriptions follow from two works, in
Greek].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 1837:
'I will write out two passages from Justin Martyr, the only ones which struck me while I was
reading him, on the subject of the Lord's supper [transcriptions follow from two works, in
Greek].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrrett to Lady Margaret Cocks, mid-May 1837:
'I have been much pleased lately in reading Lady Dacre's translations from Petrarch, which she
has very kindly sent me. They are elegant & classical, -- & she has managed skilfully to double
& redouble her rhymes in the manner of her original, & be graceful all the while.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'The Oration for Roscius the Comedian - Hist of Engd'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish 4th book of Lucretius. Ricciardetto'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Muratori. Antichita d'Italia'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Shelley writes an ode to Naples - Reads Mrs Macauly [sic]. finishes Appolonius [sic] Rhodius - Begins Swellfoot the Tyrant - suggested by the pigs at the fair of St Giuliano - Reads the double marriage aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. finishes Mrs Macauly [sic] - Reads the Republic of Plato'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Finish Muratori - Greek - Travels of Rolando - S. reads Robertson's America - begins Bocaccio [sic] aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Finish Muratori - Greek - Travels of Rolando - S. reads Robertson's America - begins Bocaccio [sic] aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Villani - Travels of Rolando'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Sismondi - Greek - Petrarch - S. reads Gillies Greece & A.[ntient] M.[etaphysics]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Sismondi - Ride to Pisa - Georgics - B.[occaccio]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Hyperion aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Ride to Pisa - Keats' poems'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Villani'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Write - Read Homer - Targione - Spanish - A rainy day. S. reads Calderon'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Write - Read Homer - Targione - Spanish - A rainy day. S. reads Calderon'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Don Quixote & Calderon'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Greek - Sintram - S. not well'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Villani'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Dante's Vita Nuova'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads the vita nuova aloud to me in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 1 January 1838:
'In my childish days & for some days afterwards I have read & re-read Miss Seward's Letters. They had a charm for me notwithstanding their vanity & elaborateness & bombast; and that charm was from the earnest love of poetic literature with which they are penetrated, & the generous thoughts & feelings which light them up.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 1 February 1838:
'I have just been reading Racine's "Letters," and Boileau's. How much one should like both, if it were not for their slavish servile devotion to the king (and I think it was real), and to that odious woman Madame de Maintenon.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 1 February 1838:
'I have just been reading Racine's "Letters," and Boileau's. How much one should like both, if it were not for their slavish servile devotion to the king (and I think it was real), and to that odious woman Madame de Maintenon.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to John Kenyon, c. March 1838:
'Thank you for Alford's poems. There is much beauty in some of them -- but [italics]there is a
want of abiding power[end italics]. Do you not think so? -- It might be a fault in my humour at
the time I read them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to John Kenyon, 7 June 1838:
'I turned over the leaves of Mr Reade's poem for some minutes before I opened your letter'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Thomas Noon Talfourd, 13 June 1838:
'Miss Barrett presents her compliments to Mr Serjeant Talfourd, and desires to express to him
her thankfulness both for his very obliging note [of 2 June 1838], and also and in particular for
the valued present accompanying it. She is glad to be able to associate with the true pleasure
with which she lately read his beautiful play, the gratification of now receiving it from its
author.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'I suppose you all well know Heads book.? for accuracy & animation it is beyond praise.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Darwin Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett, invalid, to Mary Russell Mitford, 10 April 1839:
'What can I do bound hand and foot in this wilderness, in the way of book-ferreting? with a
physician who groans in the spirit whenever he sees within my reach any book larger & graver
looking than "the last new octavo neatly bound"? [...] but you tempted me with Bishop
Andrews, the Bishop is in folio, & I was in an obstinate fit -- & I [italics]did[end italics] read --
-- & [italics]was[end italics] scolded'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 10 April 1839:
'Mr Reade has power [...] both of thought & language [...] It [Italy] is the only poem of Mr Reade's I ever read [...] I may confess to [italics]you[end italics] that it [italics]provoked[end italics] me [i.e. with imitation of Byron]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Robert Browning to Euprhasia Fanny Haworth, ?25 April 1839:
'You read Balzac's "Scenes" etc -- he is publishing one, "Beatrix", in the feuilleton of the "Siecle", day by day -- I receive it from Paris two days old and usually post it off to a friend of mine, as soon as skimmed. But the four or five first chapters were so delightful that I hate myself for not having sent them to Barham [i.e. Barham Lodge, Haworth's home at Elstree]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Robert Browning to Euprhasia Fanny Haworth, ?25 April 1839:
'You read Balzac's "Scenes" etc -- he is publishing one, "Beatrix", in the feuilleton of the "Siecle", day by day -- I receive it from Paris two days old and usually post it off to a friend of mine, as soon as skimmed. But the four or five first chapters were so delightful that I hate myself for not having sent them to Barham [i.e. Barham Lodge, Haworth's home at Elstree]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Euphrasia Fanny Haworth Print: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 30 April 1839:
'At painful times, when composition is impossible & reading not [italics]enough[end italics], grammars & dictionaries are excellent for [italics]distraction[end italics]. Just at such a time
.. when we were leaving Herefordshire .. I pinned myself down to Hebrew, took Parkhurst &
Professor Lee for my familiars, & went through the Hebrew Bible form Genesis to Malachi,
Syrica & all, as if I were studying for a professorship, -- & never once halting for breath. But
I do hope & trust to learn no more languages. There is no mental exertion, per se so little
beneficial to the mind.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Judging from the Pamphlet, you gave me & which I have found very useful, the insects of the Rio Plata are tolerably well-known.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Darwin
'I liked Milman's books better than your scanty recommendation led me to expect- The gentleman is certainly a poet - he excells in description - the outlines of his pictures want charecter [sic] but his colouring is rich and brilliant, and on the whole his manner is very graceful - he fails sadly when he makes his personages speak and feel - however 'the Bright City' is not without heart - the episode of Lilian and Vortimer is very natural and pathetic, and Rowena's love is quite Byronical - I think if you have not read it, it is worth your time - How very presumptuous it is in me to attempt criticising such an Author as Milman!-'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: Book
'I have read the 'bright city' and rejoiced to find your criticism of it so agreeable to my own. Milman is certainly a poet, but he takes a flight higher than he can sustain. He paints too gorgeously and indistinctly, he also whines too much, he is sometimes even liable to cant. I am astonished at your diffidence in judging him: it were well if he always found even critics by profession so well qualified.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 30 January 1840:
'I have been reading "Jack Sheppard," and have been struck by the great danger, in these times, of representing authority so constantly and fearfully in the wrong, so tyrannous, so
devilish, as the author has been pleased to portray it in "Jack Sheppard" [...] Of course Mr
Ainsworth had no such design, but such is the effect; and as the millions who see it
represented at the minor theatres will not distinguish between now and a hundred years back,
all the Chartists in the land are less dangerous than this nightmare of a book, and I, Radical as
I am, lament any additional temptations to outbreak, with all its train of horrors.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 3 March 1840:
'I had a kind message from Captain Marryat once [...] but I have never seen him. Without being one of his indiscriminate admirers, I like parts of his books (some of which I have read to my father), and have been told that they have done good in the profession -- suggestions
thrown out in them having been taken up and acted upon by the Lords of the Admiralty'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
'During the last week I have also read the latter half of 'Maria Stuart' - some scenes of Alfieri - and a portion of 'Tacitus' (which by the way is the hardest Latin I ever saw) - when you devoted four hours of my day to the study of history, what did you mean should become of my Italian and my dear German?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: BookManuscript: Letter
Elizabeth Barrett to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett, 17 June 1840:
'["Glencoe"] never reached me until last week [...] Thank you my dearest Georgie! [...] It
was, as you well knew it wd be, a great pleasure to me to look into Glencoe -- and yet the
play is to my mind, a failure [...] High & tender thoughts there are, gracefully & harmoniously
expressed -- which is not [italics]being tragic[end italics]!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Considerable marginalia in pencil in English, especially on the following pages: 30, 186, 216, 220-224.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Some textual marginalia in pencil in French on pages 173 and 176, and pencil marks throughout.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Textual marginalia in pencil in French on page 46 only, and some pencil marks in the margins throughout.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Some marginalia in pencil in English and French on the following pages: 97, 206, 241, 321.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Marginalia in pencil in French on page 191 only; some vertical pencil marks in the margins elsewhere.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Some marginal notes in English and French throughout, especially pp.127-37
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Some marginal notes in French throughout. Given by the author to Vernon Lee.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
'The short and simple annals of the poor, which have lately poured in such profusion from the Scottish press, I thought at first exquisitely beautiful and pathetic, and the tone of piety which pervaded them, at once appeared as a national characteristic, and was sublime in its simplicity. But after reading a succession of them I wearied of the beauty, the pathos, and even the piety, for they were brought forward too often, and betrayed too much of stage trick.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eleanor Anne Porden Print: Book
'Finish the Vita Nuova.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Mr T.[aaffe] in the evening - read his notes to Dante'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Manuscript: Unknown
'Walk with S. - he reads some of the tales of Sacchetti aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'read greek - read Mackenzies works'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Homer - Diary of an Invalid'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Madam, Having understood from a friend that you wished to obtain the words of "The Bann of the Church of the German Empire," I take the liberty of sending them to you [...] You will find it in "Les Anecdotes Germaniques," page 151, and as I have experienced so much pleasure from the perusal and representation of your beautiful tragedies, I shall have great satisfaction in being of the smallest use to you.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: G.E. Lynch Cotton Print: Book
'Thank you very much for the gift of "Ion"; the tragedy was known to us by extracts, and our desire to see it was great. We like it very much - it is a noble descendant of the noble Greek tragedy.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Howitt Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 20 June 1841:
'I have been reading Blanchard's life of poor L.E.L. [...] The book is to me deeply affecting. She was a fine creature thrown away'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 21 September 1841:
'Mr Haydon's letters shut up in the best letter of all [i.e. one from Mitford], I received this
morning & will return to you in a day or two. I must let Papa just look at them. They
interested me much [...] How fine this life of genius is! -- & its religion too! [...] I like these
letters. They spring up like a fountain among the world's conventionalities'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Manuscript: Letter
Some marginalia in pencil in English on page 5 only.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Notes on flyleaf and marginalia in English in pencil throughout
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Detailed marginalia in French in pencil on the following pages: 49-51
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
'Read the Hist. of Shipwrecks'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'E. reads the shipwreck of the Wager to us in the Evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Williams Print: Book
'Read Emile'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Homer - Tacitus - Emile & 1 Canto of Dante'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Homer - Tacitus - Emile & 1 Canto of Dante'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 3rd Canto of l'Inferno'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'begin Macchiavelli's history.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Homer - & Macchiavelli'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'At Sarzana - read Memoirs of the court of Charles II - Attala'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'At Sarzana - read Memoirs of the court of Charles II - Attala'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Homer & Virgil - And Bacon's Natural Hist. & Apothegms.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Homer & Virgil - And Bacon's Natural Hist. & Apothegms.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Kant's Geografica Fisica'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish the 1st Vol of Geografica Fisica'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'read - Jacopo Ortis - 2nd Vol of Geographica Fisica - &c &c'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 25 November 1841:
'The Roman Brother -- & thank you! -- There are fine things in it -- very -- but it wants
continuity, interest altogether -- & leaves you cold as a stone.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 8 December 1841:
'I have not read Self formation, -- & [italics]have[end italics] read "Gaston de Blondeville".
perhaps you don't know it, but I am, have been .. in all sorts of tenses -- a profound reader of
romances. I have read Gaston [...] The fault of Mrs Radcliffe's preceeding works was her want
of courage in not following back the instincts of our nature to their possible causes. She made
the instinct toward the supernatural too prominent, to deny & belie the thing [...] Can anything
be more irritating than the Key to her mysteries [...]?
'Just in proportion to the degree of this disagreeableness, is Gaston better & nobler in
[italics]design[end italics]. Inasmuch as the ghost is real, it is excellent, but inasmuch as the
book hath three volumes (or two) -- it is naught. It did hang upon me (with all its advantages
as a ghost story) with a weight from which her preceeding works are sacred. It quite
disappointed me! [...] the whole appeared to me heavy & not impressive -- &, what is strange,
not so terrible with its actual marvels, as were the waxen mimicries of the Castle of Otranto.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 23-25 December 1841:
'Mrs Jameson's early writings -- the Ennuyee for instance -- have an adroit leaning to
sentiment, which is [italics]sentimentality[end italics], & provokes one the more for the
excellent taste observable & admirable even there. In her later books, I do, I confess, see
much to admire. The conversations, for instance, on the state of art & literature in Germany
.. oh surely, we cannot all but admire their acuteness & eloquence & high intonation.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Robert Browning to Rachel Talfourd, c.1842:
'Out of certain projects of calling personally and saying my thankful say -- comes this poor
paper and ink acknowledgement of the Sergeant's great kindness [...] I have read the
"Recollections" with the greatest delight, seeing in my mind the whole party at every turn.
Will you have the goodness to tell him this, mending my imperfect phrase.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 1-6 January 1842:
'Did you see Mr Hunter's treatise upon the Tempest? Mr Kenyon "caused it to pass before my
face" & I did not complain of the briefness of the vision [...] I have been reading too by the
same grace .. of dear Mr Kenyon .. Mr Alford's Chapters on the Greek poets. I dont like them
at all. Such criticism, on the surface & of long familiarity with the common eye, the sense of
the world has outgrown. It wd have done for those days when poetry was considered a pretty
play like skittles, but is not suitable to this [italics]now[end italics], when its popularity as a
toy is passed, & its depth & holiness as a science more surely tho' partially regarded.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'I collected my thoughts. My ideas about prison came from American films, and I envisaged cells of which one side would be made of iron bars, all giving on to a landing, like a zoo [...] I tried to read the book I had brought with me, a pocket edition of Lytton Strachey's "Elizabeth and Essex". It was not an ideal choice but I had snatched it up as I left my room.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Diana Mosley Print: Book
'I have tried to read Mme de Genlis' memoirs, but they are one large capital I from beginning to end; this amuses at first - but tires long before we get to the end of 8 vols. - Above all, dear, get the Promessi Sposi - at first you may lag a little, but as you get on the truth & perfect Italianism of the manners and desciptions - the beautiful language which differs from all other Italian prose - being really the Tusca[n] of the day that he writes, & not a bad imitation of the [ ] trecentisti - the pasion & even sublimity of parts rendered it to me a most delightful book - I can imagine a person who had not been to Italy not liking it but to [underlined] us [end underlining] it must be delightful.'
[letter to Jane Williams Hogg]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'I am very much obliged to you for the books - I still keep the O'Hara Tales, not having quite finished them - I certainly exonerate the Anglo Irish from the charge of impropriety - but I do not think it as clever as the Nowlans'
[letter to ? Charles Ollier]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'L.E.L.'s [Laetitia Elizabeth Landon's] 3d vol is very good indeed. It has Romance & Sentiment; which is that in which she excells - [underlined] Reality [end underlining] she has too much fancy & feeling for - I was deeply interested in the 3d Vol - it does her heart & imagination both great credit. Cavendish I find very amusing'
[Letter to Charles Ollier]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'I will return Cavendish in a few days - It is very clever - but the beginning is best - & it is immoral - why [wr]ite about certain things; it is bad enough that they are'
[Letter to Charles Ollier]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Could you lend me any new publ. - you wd eternally oblige me - not the Contrast - I have read it - But the Fair of May Fair or Arlington -'
[letter to Charles Ollier]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'I am reading Caspar Hauser - its being an invention takes from the interest - if it were true it wd be a deeply exciting work - It reminds me much of Calderon's La Vida es Sueno'
[letter to Maria Gisborne]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Will you thank Mr Talfourd for the kind present of his pleasant book'
[letter to Edward Moxon]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'You must be tired of my ugly handwriting - yet your book is so suggestive that one wants to talk about it - the more I read the more I am enchanted by it. - I have been struck however by your mention of Dante - which seems founded entirely on the Inferno - a poem I can only read bits of - the subject being to me so antipatetica but the Purgatorio & Paradiso - the Poet revels in beauty & joy there to the full as much as the horrors below - and some of his verses & even whole Cantos lap one in a gentle sort of Elysium - or carry one into the skies - Can anything be so wondrously poetical as the approach of the boat with souls from earth to Purgatory - Shelley's most favourite passage - the Angels guarding Purgatory from infernal spirits - the whole tone of hope - & the calm enjoyment of Matilda is something quite unearthly in its sweetness - & then the glory of Paradise - I do not rely on my own taste but the following verses appear to me to belong to the highest class of imagination; they occur in the last Canto of the Pardiso after the vision he has of beatitude
-il mio veder fu maggio
Che'l parlar nostro, ch'a tal vista cede.
E cede la memoria al tanto oltraggio
Quale e colui ch soguando vede,
E dopo 'l sogno la passione impressa
Rimane, e l'altro alla menta non riede
Cotal son io, che quassi tutta cessa
Mia visione, e ancor mi distila
Nel cuor lo dolce, che nacque da essa.
Cosi la neve al sole disigilla
Cosi al vento nele foglie lievi
Si perdea la sentenzia di Sibilla -
Will you think me hypercritical about a most beautiful stanza of Keats - It was the sky lark not the nightingale that Ruth heard "amid the alien corn" - the sky lark soars and sings above the shearers perpetually - The nightingale sings at night - in shady places - & never so late in the season - May is her month -
Excuse all this'
[letter to Leigh Hunt]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'You must be tired of my ugly handwriting - yet your book is so suggestive that one wants to talk about it - the more I read the more I am enchanted by it. - I have been struck however by your mention of Dante - which seems founded entirely on the Inferno - a poem I can only read bits of - the subject being to me so antipatetica but the Purgatorio & Paradiso - the Poet revels in beauty & joy there to the full as much as the horrors below - and some of his verses & even whole Cantos lap one in a gentle sort of Elysium - or carry one into the skies - Can anything be so wondrously poetical as the approach of the boat with souls from earth to Purgatory - Shelley's most favourite passage - the Angels guarding Purgatory from infernal spirits - the whole tone of hope - & the calm enjoyment of Matilda is something quite unearthly in its sweetness - & then the glory of Paradise - I do not rely on my own taste but the following verses appear to me to belong to the highest class of imagination; they occur in the last Canto of the Pardiso after the vision he has of beatitude
-il mio veder fu maggio
Che'l parlar nostro, ch'a tal vista cede.
E cede la memoria al tanto oltraggio
Quale e colui ch soguando vede,
E dopo 'l sogno la passione impressa
Rimane, e l'altro alla menta non riede
Cotal son io, che quassi tutta cessa
Mia visione, e ancor mi distila
Nel cuor lo dolce, che nacque da essa.
Cosi la neve al sole disigilla
Cosi al vento nele foglie lievi
Si perdea la sentenzia di Sibilla -
Will you think me hypercritical about a most beautiful stanza of Keats - It was the sky lark not the nightingale that Ruth heard "amid the alien corn" - the sky lark soars and sings above the shearers perpetually - The nightingale sings at night - in shady places - & never so late in the season - May is her month -
Excuse all this'
[letter to Leigh Hunt]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'You must be tired of my ugly handwriting - yet your book is so suggestive that one wants to talk about it - the more I read the more I am enchanted by it. - I have been struck however by your mention of Dante - which seems founded entirely on the Inferno - a poem I can only read bits of - the subject being to me so antipatetica but the Purgatorio & Paradiso - the Poet revels in beauty & joy there to the full as much as the horrors below - and some of his verses & even whole Cantos lap one in a gentle sort of Elysium - or carry one into the skies - Can anything be so wondrously poetical as the approach of the boat with souls from earth to Purgatory - Shelley's most favourite passage - the Angels guarding Purgatory from infernal spirits - the whole tone of hope - & the calm enjoyment of Matilda is something quite unearthly in its sweetness - & then the glory of Paradise - I do not rely on my own taste but the following verses appear to me to belong to the highest class of imagination; they occur in the last Canto of the Pardiso after the vision he has of beatitude
-il mio veder fu maggio
Che'l parlar nostro, ch'a tal vista cede.
E cede la memoria al tanto oltraggio
Quale e colui ch soguando vede,
E dopo 'l sogno la passione impressa
Rimane, e l'altro alla menta non riede
Cotal son io, che quassi tutta cessa
Mia visione, e ancor mi distila
Nel cuor lo dolce, che nacque da essa.
Cosi la neve al sole disigilla
Cosi al vento nele foglie lievi
Si perdea la sentenzia di Sibilla -
Will you think me hypercritical about a most beautiful stanza of Keats - It was the sky lark not the nightingale that Ruth heard "amid the alien corn" - the sky lark soars and sings above the shearers perpetually - The nightingale sings at night - in shady places - & never so late in the season - May is her month -
Excuse all this'
[letter to Leigh Hunt]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'You must be tired of my ugly handwriting - yet your book is so suggestive that one wants to talk about it - the more I read the more I am enchanted by it. - I have been struck however by your mention of Dante - which seems founded entirely on the Inferno - a poem I can only read bits of - the subject being to me so antipatetica but the Purgatorio & Paradiso - the Poet revels in beauty & joy there to the full as much as the horrors below - and some of his verses & even whole Cantos lap one in a gentle sort of Elysium - or carry one into the skies - Can anything be so wondrously poetical as the approach of the boat with souls from earth to Purgatory - Shelley's most favourite passage - the Angels guarding Purgatory from infernal spirits - the whole tone of hope - & the calm enjoyment of Matilda is something quite unearthly in its sweetness - & then the glory of Paradise - I do not rely on my own taste but the following verses appear to me to belong to the highest class of imagination; they occur in the last Canto of the Pardiso after the vision he has of beatitude
-il mio veder fu maggio
Che'l parlar nostro, ch'a tal vista cede.
E cede la memoria al tanto oltraggio
Quale e colui ch soguando vede,
E dopo 'l sogno la passione impressa
Rimane, e l'altro alla menta non riede
Cotal son io, che quassi tutta cessa
Mia visione, e ancor mi distila
Nel cuor lo dolce, che nacque da essa.
Cosi la neve al sole disigilla
Cosi al vento nele foglie lievi
Si perdea la sentenzia di Sibilla -
Will you think me hypercritical about a most beautiful stanza of Keats - It was the sky lark not the nightingale that Ruth heard "amid the alien corn" - the sky lark soars and sings above the shearers perpetually - The nightingale sings at night - in shady places - & never so late in the season - May is her month -
Excuse all this'
[letter to Leigh Hunt]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'I sent you Nina - & a Novel of the Countess Hahn by Miss R - [Ramsbottom] her best I believe - I am reading another now that I do not like so well - Fau[s]tina is very clever - all about Clement is excellent - two things I think erroneous - one is bad management on the part of the authoress the other unnatural - She ought to have accounted better for the absence of Andlau - In the situation she describes he wd have come back or sent for her - never have allowed so long a separation - the unnatural thing is Faustina ever wishing to leave her child - a woman of that directness of feeling is always I think maternal but I like the book & it is clever - lend it to Knox when you have read it'
[letter to Claire Clairmont]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Manuscript: Unknown
'I sent you Nina - & a Novel of the Countess Hahn by Miss R - [Ramsbottom] her best I believe - I am reading another now that I do not like so well - Fau[s]tina is very clever - all about Clement is excellent - two things I think erroneous - one is bad management on the part of the authoress the other unnatural - She ought to have accounted better for the absence of Andlau - In the situation she describes he wd have come back or sent for her - never have allowed so long a separation - the unnatural thing is Faustina ever wishing to leave her child - a woman of that directness of feeling is always I think maternal but I like the book & it is clever - lend it to Knox when you have read it'
[letter to Claire Clairmont]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Manuscript: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 16 March 1842:
'I [italics]have[end italics] read Marmontel's memoirs .. & a most amusing book it is'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 27-28 March 1842:
'Do you know how Mr Macready has been attacked for trying [...] to suppress [italics]the
saloons[end italics] [...] and how it has been declared that no theatre can exist at the present
day without a saloon -- & how, if it could, the effect wd be to force vicious persons & their
indecencies into full view in the boxes --!! Now this appears to me enough to constitute a
repulsive objection! & I who have read hard at the old dramatists since I last spoke to you
about them, -- Beaumont & Fletcher Massinger Ben Jonson all Dodsley's collection, -- can yet
see that objection in all its repulsiveness! .. & read on!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Detailed notes on the front flyleaf and half-title page, and extensive marginalia in pencil in French throughout.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Some marginal annotation in pencil in English throughout the volume.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Summary index in pencil in Vernon Lee's hand on page 244.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Brief summary of notes on inside front cover, and marginalia in pencil in English throughout the volume.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Some marginalia in pencil in English throughout the volume.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 25 April 1842:
'Of course you know Mademoiselle de Monpensier's [sic] Memoires. They are most
characteristically delightful -- yet I am only just now reading them -- & the Duc de St Simon's
also. I have a sort of Memoir brain fever at the present season-- Don't you think so?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Before leaving the cotton mill I had the good fortune to make my first acquaintance with the earlier works of Charles Dickens. Our manager, who was a reading man, was subscribing to periodically issued numbers of the "Pickwick Papers". He had seen me in the breakfast hour poring over the contents of a dirty rag paper, - not that the matter was dirty, - but the paper itself was oiled, and worn from its being constantly carried about in my pocket. This was "Cleave's Gazette", published weekly at a penny, a sum I managed to screw out of my threepence a fortnight "old brass".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Brierley Print: Newspaper
Elizabeth Barrett to Benjamin Robert Haydon, 29 October 1842:
'I have to thank you [...] for the sight of a very interesting letter of the Sheffield paper which I
seem to be bound to return to you, as you do not say "keep it".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Newspaper
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 12 November 1842:
'Mr Kenyon called yesterday [...] and he left Lady Blessington's Annual [...] The annual is
fuller of trash than usual I think, which is saying a good deal of ill. His own contribution
indeed is a very excellent & poetical paraphrase of Schiller's "Gods of Greece" -- & there is a
prose story by Mr Landor which has much beauty in his peculiar manner, -- & there is,
moreover, a graceful fairy story by Miss Garrow, which I prefer to her last year's ballad,
although retaining my opinion of the want of individuality & of power.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 5 December 1842:
'I did think the fifth volume [of Frances Burney D'Arblay's Diary and Letters] interesting & very
interesting -- and yet, I dont give it the preference quite as you do [...] I believe I was [...]
vexed at her wary conduct & cold policy & most provident distrust towards that noble woman
Madme de Stael [goes on to comment upon and criticise text in detail].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Headmistress takes Evensong in school because the church could not be blacked out. Instead of a sermon she read from books with a religious theme, e.g. "The Other Wise Man", "Who Moved the Stone?" and "In the Steps of the Master", which we all enjoyed.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Headmistress of Casterton School Print: Book
Robert Browning to Alfred Domett, 13 December 1842:
'The only novelty we have had in books as yet, has been Macaulay's Lays of Rome -- a kind of
revenge on that literature which so long plagued ours with Muses, and Apollo, and Luna and all
that, -- by taking the stalest subjects in it, and as plentifully bestowing on them the
commonplaces of our indigenous ballad-verse -- "Then out spake brave Sir Cocles" -- "Go,
hark ye, stout Sir Consul" -- and a deal more: I have only seen extracts, but they gave me
this notion.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 17 December 1842:
'I sent Pere Goriot [...] because it is my belief that I never mentioned to you the name of
Balzac, & that he [italics]is[end italics], nevertheless, the most powerful writer of the French
day next to Victor Hugo & George Sand! [...] Pere Goriot is a very painful book -- but full of
moody power, dashed with blood & mud. It appears to me the most powerful work of its
writer, I have read -- & also the most open to tenderness.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 30 December 1842:
'I remember [...] reading in the curious Memoires d'une femme de qualite, a mot upon Madme
de Genlis who was said to have confessed in [italics]her[end italics] memoirs
[italics]everybody's sins except her own[end italics].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Benjamin Robert Haydon, 8 January 1843:
'Your autobiography my dear Mr Haydon is delightful! I have been deeply interested in it in all
ways [...] you owe this M.S. to the world as you owe to it the productions of your Art [...] the
descriptions of Northcote, Opie, & Fuseli are highly graphic & life-like'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Manuscript: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, ?3 March 1843:
'Mr Kenyon calls Christopher North a "glorious brute" -- [italics]I[end italics] call him a "brute-
angel" [...] Oh surely, surely, he is a great poet .. in prose! I am reading the Recreations --
3d volume.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'In looking over my note I find that I have not half said all I think of the admirable manner you treat the subject of your book in the preface. Did you ever read any of Quevedo? the Spanish wit? - whose dry humour is very pointed - His account of the different awakenings of different characters for the day of Judgement is one among many specimens'
[letter to Leigh Hunt]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Benjamin Robert Haydon to Elizabeth Barrett, 28 April 1843:
'I have been sadly shocked at Reading Wilkie[']s life, -- to think that for 20 years of our
earliest Friendship when daily I used to read to him my journal of my thoughts -- & he used to
speak of the danger of all personal remarks in [a] journal [...] It [i.e. Haydon's] was only a
journal of conclusions on Art, & Poetry which have been the foundation of my lectures -- I am
shocked that I never knew [italics]he[ed italics] kept a journal of nothing but remarks on his
Friends their weaknesses & follies'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Robert Haydon Manuscript: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, 29 May 1843:
'Reading Mr Halpin of the Shakespeare society upon Oberon's command to Puck in the
"midsummer night's dream," & falling into the degree of passion to which sympathy is more
necessary than it is to grief itself, I turned in my thoughts to you as the person most likely of
all to be in a competent passion [...] Now by the soul of Shakespeare, it ought to be a reason
or blasphemy by act of Parliament for men to write such treaties & call them commentaries.
They are [italics]mentaries[end italics] in the strictest sense [...] Mr Halpin gives us a
"paraphrase" of Oberon's "sug'red words", -- from which, here is an extract.
'"And so the imperial votaress passed on
In maiden meditation, fancy-free."
'Halpin loquitur. "And so the virgin queen departed from Kenilworth castle, unshackled by any
matrimonial engagement & as heart-whole as ever .."
'I hope you dont belong to the Shakespeare society.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 29 May 1843:
'Mr Reade's "Sacred Poems" I am now looking into by dear Mr Kenyon's kindness. He is
[italics]in Wordsworth now[end italics], having made the circuit of the poets. What a
phenomenon!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 6 July 1843:
'Mr Kenyon came yesterday -- & he had just been reading, he said, "Pride & Prejudice", ..
driven into making an acquaintance with Miss Austen in despite of his anti-novelism, by the
buzz of admiration which beset him from Mr Harness, and others [goes on to report Kenyon's
enthusiastic praises of novel, as well as his reservations concerning its 'want of elevation', in
what she confesses are not necessarily 'verbatim' terms]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Kenyon Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 13 July 1843:
'I like the spirit & courteous goodness of Mr James's books [...] I believe I have read almost
everyone [sic] of his books .. either when I was ill or when I was well. They have much of
what Chaucer calls "gentilesse" .. if not much passion & imagination -- and his scenic
descriptions are admirable. I do not know better books for an invalid -- although the author
may not be pleased with my reason for saying so -- viz that they seldom make the heart
beat.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 13 July 1843:
'You must remember Mademoiselle de Montpensier's delightful memoirs. She was fifty or past
it when she met Lauzun, & the tears ran down my cheeks as I read the recitation of her love
sorrows.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'I had seen some numbers of "Tracts for the Times" lying on the counter in a bookseller's shop in Newport, and they had excited my curiosity, and led to inquiry; and, as my brother William's opinions had by that time become marked, he soon succeeded in indoctrinating us all with them. A very great comfort it certainly was to myself to have my ideas cleared upon subjects which had long been floating about in my brain, and worrying me almost without my knowing it. Especially it was a relief to me to find great earnestness and devotion in a system which allowed of reserve in expression, and did not make the style of conversation, which I had met with in the only definitely religious tales I had read, a necessary part of Christianity. Mrs Sherwood's "Tales" and others of a similar kind, described children as quoting texts, and talking of their feelings in an unnatural way, or what seemed to me unnatural; and I had really suffered so much at school from things said to me which jarred upon my taste that it was perfect rest to be able to talk upon religious subjects without hearing or using cant phrases'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
'The Church though may mean the Catholic or Universal Church and so Rome may be included. It is a horrid, startling notion, but a sermon of Newman's I was reading to-night would be a great safeguard against being led into mischief by it, "Obedience, the remedy for religious pereplexity".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Cornelius Mathews, 31 August 1843:
'I wrote immediately upon receiving your works in their reprint to acknowledge that kindness
[...] Since then, I have read them with great attention & recognised the power & talent which
are destined, I do not doubt, to develop themselves still farther & in more distinctive forms.
There is an inclination to the grotesque which while it gives evidence of a ready fancy,
disturbs the effect of the general impression to such readers as I am -- & the very faithfulness
to American manners & associations while I consistently applaud it, does nevertheless
occasionally in spite of myself increase this disturbance.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett to Cornelius Mathews, 31 August 1843:
'I wrote immediately upon receiving your works in their reprint to acknowledge that kindness
[...] Since then, I have read them with great attention & recognised the power & talent which
are destined, I do not doubt, to develop themselves still father & in more distinctive forms.
There is an inclination to the grotesque which while it gives evidence of a ready fancy,
disturbs the effect of the general impression to such readers as I am -- & the very faithfulness
to American manners & associations while I consistently applaud it, does nevertheless
occasionally in spite of myself increase this disturbance.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett, invalid, to Richard Hengist Horne, 5 October 1843:
'I very much admire Mr Macaulay -- & could scarcely read his ballads & keep lying down. They
seemed to draw me up to my feet as the mesmeric powers are said to do'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, 23 December 1843:
'One or two volumes of the Memoirs of the queens of England, I have read -- & they seemed
to me to show industry & good taste in the selection & compilation of material. But I did not
read any more, just because I like the old chronicles & dislike the compiling spirit.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, 5-6 January 1844:
'[George Payne Rainsford James] is a picturesque writer [...] Often when I have been very
unwell, I have been able to read his books with advantage, when I cd not read better ones.
You may read him from end to end without a superfluous beat of the heart -- & they are just
the sort of intellectual diet fitted for persons "ordered to be kept quiet" by their physicians
[...] I am grateful to Mr James for many a still serene hour.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, letter postmarked 21 February 1844:
'I suppose by an opinion upon Taylor you mean nothing elaborate -- & indeed I am not
qualified for it without a little study, having read Van Artevelde once in a hurry (once -- long
ago!) & no work of his subsequently at all.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 13 March 1844:
'My dearest friend I return Mr Reade's letter which amused me more perhaps than it
[italics]shd[end italics] have done, as representing a human being bound, so, upon the
agonizing wheel of an extreme & incessant vanity [...] Did you not laugh out loud when you
read it? [goes on to mock Reade's views on his contemporaries in literature]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Manuscript: Letter
Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, 22 December 1843:
'I never saw [John Sterling']s book, although I have read many of his poems in Blackwood. He
falls, to my apprehension, into the class of respectable poets: good sense & good feeling,
somewhat dry & cold, and very level smooth writing, being what I discern in him -- There are
Mr Sterling, Mr Simmons, Lord Leigh [...] who have education & natural ability enough to be
anything in the world EXCEPT poets -- & who choose to be poets "in spite of nature & their
stars" [...] Moreover all these men, by a curious consistency, take up & use the Gallic-
Drydeny corruption of versification [source eds believe by this Barrett means blank verse] --
so at least the passing glances I have had of their proceedings lead me to suppose.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 22 July 1844:
'I have been reading for the second time, that interesting memoir of Mrs Hemans by Mr
Chorley -- full of interest certainly. Still I stand by my position, that she was too
conventionally a [italics]lady[end italics], to be a great poetess [...] I took up Blanchard's
memoir of LEL just after Mr Chorley's book, & was struck by an undeniable vulgarity spreading
all the way through it, in obvious contrast to the refinement of the other work.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 3 September 1844:
'I read the preface to "Le Lis" & was delighted by it -- but I admire the romance far more than
you seem to do, and as a love-romance, a nouvelle "nouvelle Heloise," think it quite
exquisite.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 16 September 1844:
'The first book of Balzac's I ever read, disgusted me so, that I vowed to read no more of him,
-- & it was by a mere accident that he met me again & overcame me. That first book was his
"Veille [sic] fille," which I still think a prodigy of noisomeness.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20 September 1844:
'I have just read Coningsby. It is very able, & yet scarcely efficient [...] It has no story, & not
a great deal of character; and is powerful as an exponent of the Young England political views,
without being specific. Still, a master-mind lives in the book, & the reader feels it
everywhere.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to John Kenyon, 29 October 1844:
'There is an excellent refutation of Puseyism in the Edinburgh Review, .. by whom? -- and I
have been reading besides the admirable paper by Macaulay in the same number.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20 November 1844:
'Have you any recollection of Adam Blair? I believe there was an outcry against the indecency
of that book, -- & lately, on comparing the first with a last edition of it, I find that the author
has left out the few lines which were taken generally to be offensive, & which compared to the
least of certain offences, were the merest lamb-innocences.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20 November 1844:
'I read "La Torpille" -- but I cannot give you any information, such as you ask for [...] As to
Casimir Delavigne, I dislike his poetry so much that I dont think I [italics]can[end italics] try
to read any more of it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20 November 1844:
'I read "La Torpille" -- but I cannot give you any information, such as you ask for [...] As to
Casimir Delavigne, I dislike his poetry so much that I dont think I [italics]can[end italics] try
to read any more of it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 30 November 1844:
'Madme Bodin nee Jenny Bastide is neither very pure nor at all powerful [...] "Stenia" did me to
the death of dulness.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 30 November 1844:
'Of [italics]Sandeau[end italics] I have read very little. His "Marianna" has power in its way
[...] but acclimatation is a necessary precaution -- for the passion of the book exceeds the
comprehension of an Englishman by leagues of extravagance. It's a melancholy, desecrating
book'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 December 1844:
'The only work of Eugene Sue which I have read among those you ask about, is "Le
Salamandre" [...] The only remarkable thing is the preface, in which [...] he says that to
represent good people as successful in this world and rogues as unsuccessful would take away
the chief argument for a future life. Now I really do hold that virtue, although not always
prosperous, is yet upon the whole far happier than vice [...] I am quite sure that to represent
systematically vice as fortunate, and goodness as wretched, tends to make selfish people
vicious; and it is really wicked in Balzac to give one the pain he does in this way. In "Une
Tenebreuse Affaire," for instance, I was so provoked with him for making Napoleon kill Michu
and forgive those dolts of gentlemen, that I could have flung the book at his (Balzac's) head, if
luckily that wonderful head had been within reach.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
'I recommend to you Laurent Tailhade. (Such trifles as ?Place des Victoires? which I would give my head to have written originally in English.)'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'I like "The Dark Flower" very much, & wrote to tell Galsworthy so?a thing I have never done before about a book of his, though he is a friend of mine.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'Metastatio is improving I finish Themistocles and the second book of Annals today also - what tempted you to send me that deplorable (these blots are no work of mine) volume of calamities? it was enough to throw any one in my case into the blue devils for a twelvemonth to come.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: Book
'Besides the highland impediment we have had daily visitors for a whole fortnight so I have got nothing read except Turnadot and Napoleon's memoirs - I assure you I have made a violent effort to keep my temper-'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: Book
'I have read no more of Boccac[c]io than his description of the plague which is extremely powerful from the hesitation you seemed to have in allowing me to read him I felt inclined to return it immediately - but on reflection I thought it silly to deprive myself of the pleasure of reading a clever work because it contained some exceptionable passages which I might pass of[f] even if I found them disagreeable - so I shall go on - at least as long as I find it for my good- '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: Book
'Boccac[c]io I return! - I have read the introduction and three of the tales which I took by chance from different parts of the book - in the two first my choice was fortunate and I was inclined to think the work had been belied - the third was enough - I will never open the book again -'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: Book
'I am busy with the fourth volume of Gibbon and Machiavelli's discourses on Livy. He is the only Italian that has interested me - '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: Book
'I am busy with Gibbon, my adorable's life of Necker (not yours) and Fiesko. Either Schiller's prose is much more difficult than his verse or my head is much thicker than it was in winter.- I hope it is not putting you to inconvenience my detaining these books so long[.] If you want them tell me instantly- '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: BookManuscript: Letter
'I finished your Musaeus ten days ago: it is a nice little book and will do very well. You shall have it at Had[dingto]n whenever you get there, with multifarious advices and palavers.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: BookManuscript: Letter
A number of recipes copied from 'First Catch your Hare, The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy', by Hannah Glasse,1747. For example:
'To boile a Custard Pudding
Take a pint of Cream, out of which take two
or three Spoonfulls, and mix with a Spoonful
of fine flour, Set the rest to Boil, When it is
boiled, take it of, and Stir in the Cold
Cream, & flour very well, when it is Cold
beat up five yolks & two whites of eggs Stir
in a Little Salt and some nutmeg & two or
three Spoonfuls of Sack Sweeten to your
palate, butter a wooden bowl, & pour it
in, tie a Cloth over it & boile it half
an hour, when it is enough, untie the
Cloth, turn the pudding out into your
Dish & pour melted butter over it.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Bacon Print: Book
'?Miss Griffin? is capital stuff; not the least dull, a little ragged and loquacious, of course. Go on. Give me more types in the same style; and when I have the lot , I?ll tell you about the?[end of extract]'.
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Unknown
'I have seen nothing new, & have been reading the Memoirs of Mde de Maintenon in French, which are exceedingly entertaining'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'You ask me (pertly enough - pardon the expression) Whether I have read The Lay of the Last Minstrel - alas, only twice - And have, in addition, only the following Catalogue to subjoin of pleasing works which have come under my examination -
English - Thalaba.
Cowper Walker on The Revival of Italian Tragedy
Southey's Tour in Spain
Tommy Jones
Italian - Metastasio's Olympiade
Demofoonte, Giusepe riconosciuto,
Gioas, La Clemenza di
Tito, Catone, Regolo,
Ciro, Zenobia -
Tassos's Aminta -
Seven Canto's of Ariosto,
Il Vero Amore, an Italian novel -
La bella pelegrina, La Zingana
Merope, del Maffei, &c, &c, &c, &c
French - None
If you wish to know how I came to poke my green eyes into so many Italian books, I have this reply at your service. there has been an Italian Master here for above a month - and he brushed up for me the rusty odds an [sic] ends of his dulcet language which I had formerly picked up, & whilst he was here, & since his departure, I have done nothing but peep & pry into the works of his countrymen'
[The format of SHB's list was in two columns, English and french to the left and Italian to the right]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Unknown
'You ask me (pertly enough - pardon the expression) Whether I have read The Lay of the Last Minstrel - alas, only twice - And have, in addition, only the following Catalogue to subjoin of pleasing works which have come under my examination -
English - Thalaba.
Cowper Walker on The Revival of Italian Tragedy
Southey's Tour in Spain
Tommy Jones
Italian - Metastasio's Olympiade
Demofoonte, Giusepe riconosciuto,
Gioas, La Clemenza di
Tito, Catone, Regolo,
Ciro, Zenobia -
Tassos's Aminta -
Seven Canto's of Ariosto,
Il Vero Amore, an Italian novel -
La bella pelegrina, La Zingana
Merope, del Maffei, &c, &c, &c, &c
French - None
If you wish to know how I came to poke my green eyes into so many Italian books, I have this reply at your service. there has been an Italian Master here for above a month - and he brushed up for me the rusty odds an [sic] ends of his dulcet language which I had formerly picked up, & whilst he was here, & since his departure, I have done nothing but peep & pry into the works of his countrymen'
[The format of SHB's list was in two columns, English and french to the left and Italian to the right]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 28 December 1844:
'I have just finished the "Chouans." Of a certain power, without any doubt,
but very heavy in many parts, & exceedingly painful in all [goes on to comment further on this
text] [...] nobody in the world could read it a second time [...]
'Also I am reading David Sechard [...] Balzac has bewitched me [...] His wonderful greatness
in making the ideality, real, -- & the reality, ideal, I take to be unequalled among writers. The
first volume I have not finished yet [goes on to comment further on text] [...] I delight in the
book, as far as I have read! -- It is worth twenty "Chouans" to my particular taste at least.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 28 December 1844:
'I have just finished the "Chouans". Of a certain power, without any doubt,
but very heavy in many parts, & exceedingly painful in all [goes on to comment further on this
text] [...] nobody in the world could read it a second time [...]
'Also I am reading David Sechard [...] Balzac has bewitched me [...] His wonderful greatness
in making the ideality, real, -- & the reality, ideal, I take to be unequalled among writers. The
first volume I have not finished yet [goes on to comment further on text] [...] I delight in the
book, as far as I have read! -- It is worth twenty "Chouans" to my particular taste at least.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 30 December 1844:
'With regard to "La Confession Generale," I am in just your case, -- having read only the first
volume, & failed of the others [i.e. not been able to obtain them from library], -- there are
three: & I was the more provoked because I was interested in the denouement [...] Do you
know "Fernande" by Dumas? It was sent to me instead of "Un homme serieux", last night __ &
I rather like the opening. But Dumas is a second-class writer.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'My dear Katharine, I have gone over your paper at last (I would have done it sooner, had I found the time) [?].'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Sheet, RLS calls it "your paper".
'Then your simile about the spider and the King?s palace is very grim and good; like a sort of Quarles emblem; and that sentence begins admirably, although its feet are of clay.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'Then your simile about the spider and the King?s palace is very grim and good; like a sort of Quarles emblem; and that sentence begins admirably, although its feet are of clay.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Arabella and Henrietta Moulton-Barrett (sisters), 2 October
1846, on receiving her father, brother's, and sisters' responses to her marriage:
'The delay of the week in Paris brought me to the hour of my death warrant at Orleans [...]
Robert brought in a great packet of letters [...] He wanted to sit by me while I read them, but
I would not let him [...] I got him to go away for ten minutes, to meet the agony alone [...]
And besides it was right not to let him read -- -- They were very hard letters, those from
dearest Papa & dearest George [...]
'Now I will tell you -- Robert who had been waiting at the door [...] came in & found me just
able to cry from the balm of your tender words -- I put your two letters into his hands, &
[italics]he[end italics], when he had read them, said with tears in his eyes, & kissing them
between the words -- "I love your sisters with a deep affection -- I am inexpressibly grateful
to them -- It shall be the object of my life to justify their trust as they express it here."'
'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Manuscript: Letter
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Arabella and Henrietta Moulton-Barrett (sisters), 2 October
1846, on receiving her father, brother's, and sisters' responses to her marriage:
'The delay of the week in Paris brought me to the hour of my death warrant at Orleans [...]
Robert brought in a great packet of letters [...] He wanted to sit by me while I read them, but
I would not let him [...] I got him to go away for ten minutes, to meet the agony alone [...]
And besides it was right not to let him read -- -- They were very hard letters, those from
dearest Papa & dearest George [...]
'Now I will tell you -- Robert who had been waiting at the door [...] came in & found me just
able to cry from the balm of your tender words -- I put your two letters into his hands, &
[italics]he[end italics], when he had read them, said with tears in his eyes, & kissing them
between the words -- "I love your sisters with a deep affection -- I am inexpressibly grateful
to them -- It shall be the object of my life to justify their trust as they express it here."'
'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Manuscript: Letter
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford, 8 February 1847:
'Robert is a warm admirer of Balzac & has read most of his books'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847:
'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des
Girondins [...] Even at the Palace where they read so little they are all devouring those
eloquent Volumes -- the Queen & all. I would not have believed that Lamartine's prose could
be so fine -- but the prose of poets is often finer than their verse [...] The Author does
injustice to Napoleon I think, & is over candid to Robespierre & many of the other
Revolutionary Heroes -- so that one wonders sometimes [italics]who[end italics] was guilty --
but still the book is charming.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847:
'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des
Girondins [...] Even at the Palace where they read so little they are all devouring those
eloquent Volumes -- the Queen & all. I would not have believed that Lamartine's prose could
be so fine -- but the prose of poets is often finer than their verse [...] The Author does
injustice to Napoleon I think, & is over candid to Robespierre & many of the other
Revolutionary Heroes -- so that one wonders sometimes [italics]who[end italics] was guilty --
but still the book is charming.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Queen Victoria and Royal Household Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847:
'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des
Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant
esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too
close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I
was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was
interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story
of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by
the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le
Batard de Mouleon [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s Antiquities
of London -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a mixed Vol of
Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847:
'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des
Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant
esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too
close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I
was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was
interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story
of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by
the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le
Batard de Mouleon [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s Antiquities
of London -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a mixed Vol of
Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
'I can say this much that your paper has impressed me very much, and I shall never get the village out of my head; I know the place; it is called (to imitate Bunyan) the village of Hope-deferred, and near it goes the river of the Shadow of Suicide.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847:
'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by
the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le Batard de Mouleon [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s Antiquities of London -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a mixed Vol of Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Unknown
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847:
'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des
Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant
esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too
close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I
was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was
interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story
of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by
the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le
Batard de Mouleon [sic] [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s
Antiquities of London -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a
mixed Vol of Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Unknown
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, letter postmarked 2 October 1847:
'The most interesting [book] that I have read for many years is Lamartine's Histoire des
Girondins [...] Also I am reading Appert's Dix Ans a la Cour de Louis Philippe, very pleasant
esprit -- & have just finished Le Chien d'Alcibiade -- a Tale of some cleverness although too
close an imitation of Gerfaut [...] I see by the papers that poor Frederic Soulie is dead -- I
was just reading a novel of his on the wars of La Vendee (Saturnine Fichet [sic]) which was
interesting -- only he had imitated a likeness between two persons from the old French Story
of Martin Guerre, which story aforesaid [...] Dumas had been using in Les Deux Diane -- by
the way I am reading 3 series by Dumas, Les Deux Diane -- Les Memoires d'un Medecin & Le
Batard de Mouleon [sic] [...] Of English books I have been much pleased by Mr Jesse[']s
Antiquities of London -- very pleasant gossip -- & St John[']s Wild sports of the Highlands a
mixed Vol of Deerstalking & Natural History which is charming'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Anna Brownell Jameson, mid-December 1847:
'We are going through some of old Sacchetti's novelets now: characteristic work for Florence,
if somewhat dull elsewhere [...] We got a newly printed addition to Savonarola's poems the
other day -- very flat & cold -- they did not catch fire when he was burnt. The most poetic
thing in the book, is his face on the first page, with that eager, devouring soul in the eyes of
it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford, 30 April 1847:
'At Pisa, Robert read to me while I was ill [following miscarriage], & partly by being read to &
partly by reading I got through a good deal of amusing French book-work, & among the rest,
two volumes of Bernard's new ["]Gentilhomme Campagnard." Rather dull I thought it, but
clever of course -- dull for Bernard. Then we read "Le Speronare" by Dumas -- a delightful
book of travels.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning Print: Book
'Anch'io have been reading La Rochefaucould [sic] - and he has furnished me with an excellet Motto for my third Volume - And what is more to the purpose, with some entertainment of the highest & most rational kind for my breakfast hours. I can only afford time now to read at my meals. Ah pauvre humanite - I am afraid he is a [underlied] very [end underlining] little too severe against it! [...] He seldom writes as if he was hardened enough to exult in human depravity, but often as if he sadly, yet irresistibly felt its existence to be true - and such a book, it strikes me, properly considered, is calculated to produce infinite benefit'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I am reading Bartelemi's Anacharsis. which forms a sort of Appendix or rather comentary to the Grecian History I was so much taken up with last summer. Without such a previous brushing up of the memory, about those Grecian chaps, I should not have enjoyed Anacharsis at all'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
"I too am reading Mme de Staal [sic], and am such a Goth, that I catch myself yawning over it! Probably I am not formed to love "les plaisirs [underlined] dissertant [end underlining]." The book is like a long Review, and all about the same set of objects; and I tire for want of connection, and something either to interest my feelings or amuse my imagination. Yet, I have extracted some delightful, and some most wise little passages; and I read, though with fatigue, still with admiration, such a copious series of well-expressed reflections [...] I told my sister d'Arblay to-night, how glad I was that our best English writers, meaning Adison [sic], Swift, Johnson &c, had not written like Mde de Staal; for if they had, as sure as a gun, I should never have loved reading - I should never have opened a book. I have finished vol. I & shall probably read II and III, out of vanity, & just to say I have read them'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'Yes I [underlined] have [end underlining] read the book you speak of, "Pride & Prejudice", and I could quite rave about it! How well you define one of its characterestics [sic] when you say of it, that it breaths [sic] a spirit of "careless originiality". - It is charming. - Nothing was ever better conducted than the fable; nothing can be more [underlined] piquant [end underlining] than its dialogues; more distinct than its characters. Do, I entreat, tell me by whom it is written; and tell me, if your health will allow you, [underlined] soon [end underlining]. I die to know. Some say it is by Mrs Dorset, who wrote that clever little [underlined] bijou [end underlining], "the Peacock at Home". is it so? Pray, pray tell me. I have the three vols now in the house, and know not how to part with them. I have only just finished, and could begin them all over again with pleasure'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I am not sufficiently fond of dissertations, of eternal analysis, of eloquent bubbles, to be a warm partizan of Mde de Staal [sic]. Between friends - but don't mention it - I yawned over her Allemagne - and yet, here and there, was electrified by a flash of sublimity. Do you agree with me in thinking, that with all her brilliant varnish, she is corrupt at heart? Had Satan himself written "Pauline", one of the stories published with "Zuma", he could have produced nothing more offensive to decency, more detestably disgusting'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I am not sufficiently fond of dissertations, of eternal analysis, of eloquent bubbles, to be a warm partizan of Mde de Staal [sic]. Between friends - but don't mention it - I yawned over her Allemagne - and yet, here and there, was electrified by a flash of sublimity. Do you agree with me in thinking, that with all her brilliant varnish, she is corrupt at heart? Had Satan himself written "Pauline", one of the stories published with "Zuma", he could have produced nothing more offensive to decency, more detestably disgusting'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'Many thanks for the loan of "Emma", which, even amidst languor and depression, forced from me a smile, & afforded me much amusement'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I am [underlined] so [end underlining] glad you like what you have read of "Emma", and the dear old man's "Gentle selfishness". - Was there ever a happier expression? - I have read no story book with such glee, since the days of "Waverley" and "Mannering", and, by the same author as "Emma", my prime favourite of all modern Novels "Pride and Prejudice"'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I am [underlined] so [end underlining] glad you like what you have read of "Emma", and the dear old man's "Gentle selfishness". - Was there ever a happier expression? - I have read no story book with such glee, since the days of "Waverley" and "Mannering", and, by the same author as "Emma", my prime favourite of all modern Novels "Pride and Prejudice"'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Barrett Print: Book
'I have read both Scott's visits, and Mrs Hulse has just lent me the life of John Sobieski, K. of poland. I have only just begun it, but it promises facility of style, & I think I shall like it. I tried Pallas's Travels in Russia lately: but there was too much about progressive improvements in agriculture, & manufactuaries amongst the grown-up Muscovite babes, & I got tired, as I easily do of all that relates to half civilised nations. Give me a whole Savage or no Savage at all.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I have read both Scott's visits, and Mrs Hulse has just lent me the life of John Sobieski, K. of poland. I have only just begun it, but it promises facility of style, & I think I shall like it. I tried Pallas's Travels in Russia lately: but there was too much about progressive improvements in agriculture, & manufactuaries amongst the grown-up Muscovite babes, & I got tired, as I easily do of all that relates to half civilised nations. Give me a whole Savage or no Savage at all.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I have been out reading Hallam in the garden ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'Of course you have read Segur, & Pepys, and with the latter are perhaps "mightily" weary now & then, but on the whole amused - There is a interesting History of the Tower of London lately published, which read when you can, for its historical anecdotes - and also (if you like Tours) read John Russel's Tour in Germany in 1820, 21, 22.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I like your Capt. Franklin mainly - and his manly & respectful commendation of my poor dear James, is charming. - I am (though a little ashamed to own it) not fond, in general, of Voyages. Many women are, and I wish I were one - for the more innocent amusements we have the better. But when scientific purposes are to be answered by such voyages, I have great respect for them, and only wish I could get at their marrow, without being obliged to read about the gluttonous, dirty, lying, thieving, and brutal Savages! - To think that such creatures are really our fellow-beings, and that we might have been such as they are, but for the favour of God, is to me the most melancholy consideration in the world'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'If you want light easy Italian reading, get Giraud's Commedie - They are excessively amusing - Some are farcical & some are grave, but all full of action, & with a great deal of character well delineated and well supported - Books are so cheap here, that I bought Nota's Comedies, which are in great repute & often acted, and are printed in eight duodecimo volumes for six Pauls!'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I have meditated also a large work, on the Plan of ... Campbell's Chancellors ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
Virginia Stephen to Violet Dickinson, 25 December 1906:
'I am reading now a book by Renan called his Memories of Childhood [Cahiers de Jeunesse,
1906]: O my word it is beautiful -- like the chime of silver bells [...] I think it a virtue in the
French language that it submits to prose, whereas English curls and knots and breaks off in
short spasms of rage. Also I am reading my dear Christina Rossetti [...] the first of our
English poetesses [...] Then I am reading your Keats, with the pleasure of one handling great
luminous stones. I rise and shout in ecstacy, and my eyes brim with such pleasure that I must
drop the book and gaze from the window. It is a beautiful edition.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Stephen Print: Book
Virginia Stephen to Violet Dickinson, 25 December 1906:
'I am reading now a book by Renan called his Memories of Childhood [Cahiers de Jeunesse,
1906]: O my word it is beautiful -- like the chime of silver bells [...] Also I am reading my
dear Christina Rossetti [...] the first of our English poetesses [...] Then I am reading your
Keats, with the pleasure of one handling great luminous stones. I rise and shout in ecstacy,
and my eyes brim with such pleasure that I must drop the book and gaze from the window. It
is a beautiful edition.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Stephen Print: Book
Virginia Stephen to Violet Dickinson, ?30 December 1906:
'I have been reading Keats most of the day. I think he is about the greatest of all [...] I like
cool Greek Gods, and amber skies, and shadow like running water, and all his great palpable
words -- symbols for immaterial things.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Stephen Print: Book
Virginia Stephen to Clive Bell, 18 August 1907:
'I am reading Henry James on America; and feel myself as one embalmed in a block of
smooth amber: it is not unpleasant, very tranquil, as a twilight shore -- but such is not the
stuff of genius: no, it should be a swift stream.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Stephen Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 22 October 1915:
'I should think I had read 600 books since we met. Please tell me what merit you find in Henry
James. I have disabused Leonard [Woolf, husband] of him; but we have his works here, and I
read, and can't find anything but faintly tinged rose water, urbane and sleek, but vulgar, and
pale as Walter Lamb. Is there really any sense in it? I admit I can't be bothered to snuff out
his meaning when it's very obscure. I am beginning the Insulted and Injured [Dostoevsky,
1862]; which sweeps me away. Have you read it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Janet Case, 20 March 1922:
'Literature still survives. I've not read K. Mansfield [The Garden Party], and don't mean to. I've
read Bliss; and it was so brilliant, -- so hard, and so shallow, and so sentimental that I had to
rush to the bookcase for something to drink. Shakespeare, Conrad, even Virginia Woolf.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Ottoline Morrell, 18 August 1922:
'Poor Rebecca West's novel bursts like an over stuffed sausage. She pours it all in; and one is
covered with flying particles; indeed I had hastily to tie the judge tight and send it back to
Mudies [Library] half finished. But this irreticence does not make me think any the worse of
her human qualities [...] I do admire poor old Henry [James], and actually read through the
Wings of a Dove [1902] last summer, and thought it such an amazing acrobatic feat, partly of
his, partly of mine, that I now look upon myself and Henry James as partners in merit. I made
it all out. But I felt very ill for some time afterwards. I am now reading Joyce, and my
impression, after 200 out of 700 pages, is that the poor young man has got the dregs of a
mind compared even with George Meredith. I mean if you could weigh the meaning on Joyces
[sic] page it would be about 10 times as light as on Henry James'.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West, 30 August 1928:
'I am happy because it is the loveliest August [...] I read Proust, Henry James, Dostoevsky'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West, 8 January 1929:
'I've been reading Balzac, and Tolstoy. Practically every scene in Anna Karenina is branded on
me, though I've not read it for 15 years.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Mary Hutchinson, 6 May 1929:
'We are down here [Monks House, Rodmell] to see about making a new room -- this we have
been seeing about for 3 months now, and not a stone is laid. But when the stones are laid you
will have to brave the eternal sea mist and south west gale and come here. I should provide
you with the works of Ronald Firbank which I am reading with some unstinted pleasure'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West, 24 May 1931:
'I've wasted 4 days when I wanted to write. And I've spent them partly reading Princess Daisy
of Pless, speculating upon her real character and life and longing for a full account of them
from you -- who appear in a footnote as a distinguished author. What a chance the British
aristocracy had and lost -- I mean if they'd only grafted brains on to those splendid bodies and
wholesome minds -- for I can't help liking her, in her wild idiocy, and her frankness "7 days
late -- can it be a child --" seems to me the highest human quality, if it werent [sic] combined
with a housemaids [sic] sensibility and the sentimentality of a Surbiton cook.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Ethel Smyth, 8 January 1935:
'We had a children's party and I judged the clothes. All the mothers gazed, and I felt like --
who's the man in the bible --? Which by the way, I have bought and am reading. And Renan. And
the New Testament; so don't call me heathen in future.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'I have bought Sainte-Beuve's Chateaubriand and am immensely delighted with the critic.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'Andrews seems very pleasant and we had a fierce forenoon of it over meteorology. He has Bookan (as he calls him)...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'I am reading Michaud's Histoire des Croisades, well written and entertaining; and I have just finished Monti's fine Tragedy of Caius Gracchus. I like it much better than his Aristodemus - and I suspect I shall also prefer it to his Galeotto Manfredi, tho' the opening scene of this last is admirable. The story however is an odious one, and all the worse for being true'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'Another book of a very different character has amused me mightily; it is entitled "Tablettes Romaines", and is full of wit and vivacity, and gives a very just and true picture of modern Rome, at least, as far as I am competent to judge. I wish you could get it. The pretended name of the Author is Santo Domingo, but, somehow, I suspect that to be a fudge. It was printed at Bruselles, for neither in Italy nor at Paris would such free opinions have been allowed to see the light - at least during the Carlists day'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I have just finished Trelawney's Adventures of a Younger Brother. It is a book that excites whilst reading, and leaves behind it, many painful feelings. A true radical spirit runs thoughout it; - a contempt of all establishments, social, political, or religious; - a mad ferocity of disposition that causes the narrative to be filled with details of atrocious murders, so minutely described that ones flesh creeps upon ones bones whilst reading. Yet - to give even the devil his due, he has succeeded in drawing a female character of surpassing loveliness, purity, and tender faithfulness. He makes her an Arab however, that European women may take no pride to themselves from the favourable description he gives of her.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Leonard Woolf, 14 July 1936:
'A very good, though very dull day. No headache this morning, brain rather active in fact: but
didn't write -- did nothing but lie in bed and read Macaulay.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West, 3 May 1938:
'I am reading for the first time a book which I think a very good book -- Mandeville's Fable of the bees [1714].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'would you like, Ma'am, to know what I have been doing all alone and at home this winter? - I have, 'an please you, for the 2d time in my life read Mde de Sevigne, 9 vols. - Histoire de la Revolution, par Thiers, 10. vols. - Botta's Storia d'Italia, continued from Guicciardini; there are ten vols: I have read only 6 yet. Memoires de l'Abbe Morellet, very entertaining. Memoires de Mde Dubarry, very naughty, but very amusing, & she the best natured of the vicious, envious, spightful Court - and sundry other vols, dotted about, & lent me by one body or other. - I hope you are edified, Sister Emma.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
?Reed by me N. Hughes 1595 ? noember?
Century: 1500-1599 Reader/Listener/Group: N. Hughes Print: Book
'Pray do you now and then read modern Biography? I have been highly entertained, & even interested by the Memoirs of Mathews, edited & mostly written by his wife. Well, and another lively amusing book of the same class is the Life of Grimaldi, by Dickens. Both Mathews & Grimaldi, though considered as Buffoons, were full of good feeling, & excellent private characters. I arose from the perusal of each work, with respect & love for both men; and since the publication of Crabb's Memoirs, and Campbell's Life of Mrs Siddons, I have read no Biography I like half so well'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'Have you seen the Journal & letters of my dear Sister? & Charlotte Barrett's pretty Introduction. I earnestly hope the work will be liked; and I think it stands a very fair chance, so many celebrated people will be brought forward. - This is a very tolerable place for getting books (English [underlined] s'entend [end underlining]) but my copy is a present, & will have a fine gauntlet to run, I promise it'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'Am charmed to find "The Diary" is approved by the General. The third vol: I think must be universally interesting - the [underlined] first [end underlining], to own the truth, contained too much about the early appearance of Evelina, to please me. - But it went down well with many people, & has caused a fresh demand for Evelina & Cecilia at every Library in Cheltenham'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'You want to know what I think of the "Diary". I wil tell you fairly & impartially. after wading with pain and sorrow through the tautology and vanity of the first volume, I began to be amused by the second, and every suceeding volume has, to my thinking, encreased in power to interest & entertain. That there is still considerable vanity I cannot deny. In her life, she bottled it all up, & looked and generally spoke with the most refined modesty, & seemed ready to drop if ever her works were alluded to. But what was kept back, and scarcely suspected in society, wanting a safety valve, found its way to her private journal. Thence, had Mrs Barrett been judicious, she would have trundled it out, by half quires, and even whole quires at a time'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I think I said in one of myy recent scrawls all I had to say concerning Mr Macauley's Review: every part of which I like mainly, except his severe mention of the Royal Family, and his unnecessary critique of my Sister's Life of Dr Burney. Surely Croker had cut that up quite bitterly enough; - I cannot see why it need have been brought forward again'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Serial / periodical
'read Lady Vavasour's "Last Tour, and First Work, or a visit to the Baths of Wildbad, & Rippoldsau". - It is only one Volume, & is very entertaining and often clever, & lively, with considerable general information. Campbell's Editorship of the "Life of Frederick the Great" has also amused me much'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'Now I will quit these dreary subjects, and tell you of a few nice books for you to read & like - The 1st Vol. of Campbell's life of Frederic the Great. The others [underlined] I [end underlining] did not enjoy so much. They are chiefly about the seven year's [sic] war: but there are parts even of that, which interested me very much. - Then "Stevenson's Central South America". That is not the full title, but I forget exactly how the book is called. - I suppose you know the Life of Lord Howe. I was delighted with it; and it is only in one volume. There, if you chuse to try any of the above, I think I have cut you out work enough to last a good while'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
Monday 12 November 1917: 'I went to Mudies, & got The Leading Note, in order to examine
into R.T. more closely [...] I came home with my book, which does not seem a very masterly
performance after Turgenev, I suppose; but if you dont get your touches in the right place the
method is apt to be sketchy & empty.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Wednesday 5 December 1917: 'L[eonard]. reading Life of Dilke [...] I'm past the middle of
Purgatorio, but find it stiff, the meaning more than the language, I think.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Wednesday 5 December 1917: 'L[eonard]. reading Life of Dilke [...] I'm past the middle of
Purgatorio, but find it stiff, the meaning more than the language, I think.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'Mahaffy's book of Travels in Greece will soon be out. I have been correcting his proofs and like it immensely.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Manuscript: Codex, publisher's proofs
'[?] it was that paper of yours that made me think of the book[Baudelaire's "Petits Poemes en Prose"]' (see RED ID18015)
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Sheet, Referred to here by RLS as "that paper of yours".
23 July 1918: 'Jack Hills & Pippa dined here [...] To my surprise [...] he knows about Georgian
poetry, & has read Lytton's book, & condemns the Victorians.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Waller Hills Print: Book
7 August 1918: 'Our excitement [has been] the return of the servants from Lewes last night,
with [...] the English review for me, with [...] Katherine Mansfield on Bliss. I threw down Bliss
with the exclamation, "She's done for!" Indeed I don't see how much faith in her as as woman
or writer can survive that sort of story [...] her mind is a very thin soil, laid an inch or two
upon very barren rock [...] she is content with superficial smartness; & the whole conception
is poor, cheap, not the vision, however imperfect, of an interesting mind. She writes badly
too. And the effect was as I say, to give me an impression of her callousness & hardness as a
human being. I shall read it again; but I dont suppose I shall change.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Serial / periodical
'I lie in bed, and watch the fire on the ceiling, and hear the clock strike, and think how delicious it will be when you come to stay here - I read Haydon, and an excellent Cruickshank-ish book called Murder for Profit.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vita Sackville-West Print: Book
'I am reading a delicious book called The Wandering Scholars - I wish I knew Latin.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vita Sackville-West Print: Book
6 March 1920: 'On Thursday, dine with the MacCarthys, & the first Memoir Club meeting [hosted by MacCarthys]. A highly interesting occasion. Seven people read -- & Lord knows what I didn't read into their reading. Sydney [Waterlow] [...] signified as much by reading us a dream [...] altogether a queer, self-conscious, self analytic performance [...] Clive purely objective; Nessa starting matter of fact: then overcome by the emotional depths to be traversed; & unable to read aloud what she had written. Duncan fantastic & tongue -- not tied -- tongue enchanted. Molly literary about tendencies & William Morris, carefully composed at first, & even formal: suddenly saying "Oh this is absurd -- I can't go on" shuffling all her sheets; beginning on the wrong page; firmly but waveringly, & carrying through to the end [...] Roger well composed; story of a coachman who stole geraniums & went to prison.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Waterlow Manuscript: Unknown
6 March 1920: 'On Thursday, dine with the MacCarthys, & the first Memoir Club meeting [hosted by MacCarthys]. A highly interesting occasion. Seven people read -- & Lord knows what I didnt read into their reading. Sydney [Waterlow] [...] signified as much by reading us a dream [...] altogether a queer, self-conscious, self analytic performance [...] Clive purely objective; Nessa starting matter of fact: then overcome by the emotional depths to be traversed; & unable to read aloud what she had written. Duncan fantastic & tongue -- not tied -- tongue enchanted. Molly literary about tendencies & William Morris, carefully composed at first, & even formal: suddenly saying "Oh this is absurd -- I can't go on" shuffling all her sheets; beginning on the wrong page; firmly but waveringly, & carrying through to the end [...] Roger well composed; story of a coachman who stole geraniums & went to prison.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Duncan Grant Manuscript: Unknown
6 March 1920: 'On Thursday, dine with the MacCarthys, & the first Memoir Club meeting [hosted by MacCarthys]. A highly interesting occasion. Seven people read -- & Lord knows what I didnt read into their reading. Sydney [Waterlow] [...] signified as much by reading us a dream [...] altogether a queer, self-conscious, self analytic performance [...] Clive purely objective; Nessa starting matter of fact: then overcome by the emotional depths to be traversed; & unable to read aloud what she had written. Duncan fantastic & tongue -- not tied -- tongue enchanted. Molly literary about tendencies & William Morris, carefully composed at first, & even formal: suddenly saying "Oh this is absurd -- I can't go on" shuffling all her sheets; beginning on the wrong page; firmly but waveringly, & carrying through to the end [...] Roger well composed; story of a coachman who stole geraniums & went to prison.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Duncan Grant Manuscript: Unknown
Tuesday 25 January 1921: 'K. M. (as the papers call her) swims from triumph to triumph in the reviews; save that [J. C.] Squire doubts her genius -- so, I'm afraid, do I. These little points, though so cleanly collected, don't amount to much, I think. I read her at the Club last night'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Unknown
Friday 15 April 1921: 'I have been lying recumbent all day reading Carlyle, and now Macaulay, first to see if Carlyle wrote better than Lytton [Strachey], then to see if Macaulay sells better. Carlyle (reminiscences) is more colloquial and scrappy than I remembered, but he has his merits. -- more punch in his phrase than in Lytton's.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Monday 12 September 1921: 'I have finished the Wings of the Dove, & make this comment. His [Henry James's] manipulations become so elaborate towards the end that instead of feeling the artist you merely feel the man who is posing the subject. And then I think he loses the power to feel the crisis. He becomes merely excessively ingenious [goes on to comment further on text].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Thursday 15 September 1921: 'I have been dabbling in K.M.'s stories, & have to rinse my mind -- in Dryden? Still, if she were not so clever she coudn't be so disagreeable.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Unknown
'Whenever she felt morose or lonely she looked into books, and, having an insatiable curiosity, by the time she was three she had taught herself to read. Hans Christian Andersen's "Fairy Tales" became an early favorite. Some of the tales that she read again and again, it must have seemed, mirrored her own life. Aware that she had not inherited her mther's beauty, she was intrigued in particular by "The Ugly Duckling".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell Print: Book
[her governess Helen Roothman] 'introduced Edith to the works of Verlaine, Rimbaud and Mallarme. Though Edith had had a taste for Baudelaire through Swinburne's translations of the author of "Les Fleurs du mal", she found her governess' favorites even more to her liking'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell Print: Book
[Helen Roothman] 'brought Edith new poetry too - the French symbolists, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Baudelaire - to enlarge her own rapt readings of Swinburne, William Morris, Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, Yeats'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell Print: Book
12 September 1921: '[James Strachey] is the easiest & gayest of companions. Here he leapt onto my bed, directly I left it, & lay reading Jane's pamphlet.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: James Strachey
18 December 1921: 'Roger's visit [on 17 December] went off specially well [...] Roger had Benda in his pocket & read a passage aloud'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Fry Print: Book
Tuesday 22 August 1922: ''Boen [Hawkesford] came to tea on Sunday [...] She is changing; reading Bliss under [Edward] Shanks' orders'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Boen Hawkesford Print: Book
Tuesday 12 September: 'Lytton drove off an hour ago; I have been sitting here, unable to read or collect myself -- such is the wreckage dealt by 4 days of conversation [...] I told Lytton I should try to write down his talk -- which sprang from a conversation about Boswell [...] Lytton had of course read Mrs Thrale [...] One night he gave us a complete account of the prison system, based on reports which he has been reading -- thoroughly, with mastery, & a kind of political ability which impresses me.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lytton Strachey Print: Book
Tuesday 12 September: 'Lytton drove off an hour ago; I have been sitting here, unable to read or collect myself -- such is the wreckage dealt by 4 days of conversation [...] I told Lytton I should try to write down his talk -- which sprang from a conversation about Boswell [...] Lytton had of course read Mrs Thrale [...] One night he gave us a complete account of the prison system, based on reports which he has been reading -- thoroughly, with mastery, & a kind of political ability which impresses me.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lytton Strachey Print: Book
'I've been walking on the marsh and found a swan sitting in a Saxon grave. This made me think of you. Then I came back and read about Leonardo - Kenneth Clark - good I think: this also made me think of you.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf
Saturday 31 July [entry headed 'My Own Brain,' and beginning 'Here is a whole nervous breakdown in miniature']: 'A desire to read poetry set in on Friday. This brings back a sense of my own individuality. Read some Dante & Bridges, without troubling to understand, but got pleasure from them.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Sunday 25 November 1928: 'I took Essex & Eth (Lytton's) down [to Rodmell] to read, & Lord forgive me! -- find it a poor book. I have not finished it, and am keeping it to see if my [text ends]'.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf
Wednesday 23 October 1929: 'Since I have been back [apparently to London, from Sussex home] I have read Virginia Water (a sweet white grape); God; -- all founded, & teased & spun out upon one quite simple & usual psychological experience; but the mans no poet & cant make one see; all his sentences are like steel lines on an engraving. I am reading Racine, have bought La Fontaine, & so intend to make my sidelong approach to French literature, circling & brooding'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Wednesday 20 August 1930: 'I am reading Dante, & I say, yes, this makes all writing unnecessary [...] I read the Inferno for half an hour at the end of my own page [of current work]: & that is the place of honour'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Thursday 28 August 1930: 'I am reading R. Lehmann, with some interest & admiration -- she has a clear hard mind, beating up now & again to poetry; but I am as usual appalled by the machinery of fiction: its much work for little result. Yet I see no other outlet for her gifts.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Wednesday 24 September 1930: 'I am reading Dante; & my present view of reading is to elongate immensely. I take a week over one canto. No hurry.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Saturday 27 December 1930: 'We came down [to Rodmell] on Tuesday, & next day my cold was the usual influenza, & I am in bed with the usual temperature [...] I moon torpidly through book after book: Defoe's Tour; Rowan's auto[biograph]y; Benson's Memoirs; Jeans; in the familiar way [...] Oh & I've read Q[ueen]. V[ictoria]'s letters [...] Q.V. entirely unaesthetic; a kind of Prussian competence, & belief in herself her only prominences [...] Knew her own mind. But the mind radically commonplace.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Saturday 27 December 1930: 'We came down [to Rodmell] on Tuesday, & next day my cold was the usual influenza, & I am in bed with the usual temperature [...] I moon torpidly through book after book: Defoe's Tour; Rowan's auto[biograph]y; Benson's Memoirs; Jeans; in the familiar way [...] Oh & I've read Q[ueen]. V[ictoria]'s letters [...] Q.V. entirely unaesthetic; a kind of Prussian competence, & belief in herself her only prominences [...] Knew her own mind. But the mind radically commonplace.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'How do you like Thalaba? There are always so many nothings to be done in London daily, that I have not read ten lines for the last ten weeks, till I came to Holland House, where I have galloped through two volumes of Madame Du Deffand's Letters, and with much amusement, though the anecdotes are in themselves of no great value; still, being written on the spot, and at the moment, they have a vivacity and interest which make one read letter after letter without weariness. The extracts from Lord Orford's letters contain frequently excellent things; and indeed, in Madame Du Deffand's own general observations, there is much good sense and plain truth; but that sense and truth, being generally grounded upon knowledge of the world, it unfortunately follows, of course, that the information which it conveys must be of a disagreeable and humiliating complexion. [Lewis then talks about Lord Orfor'd treatment of a blind woman] Have you read these letters? You know, of course, that they were edited by your friend, Miss Berry, who has also written the Preface, the Life, and the Notes, all of which are most outrageously abused by many persons, though, in my opinion, without any just grounds'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Matthew Lewis Print: Book
'One day, the Princess showed me a large book, in which she had written characters of a great many of the leading persons in England. She read me some of them. They were drawn with spirit, but I could not form any opinion of their justice; first, because a mere outline, however boldly sketched, cannot convey a faithful portraiture of character; and, secondly, because many of the persons mentioned therein wre unknown to me. Upon the whole, these characters impressed me with a high opinion of her discernment and power of expression. Not that it was good English, but that it was strong sense. But how dangerous! If that book exists, it would form a curious episode in the memoirs of those times.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Princess Caroline Princess of Wales Manuscript: MS book
'The Princess often read aloud. It was difficult to understand her germanised French, and still more, her composite English. She was particularly amused at the Margravine de Bareith's Memoirs. This lady was the sister of Frederick the Great - devil. In truth, they were amusing, as all memoirs are that merely relate to facts'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Princess Caroline Princess of Wales Print: Book
'A propos, our [italics] ladies [end italics] are greatly shocked with the free use of scriptural phrases in the ******, and very angry with the author on that account. For my part, as I have read a great many of the old Presbyterian sermons, I do not see those passages in so atrocious a light; for they are nothing to the wonderful things one meets with in the effusions of Peden and Cargill; whose favourite scriptural book appears to have been the song of Solomon: - which song, by the way, I lately found in MS. in the Advocates' library, translated into rhyme by Mistress Barbara Macky, and humbly dedicated to that most noble lady the Countess of Caithness, daughter to that thrice worthy marquess, my Lord Marquess of Argyll. And a conscientious translator Mistress Barbara was; for she leaves out not one word of her original: but her fidelity is superior to her meter by many degrees'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe Print: Unknown
'Since I have been in London I have read nothing but Miss Seward's letters and Miss Owenson's Missionary. Of Miss Seward I am bound to speak well, as she doth so of me; and her monodies are beauiful; but the letters are naught; they abound in false sentiment, and a great many other false things. As to the Missionary, Ambrosio is his father, and Matilde his mother; but, wanting the indelicacy of papa, and the delicacy of mamma, he's a dull fellow. I could think of nothing else but poor Margaret Stewart of Blantyre, and her presbyterian minister, while I read this. Miss Luxina brought her hogs to a bad market, for Hilarion was little better than a beast. Walter Scott's last poem I have also seen, but so hastily that I can be no competent judge of its merits. Talking of words, allow me to recommend to you Ford's plays, lately re-published. Some of them are excellent; the first in the series (which hath an awkward name, I must confess) and the Broken Heart, are particularly admirable. I am sure that you will be struck with them; for Ford is almost as moving as Otway or Lee, - who is the mad poet I adore, yet I can persuade nobody to read him. The History of the Somerville Family, which I have seen in MS., is soon to be printed, and that of Sutherland is to be out shortly'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe Print: Book
'I am glad to hear you are giving Macaulay a turn. I believe, though it sounds rude and foolish, nothing will do you more good.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sidney Colvin Print: Book, Articles in the Edinburgh Review?
25 December 1931: 'After writing the last page, Nov. 16th, I could not go on writing without a perpetual headache; & so took a month lying down; have not written a line; have read Faust, Coningsby &c.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Wednesday 11 May: 'again this heroism in the attempt at pen & ink: but I am tired of reading Rousseau: it is 6 o'clock [...] we are shaking & rattling through Lombardy towards the Alps [on way back from holiday in Greece]'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'She read one of Madame de Stael's [italics] Petits Romans [end italics], which I had lent her, and which she told me had given her great pleasure'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Princess Caroline Princess of Wales Print: Book
'What do you think of the "Wardour", by Madame d'Arblais [sic]? It has only proved to us that she forgot her English; and the same suspicion has arisen again in my mind, that "Evelina" was written, or at least corrected, by Dr Johnson.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Princess Caroline Princess of Wales Print: Book
'"I do not consider at all", observed Madame de C[-], "the author of a book, but only the work itself abstractedly, and I think the work we are now speaking of is one of the most perfect and most extraordinary, to be a woman's writing, I ever read."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Madame de [C-] Print: Book
'Madame de C[-], who appears to me to be a clever and deep-thinking person, admired the whole of it without reserve, and said, she thought nothing could be more luminous than the manner in which Madame de Stael spoke of the different systems of metaphysical philosophy; and the only thing she regretted, was, that some extracts of Kant's writings had not been inserted'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Madame de [C-] Print: Book
'Read Madame de Stael sur les Passions. What a wonderful mind is hers! what an insight she has into the recesses of human feeling! How many secret springs does she unlock; and how much the woman - the tender, the kind, the impassioned woman - betrays herself even in all the philosophy of her writings.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Print: Book
'Madame de Stael's "Essai sur les fictions" delights me particularly: for every word in it is a beautiful echo of my own feelings'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Print: Book
'I have myself read his [Kant's] works, and I think nothing can be more lucid than his style, or more easy to be understood'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Print: Book
In Diary of Virginia Woolf, facing page on which entry for 20 August 1932 and beginning of entry for 2 September written:
'Reading this August:
Souvenirs de Tocqueville
Any number of biographies --
Coleridge -- one or two poems.
Lord Kilbracken memoirs.
Shaw Pen portraits.
Ainslie memoirs.
Vita's novel
[...]
Nothing much good --
except de T:
Coleridges letters; but failed
to finish the 2nd vol.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Sunday 14 May 1933: 'I am reading -- skipping -- the Sacred Fount [by Henry James] -- about the most inappropriate of all books for this din -- sitting by the open window, looking across heads & heads & heads -- all Siena parading in gray & pink & the cars hooting. How finely run along all those involuted thread [in James]? I dont -- thats the answer. I let 'em break. I only mark that the sign of a masterly writer is the power to break his mould callously [goes on to comment further on James].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Wednesday 26 July 1933: 'When I cant write of a morning -- as now -- I try to tune myself on other books: couldnt settle on any save T. Hardy's life just now. Rather to my liking.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Thursday 24 August 1933: 'I have spent the morning reading the Confessions of Arsene Houssaye left here yesterday by Clive [Bell].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
23 September 1933: 'I am reading Margot [Oxford] -- "V W our greatest English authoress;" Molly Hamilton on Webbs: & Turgenev.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'I read Lady Morgan's Florence Macarthy. There is originality and genius in all she writes'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Print: Book
'On my return home, I found several letters from England; amongst them, one from Miss [-], in which she speaks of W[-]'s "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life"; and her opinion is valuable and curious, as being that of a clever writer. she says:
I hear you were charmed with the "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life". Some of them I think beautiful, some of them ridiculous, and all want truth and reality; for though I can still relish a fairytale or a romance, yet I do not like fiction in the garb of truth. As mere creations of fancy, they are fine; as pictures of Scottish life and human nature, they are false. But do not let me forget this Mr [-] is an [italics] awfu' [end italics] man to have for one's enemy. The greatest wonder of the day, I think, is that "Adam Blair" should be the author of "Valerius" - two works so totally different in every respect. What prodigious versatility of power the writer of them must possess! Of course you know it is Mr Lockhart, the son-in-law of Scott'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss [-] Print: Book
'On my return home, I found several letters from England; amongst them, one from Miss [-], in which she speaks of W[-]'s "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life"; and her opinion is valuable and curious, as being that of a clever writer. she says:
I hear you were charmed with the "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life". Some of them I think beautiful, some of them ridiculous, and all want truth and reality; for though I can still relish a fairytale or a romance, yet I do not like fiction in the garb of truth. As mere creations of fancy, they are fine; as pictures of Scottish life and human nature, they are false. But do not let me forget this Mr [-] is an [italics] awfu' [end italics] man to have for one's enemy. The greatest wonder of the day, I think, is that "Adam Blair" should be the author of "Valerius" - two works so totally different in every respect. What prodigious versatility of power the writer of them must possess! Of course you know it is Mr Lockhart, the son-in-law of Scott'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss [-] Print: Book
'I have been reading Wraxall's Memoirs of the House of Valois. it is a very diverting book. The discovery that I make from it is, that men were at that time sooner old than they are now. All the kings of France died of old age at fifty; but ladies lasted longer. At sixty-six Diana Poitiers was so beautiful that no man could behold her without love'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Print: Book
'After my visit to Mrs [-], I returned home, and read Miss Seward's Letters. I think them very entertaining, though the style is much too laboured and affected for letter-writing. She is a clever woman, and they contain much reflection and criticism; there is more in them than the generality of published letters, but not one atom of simplicity or nature. In one of her letters to Walter Scott, she praises C. S.[harpe?]'s poetry, which pleases me, and will him, still more'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Print: Book
'Lady [-] lent me Mrs Grant's "Superstitions of the Highlands", and I like what I have read of it; but, above all things, I admire Mr Jeffrey's review of it, and also a review of Ford's plays, in which latter there are some beautiful pieces of writing, especially in "The Broken Heart". I am sorry they are disgraced with such coarseness. It does not do to tear off the drapery of a moral imagination, and expose our naked and shivering nature. But certainly those powerful pictures of the passions that were exhibitied in former days, make a good contrast to the tameness of modern performances. I do not like "Love's Melancholy" at all. The character of Penthea in "The Broken Heart" is very fine; but I could not see the advantages of making Calantha dance on when all her friends are dead'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Print: Book
'Mr North has been reading Lady Morgan's "O'Donnel", and is delighted with it. He says he never read a book that amused him so much, and that it has the merit of being more interesting in the last than in the first volume'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr North Print: Book
'Adam Smith, Sir [-] informed me, was no admirer of the Rambler or the Idler, but was pleased with the pamphlet respecting the Falkland Islands, as it displayed in such forcible language, the madness of modern wars. Of Swift, he made frequent and honourable mention, and regarded him, both in style and sentiment, as a pattern of correctness. He often quoted some of the short poetical addresses to Stella, and was particularly pleased with the couplet,
Say Stella, - feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well-spent?
Smith had an invincible dislike to blank verse, Milton's only excepted. "they do well", said he, "to call it blank, for blank it is". Beattie's Minstrel he would not allow to be called a poem; for he said it had no plan, beginning or end. He did not much admire Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd", but preferred the "Pastor Fido", of which he spoke with rapture'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Adam Smith Print: Book
'Adam Smith, Sir [-] informed me, was no admirer of the Rambler or the Idler, but was pleased with the pamphlet respecting the Falkland Islands, as it displayed in such forcible language, the madness of modern wars. Of Swift, he made frequent and honourable mention, and regarded him, both in style and sentiment, as a pattern of correctness. He often quoted some of the short poetical addresses to Stella, and was particularly pleased with the couplet,
Say Stella, - feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well-spent?
Smith had an invincible dislike to blank verse, Milton's only excepted. "they do well", said he, "to call it blank, for blank it is". Beattie's Minstrel he would not allow to be called a poem; for he said it had no plan, beginning or end. He did not much admire Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd", but preferred the "Pastor Fido", of which he spoke with rapture'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Adam Smith Print: Book
'[Sir [-]] observed that he was reperusing Miss Seward's Letters, and said, what an odd fancy it was to bequeath them to Constable, enjoining their publication after her death. "There are parts", said he, "I like very well; but there is too much gall in them, especially for any one to wish to have it spread when they were in the dust'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir [-] Print: Book
'[in a letter from Bury's correspondent [-]] I believe I told you I had been reading Horace Walpole's Letters over again, and also Madame du Deffand's Letters to him, and that I like them better. I hesitated for so long before reading them, because you disparaged them to me. I do not admire herself: she is a hard, unfeeling, misanthropical old sinner. But her mind is so laid open to me, that I pardon her faults and think she could not help them, as I do and think of my own. I have finished her letters to Horace, and am quite angry there is no account of her death. I am now reading her letters to Voltaire, which I cannot endure; they are full of nothing but fulsome flattery, which disgusts me. How much true affection dignifies every thing! but flattery when seen through, is odious. I like the portaits at the end of her book'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'[in a letter from Bury's correspondent [-]] I believe I told you I had been reading Horace Walpole's Letters over again, and also Madame du Deffand's Letters to him, and that I like them better. I hesitated for so long before reading them, because you disparaged them to me. I do not admire herself: she is a hard, unfeeling, misanthropical old sinner. But her mind is so laid open to me, that I pardon her faults and think she could not help them, as I do and think of my own. I have finished her letters to Horace, and am quite angry there is no account of her death. I am now reading her letters to Voltaire, which I cannot endure; they are full of nothing but fulsome flattery, which disgusts me. How much true affection dignifies every thing! but flattery when seen through, is odious. I like the portaits at the end of her book'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'[in a letter from Bury's correspondent [-]] I have been reperusing Madame de Stael's De l'Allemagne. I cannot very well express how much I am charmed with that work. As Midas's hand had the art of transmuting everything it touched into gold, so her pen illuminates every object, turning the rude ore of the mine into current coin, and rendering it useful to every one. It is certainly a most luminous emanation of the human mind, and proves the female intellect may perchance equal, if not surpass, that of the other sex. I never read any style I like so well, and the candour, liberality, and impartiality of her sentiments are truly admirable'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
His reading this summer included much Browning, Turgenev's Smoke and Kenneth Grahame's Golden Age ('which surely is the most beautiful book published for many years').
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan Print: Book
'[Lady Caroline Lamb's] novel of Glenarvon showed much genius, but of an erratic kind; and false statements are so mingled with true in its pages, that the next generation will not be able to separate them; otherwise, if it were worth any person's while [italics] now [end italics] to write explanatory notes on that work, it might go down to posterity as hints for memoirs of her times. Some of the poetry scattered throughout the volumes is very mellifluous, and was set to music by more than one composer'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Print: Book
'Amongst various verses, which she insisted on my accepting, she gave me the following lines, which she said she had written as supposing them to be spoken by the Duchess of D[evonshire].'
[the poem that follows is entitled WINTER AMUSEMENTS]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Manuscript: Sheet
'I happened to open Madame de Stael's "Allemagne", and passed the whole night in reading that delightful work over again. The great charm in all her writings is, that they are her own thoughts, set down with all the force of home-felt truth; and any person who has had the gratification of living in intimacy with this celebrated woman, must be aware that in reading her works they are holding conversation, as it were, with herself.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Print: Book
'You seem so much interested with the translation of "Pastor Fido" that I shall take the liberty of sending it to you, that you may judge of its merits: not being skilled in the Italian tongue I cannot possibly give an opinion of it as a [italics] translation [end italics]. As anything else, I do not like it, nor ever liked pastorals or pastoral writing, even of the first order, further than as vehicles for fine poetry; and then the poetry would have pleased me better had it spoken for itself, than from the mouth of a creature to me so inconceivable as a shepherd or shepherdess, whose chief, or rather [italics] only [end italics] characteristics are innocence and simplicity. I am sorry to say they are but too apt to be insipid and uninteresting to those who merely read about them [she continues this critique at length, concluding] It may be owing to some defect in my mind that I really never yet knew an interesting pastoral character, or cared a straw about whether they hanged themselves upon the first willow, or drowned themselves in the neighbouring brook. I can enter into the delights of Homer's gods, and follow to their darkest recesses Milton's devils, and delight in the absurdities and extravagancies of Shakespeare's men and women, but I never could sympathise in the sufferings of even Virgil's shepherd swains'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss V[-] Print: Book
'to return to "Pastor Fido", with whom I have not yet finished, - I must tell you, that though I (what a great authority!) do not take pleasure in this said translation of the "Pastor Fido" of Guarino, many of the wise folks here admire it beyond measure. Walter Scott and Wilson are of these and therefore there must be something worthy to excite the commendations of such men as they are, though I cannot discover its beauties. I suppose it is for the reason I already mentioned, that to me there is nothing so insupportable as a pastoral life. The shepherds and shepherdesses are always simpletons and viragoes, and that rule is faithfully adhered to in this instance, with the addition of an [italics] Arcadian [end italics] nymph in a [italics] wig [end italics]!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss V[-] Print: Book
'works of imagination are really becoming too reasonable to be very entertaining. Formerly, in [italics] my time [end italics], a heroine was merely a piece of beautiful matter, with long fair hair and soft blue eyes, who was buffeted up and down the world like a shuttlecock, and visited with all sorts of possible and impossible miseries. Now they are black-haired, sensible women, who do plain work, pay morning visits, and make presents of legs of pork; - vide "Emma", which, notwithstanding, I do think a very capital performance: there is no story whatever, nor the slightest pretensions to a moral, but the characters are all so true to life, and the style is so dry and piquant, that it does not require the adventitious aides of mystery and adventure. "Rhoda" is of a higher standard of morals and very good and interesting'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Susan Ferrier Print: Book
'works of imagination are really becoming too reasonable to be very entertaining. Formerly, in [italics] my time [end italics], a heroine was merely a piece of beautiful matter, with long fair hair and soft blue eyes, who was buffeted up and down the world like a shuttlecock, and visited with all sorts of possible and impossible miseries. Now they are black-haired, sensible women, who do plain work, pay morning visits, and make presents of legs of pork; - vide "Emma", which, notwithstanding, I do think a very capital performance: there is no story whatever, nor the slightest pretensions to a moral, but the characters are all so true to life, and the style is so dry and piquant, that it does not require the adventitious aides of mystery and adventure. "Rhoda" is of a higher standard of morals and very good and interesting'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Susan Ferrier Print: Book
'I feel, dear [-], gratified by the partiality which you express for my writings. You would, more than many others, be much influenced by the subject so often alluded to, of Highland scenery and manners. You could scarcely be impartial in this instance'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Print: Book
'[love letters represent the only subject women] 'should ever attempt to write about. Madame de Stael even I will not except from this general rule; she has done a plaguey deal of mischief, and no good, by meddling in literary matters, and I wish to heaven she would renounce pen, ink, and paper for ever more.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Matthew Lewis Print: Book
Tuesday 16 January: 'I have let all this time -- 3 weeks at Monks [House, Sussex residence] -- slip because I was there so divinely happy & pressed with ideas [...] So I never wrote a word of farewell to the year [...] nothing about the walks I had ever so far into the downs; or the reading -- Marvell of an evening, & the usual trash.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Thursday 30 August 1934: 'No letters at all this summer. But there will be many next year, I predict. And I dont mind; the day, yesterday to be exact, being so triumphant: writing: the walk; reading, Leeson, a detective, Saint Simon, Henry James' preface to P. of a Lady -- very clever, [word illegible] but one or two things I recognise: then Gide's Journal, again full of stratling recollection -- things I cd have said myself.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Tuesday 2 October 1934:
'Books read or in reading [over summer 1934]:
Sh[akespea]re. Troilus.
Pericles.
Taming of Shrew.
Cymbeline.
Maupassant.
de Vigny. only scraps [the four French authors grouped by bracket in MS]
St Simon.
Gide.
Library books: Powys
Wells
Lady Brooke.
Prose. Dobree.
Alice James.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Tuesday 1 January 1935: 'I had a lovely old years walk yesterday [...] & then in to Lewes to take the car to Martins [garage], & then home, & read St Paul & the papers [...] I am reading the Acts of the Apostles. At last I am illuminating that dark spot in my reading.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'I am reading "The Village on the Cliff", and cannot tell you how beautiful I think it. I am inclined to give up literature. [italics]I[end italics] can?t write like that. Never mind, [italics]je serai fidele [end italics].'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'I am reading Maupassant with delight. I have just finished "Le Lys rouge" by Anatole France. it means nothing to me. I can do no serious reading. I have just begun to write -only the day before yesterday.["The Two Vagabonds" subsequently to become "An Outcast of the Islands"(1896)]
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I had this morning a charming surprise in the shape of the "Spoils of Poynton" sent me by H. James with a very characteristic and friendly inscription on the flyleaf. I need not tell you how pleased I am. I have already read the book. It is as good as anything of his--almost--a story of love and wrongheadedness revolving around a houseful of artistic furniture. It's Henry James and nothing but Henry James.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
Sunday 6 January 1935: 'We lunched with Maynard & Lydia [Keynes] [...] talked about [...] Wells -- [Maynard] had read his Au[tobiograph]y. Thought him a little squit [...] A lack of decency, said M. [...] Then he read us a long magnificently spry and juicy letter from Shaw, on a sickbed, aged 77. The whole of economics twiddled round on his finger, with the usual dives & gibes & colloquialities. The most artificial of all styles, I said, like his seeming natural speaking.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Maynard Keynes Manuscript: Letter
Sunday 14 April 1935: 'Now for Alfieri & Nash & other notables: so happy I was reading alone last night [...] I read Annie S. Swan on her life with considerable respect. Almost always this comes from an Au[tobiograph]y: a liking, at least some imaginative stir: for no doubt her books, which she cant count, & has no illusions about, but she cant stop telling stories, are wash, pigs, hogs -- any wash you choose. But she is a shrewd capable old woman.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Sunday 26 May 1935: 'I'm writing at Aix-en-Provence on a Sunday evening [...] I'm dipping into K.M.'s letters, Stendhal on Rome [...] Cant formulate a phrase for K.M. All I think a little posed & twisted by illness & [John Middleton] Murry; but agonised, & at moments that direct flick at the thing seen which was her gift.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Saturday 7 September 1935: 'A heavenly quiet morning reading Alfieri by the open window & not smoking [...] I've stopped 2 days now The Years [novel in progress]:& feel the power to settle, calmly & firmly on books coming back at once. John Bailey's life, come today, makes me doubt though -- what? Everything [...] I've only just glanced & got the smell of Lit. dinner. Lit. Sup, Lit this that & the other -- & the one remark to the effect that Virginia Woolf, of all people, has been given Cowper by Desmond [MacCarthy], & likes it! I, who read Cowper when I was 15 -- d----d nonsense.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'Read the "Badge" It won't hurt you --or only very little. Crane-ibn-Crane el Yankee is all right. The man sees the outside of many things and the inside of some.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'But my great excitement was reading your stories. Garnett's right. "A Man and some others" is immense. I can't spin a long yarn about it but I admire it without reserve. It is an amazing bit of biography. [...] The boat thing ["The Open Boat"] is immensely interesting.I don't use the word in its common sense.' [Hence follows several more lines of general praise].
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'But my great excitement was reading your stories.Garnett's right. "A Man and some others" is immense. I can't spin a long yarn about it but I admire it without reserve. It is an amazing bit of biography. [...] The boat thing ["The Open Boat"] is immensely interesting.I don't use the word in its common sense.' [Hence follows several more lines of general praise].
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
[a long anecdote about how Hogg found his correspondent Janet Stuart's book in an Edinburgh bookshop and had to pay 7/6 for a 'pamphlet' which the bookseller argued was 'a very extraordinary production'] 'I did not only read it I devoured it: the man was right; it is an [italics] extraordinary production [end italics]. I do not think a man is flattering when he tells what he thinks I think there is not a more beautiful poem in the English language of its kind. Some of my friends, though they acknowledge it contains great beauties, blame it for what they are pleased to call a [italics] mysterous [sic] obscurity [end italics], while to me who am luckily versant in ancient ballads, it is as plain as the ABC. Yet I acknowledge I should be happy to see in my Adeline's next piece a little more of the unaffected simplicity so visible in her whole character and deportment'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg
'I send back the MS tonight.The chapters are all as they should be. The last line excellent. Good luck to the book.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown, probably a typed MS
'The "Impenitent Thief" has been read more than once. I've read it several times alone and I've read it aloud to my wife. Every word has found a home.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'I recieved yours accompanying the beautifull complimentary verses, which are judged by the small circle of my friends to be the best that ever have appeared in our language addressed to any poet while alive. Goldie published them in the Courant the principal paper of this country as addressed to the Ettrick Shepherd by a gentleman of Suffolk. I admired the verses very much indeed for their poetical merit but much more for the spirit of enthusiasm and kindness that breathes throughout towards a friendless and un-noted Bard'.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg
'I think the stanzas greatly improved and they are in the press as an introduction to the second edition of the [italics] wake [end italics]. There was one term which I was thinking should have been altered as it rather struck me to be bordering on the extravagant I think it was [italics] heaven-born [end italics] which I thought should only have been [italics] gifted [end italics] or something to that effect but you may trust that to me I will think of it when the proof comes to my hand'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Manuscript: Unknown
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
'There are two poems that I desire you at all events to read the one entitled "Anster Fair" the most original production that ever this country gave birth to and another thing published lately by Colbourn London called "The Hunting of Badlewe". There is hard struggling here with some kind of very sublime and metaphysical productions called "Reviews" some of them will I fear prove [italics] Ephemeral [end italics] or very short lived. Mrs Grant's 1813 has excited little or no interest here and if some exertion is not made to save it in London it is lost, yet the second book in particular certainly contains something very good'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'And the merit of the book ["Jocelyn"], (apart from distinguished literary expression) is just in this: You have given the exact measure of your characters in a language of great felicity,with measure,with poetical appropriateness to characters tragic indeed but within the bounds of their nature. That's what makes the book valuable apart from its many qualities as a piece of literary work.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'The "Bristol Fashion" business is excellently well put. You seem to know a lot about every part of the world and what's more you can say what you know in a most individual way.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'The Guide book simply magnificent [italics] Everlastingly good!. I've read it last night having only then returned home.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'This morning I had the "Aurora" from Smithers, No.2 of the 500 copies. C'est tout simplement magnifique yet I do not exactly perceive what on earth they have been making a fuss about.[...] I notice variations in the text as I've read it in the typewritten copy.This seems the most finished piece of work you have ever done.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book, see additional comments
'I return the pages "To Wayfaring Men". I read them before I read your letter and have been deeply touched.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Sheet, Presumably typewritten pages
'Her reading as a child was voracious, although her late start in learning to read for herself left her with a cosy taste for being read to. Her governess hads read aloud to her the story of Perseus and "Jungle Jinks" and most things in between. Once she read for herself, she had a passion for George Macdonald: his Curdie was one of her heroes. She loved Baroness Orczy's "Scarlet Pimpernel", and E. Nesbit's books. She read Dickens exhaustively as a child and, as a result, could not read him as a young adult: "There is no more oxygen left, for me, anywhere in the atmosphere of his writings".'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Bowen Print: Book
'In a BBC talk of 1947 about the book that had most influenced her early years, she chose to talk about Rider Haggard's "She"; she came upon it at the age of twelve, "when I was finding the world too small". The descriptions of Kor, the great derelict city, caught her imagination. She "saw" Kor before she ever saw London: "Inevitably, the Thames Embankment was a disappointment".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Bowen Print: Book
'Have you read Frank Harris?s privately published Life & Confessions of Oscar Wilde? It is a strange & powerful book, written by a man who is a curious mixture of impulses noble and ignoble. I am just finishing it. The best things I have read for ages are the Chekhov short stories in the new complete edition (2 vols out) published here by Chatto & Windus, translated by the eternal Constance Garnett. These stories are unmatched.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
Sunday 4 April 1937: 'Reading Balzac with great pleasure. Novel reading power is coming back.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Monday 1 June 1937: 'I should make a note of Desmond [MacCarthy]'s queer burst of intimacy the other evening [...] last Tuesday, that is; [he] read us his L[eslie]. S[tephen]. lecture, a rather laboured but honest but perfunctory lecture: after which he & I sitting in the twilight with the door open, L[eonard]. [Woolf] coming in & out, discussed his shyness: he says he thinks it made him uncreative.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Desmond MacCarthy
'Some of my friends think that the introduction and moral of the "Frogs" are too highly wrought and polished for the simplicity of the fable; it is however a very ingenious little thing'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg
'I love the Warder as much as I detest these radicals and the general harping spirit of the Whigs Pray is my dear friend Cunninghame the author of The Cameronians Surely he must it is so like him and so graphic'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Serial / periodical
'In 1937 she was having "a heavenly time" reading Montherlant, and writing a piece on him for the "New Statesman".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Bowen Print: Book
'I like some things in the last Mag. very well but there is a grievious [sic] falling off in Cunningham's Cameronian The one is a drawing from life the other a composition and not at all in keeping'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Serial / periodical
'When ever I saw your Cameronians I knew the hand but I do not like your last ideal picture half so well as the one you drew from life.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Serial / periodical
'I have not got all the Mag. read but think it is an exceedingly good one. I only wish the term [italics] Galloway Stott [end italics] had been left out of Scott's prize poem It is exceedingly shrewd and clever. New York I do not understand The poetry of Cunningham is perfectly beautiful'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Serial / periodical
'I have not got all the Mag. read but think it is an exceedingly good one. I only wish the term [italics] Galloway Stott [end italics] had been left out of Scott's prize poem It is exceedingly shrewd and clever. New York I do not understand The poetry of Cunningham is perfectly beautiful'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Serial / periodical
'I have not got all the Mag. read but think it is an exceedingly good one. I only wish the term [italics] Galloway Stott [end italics] had been left out of Scott's prize poem It is exceedingly shrewd and clever. New York I do not understand The poetry of Cunningham is perfectly beautiful'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Serial / periodical
'I do not rank this Maga very high but would like much to know who this new village poet is this juvenile Crab Coleridge's letter is great stuff but correspondence of the Pringles continues to be excellent'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Serial / periodical
'I have read the "Parish Register" with great attention. It is rather lifeless and wants character and point but I like it for its simplicity and extraordinary resemblance to truth in my estimation the first properties that any work of the same stamp can possess. It will not however sell extensively for the matter was much better calculated for a periodical work. If it had appeared piecemeal among other things it would have taken very well but as the old proverb runs "ower muckle o' ae' thing's gude for naething".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
' "Higginson's Dream" is super-excellent. It is much too good to remind me of any of my work, but I am immensely flattered that you discern some points of similitude. Of course I am in complete sympathy with the point of view. For the same accomplishment in expression I can never hope--and Robert [Cunninghame Grahame] is too strong an individuality [sic] to be influenced by anyone's writing. He desired me to correct the proofs but the "Sat. Rev" people did not send me the proofs.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'PS I've read "Two Magics" Henry James's last. The first story ["The Turn of the Screw"] is all there. He extracts an intellectual thrill out of the subject. The second ["Covering End"] is unutterable rubbish.Quite a shock to one of the faithful.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Your photograph came yesterday (It's good!) and the book ["Mogreb-el-Acksa"] arrived by this evening's post. I dropped everything--as you may imagine and rushed at it paper knife in hand. It is with great difficulty I interrupt my reading at the 100th page -- and I interrupt it only to write to you.
A man staying here has been reading over my shoulder; for we share our best with the stranger within our tent. No thirsty men drank water as we have been drinking in, swallowing, tasting, blessing, enjoying, gurgling, choking over, absorbing, your thought, your phrases, your irony [...Then follows ten lines of enthusiastic praise for the book.]
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Just a word or two about Robert's book. It is a glorious performance. Much as we expected of him. [...] Nothing approaching it has appeared since Burton's "Mecca" ["Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah" 1855] [...] The Journey in Morocco is a work of art, a book of travel written like this is no longer a book of travel--it is a creative work.[...] The book pulled at my very heart strings.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Do you think Stephen will be home for Christmas? His story in B. ["Blackwood's Magazine"] is magnificent. It is the very best thing he has done since "The Red Badge [of Courage]"--and it has even something the "Red Badge" has not--or not so much of. He is maturing. He is expanding.' [Then follows six more lines of praise.]
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'I think very highly of both the books you have sent me but far most highly of Lights and Shadows in which there is a great deal of very powerful effect purity of sentiment and fine writing but with very little of real nature as it exists in the walks of Scottish life The feelings and language of the author are those of Romance Still it is a fine and beautiful work.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'Today, from your kindness, I received the "Chronicle" with Robert's [Cunninghame Graham] letter. C'est bien ça -- c'est bien lui!' [Its good, that-- it's really him!]
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Newspaper
'The thing ["A Paheka"] in "West.Gaz." is excellent, excellent.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'I have read Reginald with great care and with great interest. It is a masterly work upon the whole, particularly in stile grouping and plot. In these its excellencies lie, and they are of a high class. But it strikes me that so masterly an architect might have made a far more imposing fabric on the whole. Its faults are these. A damned affectation of inserting short classical and French quotations without end and without measure which to common readers like me hurts the work materially - The work is too long for the materials two volumes would have been rather so - The plot is an excellent plot. I have seen nothing better concieved in the present age, and every thing bears upon it turning on it as a hinge. The author has prodigious merit in the conception of the plot, and therefore it is the greater pity that there is some manifest defects in the conducting of it. The final event is far too soon seen. From the moment that the Vicar tells the story of his sister-in-law's seduction it is palpable. I saw it perfectly, and my chief interest afterwards was incited by my anxiety to see how the author was going to bring it about. This is Sir W. Scott's plan, but it is not to be made a precedent of. In fact it will not do with any body but himself to let the events be seen perfectly through. However he could not have conceived such a true dramatic plot, all so perfecty in bearing; that he could not; but he could have made more of the characters and incidents; a great deal more. There is a fascination in the stile and in the abstract ideas that often delights me. The hand of a master is apparent there; and after all I think the sole failure is in the conducting of the plot, which you may depend on it will hurt the popularity of a grand work. There was great scope for pathos in it- there is not an item - several scenes of powerful impression seem just approaching - they pass over without taking due effect; and besides, the leaving out of the Christian name in the will was a misnomer unlikely enough for so much to hinge upon [Hogg critiques some further aspects of the plot].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
Thursday 15 April 1937: 'Reading Balzac: reading A. Birrell's memoirs'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Thursday 24 June 1937: 'A letter from Ott. [...] She has been [italics]very[end italics] ill [following stroke] [...] but is recovering at Tunbridge Wells. Pipsy reads Emma to her, & she reads H. James to herself.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Morrell Print: Book
Thursday 24 June 1937: 'A letter from Ott. [...] She has been [italics]very[end italics] ill [following stroke] [...] but is recovering at Tunbridge Wells. Pipsy reads Emma to her, & she reads H. James to herself.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Ottoline Morrell Print: Book
Tuesday 30 November 1937: 'Reading Chateaubriand now, bought in 6 fine vols for one guinea at Cambridge'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Thursday 1 September 1937: 'A violent attack on 3 Gs in Scrutiny by Q. Leavis. I dont think it gave me an entire single thrill of horror. And I didnt read it through [...] But I read eno' to see that it was all personal - about Queenie's own grievances & retorts to my snubs.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Serial / periodical
Tuesday 17 January 1939: 'Yesterday I went to the London Library [...] read Tom [Eliot]'s swan song in the Criterion [...] home & read Delacroix journals; about whiich I could write: I mean the idea is that its among the painters not the writers one finds stability, consolation. This refers to a sentence of his about the profundity of the painter's meaning; & how a writer always superficialises.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'Mary Holland has just received 'Notes from Books' from her friend Henry Taylor and said she liked them as well as 'Friends in Council'.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Holland Print: Book
Sunday 31 March 1940: 'S[ense]. & S[ensibility]. all scenes. very sharp. Surprises. masterly [...] Very dramatic. Plot from the 18th Century. Mistressly in her winding up. No flagging [...] And the love so intense, so poignant [makes few further comments, in same note form] Elinor I suppose Cassandra: Marianne Jane, edited.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Friday 31 May 1940: 'Began Balzac, Vautrin.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Saturday 14 September 1940: 'I am reading Sevigne: how recuperative last week [during heavy air raids]; gone stale a little with that mannered & sterile Bussy now [...] I'm reading Henry Williamson. Again I dislike him.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Monday 16 September 1940: 'Have been dallying with Mr Williamson's Confessions, appalled by his ego centricity [...] He cant move an inch from the glare of his own personality -- his fame. And I've never read one of those immortal works.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Thursday 9 January 1941: 'Desmond's book has come. Dipping I find it small beer. Too Irish, too confidential, too sloppy & depending upon the charm of the Irish voice. Yet I've only dipped, I say to quiet my critical conscience, which wont let me define things so easily.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'The dead lights [shutters used to protect ships' interiors during storms at sea]were no sooner up and a candle made fast to the table by many a knot and twist of small cord, than my young companion took up a book, and very composedly began to read to herself. I begged her to let me share her amusement by reading aloud. This she instantly complied with. She had however taken up the first book that came to hand, which happened to be not very apropos to the present occasion, as it proved to be Lord Kaims's Elements of Criticism. She read on however and I listen'd with much seeming attention, tho' neither she nor I knew a word it contained [...] The storm roared over and around us, the Candle cast a melancholy gleam across the Cabin, which we now considered as our tomb. We did not, however, assist each other's distress, for neither of us mentioned our own.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Rutherfurd Print: Book
'The dead lights [shutters used to protect ships' interiors during storms at sea]were no sooner up and a candle made fast to the table by many a knot and twist of small cord, than my young companion took up a book, and very composedly began to read to herself. I begged her to let me share her amusement by reading aloud. This she instantly complied with. She had however taken up the first book that came to hand, which happened to be not very apropos to the present occasion, as it proved to be Lord Kaims's Elements of Criticism. She read on however and I listen'd with much seeming attention, tho' neither she nor I knew a word it contained [...] The storm roared over and around us, the Candle cast a melancholy gleam across the Cabin, which we now considered as our tomb. We did not, however, assist each other's distress, for neither of us mentioned our own.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Rutherfurd Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Julia Martin, 6 January 1845: 'Have you read Mr Serjeant Talfourd's "Rambles & thoughts"? With some wordiness, & faults of taste otherwise, it is a very pleasant book & has set me on the desire of climbing to the top of Mont Blanc [...] It improves as you read.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 7 January 1845:
'It is true that posterity remembers the good; but how often does it happen that the immediate public, looking at the new bad, forgets or is ignorant of the old good! Just this occurred to me in reading Lamartine's dull piece of extravagance, "La Chute d'un Ange." Nothing but your recommendation could have induced me to read another line of his writing. Now, I have gone through "Jocelyn;" and, although I dislike the story -- the heroine in man's clothes, and the hero made a priest, Heaven knows how -- I have yet been delighted with the general feeling and beauty of the poem, particularly with one portion full of toleration, and another about dogs.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 7 January 1845:
'It is true that posterity remembers the good; but how often does it happen that the immediate public, looking at the new bad, forgets or is ignorant of the old good! Just this occurred to me in reading Lamartine's dull piece of extravagance, "La Chute d'un Ange." Nothing but your recommendation could have induced me to read another line of his writing. Now, I have gone through "Jocelyn;" and, although I dislike the story -- the heroine in man's clothes, and the hero made a priest, Heaven knows how -- I have yet been delighted with the general feeling and beauty of the poem, particularly with one portion full of toleration, and another about dogs.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 14 January 1845:
'Did I say anything to you of "Fernande" -- Dumases --? I fancy I did, during the reading of the first seven pages. Beware of it, I tell you now -- If Mr Lovejoy ordered it for his library, he will be taken to be disorderly by "prude Angleterre." As Schlegel said of the "Sad shepherdess," that it was "unchaste praise of chastity", so we might reverse the saying for "Fernande." At least -- the heroine is a courtezan [sic] by profession -- but you wd not guess it, except by her talking too much of modesty [...] for the rest, she is a Grace, a muse, a saint & martyr. No virtuous woman could have half her fascinations -- (& that's the moral of the whole!) [...] M. Dumas's "Fernande" will make some of your country gentlemen open their eyes, be certain, if Mr Lovejoy introduces her into Berkshire -- I advise you to advise against it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'I have been reading John Racine: it is very standard − damnd[sic] standard, I beg your pardon.[…] I like John Racine, however; the noise is very pleasing and as unintelligent and soothing as a mill wheel; occasionally too there are verses of a dignity! − Verses with Versailles wigs − pageant verses − like a Roman Triumph.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'I send you back 'Ambarvalia' with many thanks; I am also much obliged to you for sending me Mr Espinasse's prospectus, which had before excited my attention'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Unknown
'If you want an agreeable book, read 'Lives of the Lindsays'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'Suffice it to say that its who can revere Mr Newman most with Mr Darbishire, the Winkworths and myself, the book is absolutely simply the utterance of the man'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'I am going through a course of John Henry Newman's Sermons.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'But I think you are probably seeing more of what has never fallen in my way exactly, but of what I read of in that striking and curious sermon of Mr Maurice's, entitled 'Religion versus God'. In which he spoke of the falseness of that religious spirit which led people to disregard those nearest to them, to wound or leave those whom God had placed around and about and dependent on them, in search of some new sphere of action.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Unknown
'Here is the beautiful Commonplace book awaiting me on my return home! And I give it a great welcome you may be sure; and turn it over, & peep in, and read a sentence and shut it up to think over it's graceful suggestive wisdom in something of the 'gourmet' spirit of a child with an eatable dainty; which child, if it have the proper artistic sensuality of childhood, first looks it's cake over to appreciate the full promise of it's appearance, - next, snuffs up it's fragrance, - and gets to a fair & complete mouth-watering before it plunges into the first [italics] bite [end italics]. I do like your book. I liked it before, - I like it better now - it is like looking into deep clear water, - down below at every instant of prolonged gaze, one sees some fresh beauty or treasure of clear white pebble, or little shady nooks for fish to lurk in, or delicate water weds. Thank you for it. I do value it'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Allan Park Paton, 18 January 1845:
'I take shame to myself in the confession, that the first newspaper you sent to me, was sent in vain for the verses -- inasmuch as, being occupied at the moment, & aware of the usual worthlessness of poetical insertions in journals, I was satisfied with barely running my eye down the four sides & with coming to a hasty conclusion that the paper had been sent to me in mistake for another [...] [italics]This[end italics] time, I have read & considered!, & I may assure you that it shall never happen to me again to throw aside unread, any poem with the signature "Heather" in connection with it. -- The poem which I [italics]have[end italics] read, is, to my mind & ear, full of promise [...] there is unity in the conception [...] What I least like, in the way of [italics]execution[end italics] [...] is the burden of the whole. Where the metre changes, some sense of artifice in construction & defect in harmony seems to force itself on the ear.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Newspaper
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20-21 January 1845:
'I put down "Modeste Mignon" to take up your letter. I read my French abomination at breakfast & dinner & tea time, .. so as to forget myself & be delighted to find that I have eaten a little more than usual in my trance (deeper than mesmeric) & happy state of physical unconsciousness [...] And your first words [in letter] [...] are still of Mignon, Mignon. It is a decided case of flint to flint -- & of electricity by coincidence.
'Well -- and I am delighted with the book just as you are [...] because charmed beyond the point of pleasure produced by mere artistic power in the writer. The truth is [...] that if I were to write my own autobiography, or rather, (much rather), if Balzac were to write it for me, he could not veritably have made it different from what he has written of Modeste. The ideal life of my youth was just [italics]that[end italics], .. line for line [goes on to comment further on text] [...] And that "satiete par la pensee."! -- [italics]There[end italics], lies the test of the morbidity -- for it is morbid -- it is dangerous! & worse romances than poor Modests's is likely to be (I have only read a third of the book) might come of it [comments further on own and Mitford's responses to text]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20-21 January 1845:
'I put down "Modeste Mignon" to take up your letter. I read my French abomination at breakfast & dinner & tea time, .. so as to forget myself & be delighted to find that I have eaten a little more than usual in my trance (deeper than mesmeric) & happy state of physical unconsciousness [...] And your first words [in letter] [...] are still of Mignon, Mignon. It is a decided case of flint to flint -- & of electricity by coincidence.
'Well -- and I am delighted with the book just as you are [...] because charmed beyond the point of pleasure produced by mere artistic power in the writer. The truth is [...] that if I were to write my own autobiography, or rather, (much rather), if Balzac were to write it for me, he could not veritably have made it different from what he has written of Modeste. The ideal life of my youth was just [italics]that[end italics], .. line for line [goes on to comment further on text] [...] And that "satiete par la pensee."! -- [italics]There[end italics], lies the test of the morbidity -- for it is morbid -- it is dangerous! & worse romances than poor Modests's is likely to be (I have only read a third of the book) might come of it [comments further on own and Mitford's responses to text]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 15 February 1845:
'I am not sorry you fell over "La veille Fille" [sic] at last -- & the "Physiologie" besides [...] remember that the "Fille" which is as disgusting a book as you represent it, was my "first fruits" of Balzac. I made my acquaintance with him in that iniquitous book, -- that beastly book -- for, as women, we cannot speak of it with too cogent an abhorrence. Is there any wonder that I made a vow deeply never to read a book by the writer of it any more. I did vow it. And it was a mere mistake of those librarians who are always making mistakes (but I forgive a thousand for the dear love of that one) which sent me "Le Pere Goriot" [...] I bore with him wonderfully; -- & began to sympathise so immorally besides, (as Mr Kenyon says of me) with the artistic power of the book, that I was tempted to throw my plummet down again into the depths of the artist's mind [...] I am struck just as you are, by this wonderful faculty of lifting up so high & clear above the social pollutions, which it is his delight to dabble in, images & creations most stainless & lovely. I do not say (or think) that such a faculty renders him less dangerous as a writer, -- but it is undeniably wonderful as a faculty, & proves him a poet .. minus, the sense of music.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 15 February 1845:
'I am not sorry you fell over "La veille Fille" [sic] at last -- & the "Physiologie" besides [...] remember that the "Fille" which is as disgusting a book as you represent it, was my "first fruits" of Balzac. I made my acquaintance with him in that iniquitous book, -- that beastly book -- for, as women, we cannot speak of it with too cogent an abhorrence. Is there any wonder that I made a vow deeply never to read a book by the writer of it any more. I did vow it. And it was a mere mistake of those librarians who are always making mistakes (but I forgive a thousand for the dear love of that one) which sent me "Le Pere Goriot" [...] I bore with him wonderfully; -- & began to sympathise so immorally besides, (as Mr Kenyon says of me) with the artistic power of the book, that I was tempted to throw my plummet down again into the depths of the artist's mind [...] I am struck just as you are, by this wonderful faculty of lifting up so high & clear above the social pollutions, which it is his delight to dabble in, images & creations most stainless & lovely. I do not say (or think) that such a faculty renders him less dangerous as a writer, -- but it is undeniably wonderful as a faculty, & proves him a poet .. minus, the sense of music.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 26 February 1845:
'Do you know the "Napoleon et Marie Louise" of M. de Meneval, the secretary of the emperor? The three little volumes have interest in them -- and if you require (which you dont I hope) any further impulse towards hating the Austrian [Marie Louise], you will find it there [makes further comments] [...] Well might Napoleon shrink from speakng of her .. & from analysing the motives of her conduct! -- His [italics]silence[end italics], as Meneval describes it, strikes me as very affecting'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 26 February 1845:
'I do not know Charlotte Smith's books for children. I read myself Mrs. Barbauld's
'"Come hither Charles --
Come to Mama --"
'oh! how I remember it, book & all! & Miss Edgeworth's Frank & Rosamond. They were my own classics, and those of my brothers and sisters.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 5 March 1845:
'I am in the midst of "La Femme superieure." [sic] The truth of this work & the subtlety & deepness of the [italics]life[end italics] in it .. for I will not call it portraiture, .. are wonderful -- but certainly it justifies the attribute of heaviness & slowness we talked of the other day [goes on to remark, as apparently Mitford has also done, upon importance attached by Balzac to details of costume].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'we, as a family, are going through a whole course of Indian literature - Kaye and Malcolm to wit; but I am afraid I read it for duty's sake, without taking as much interest as I ought to do, in all the out-of-the-way names & places, none of which give me any distinct idea'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'we, as a family, are going through a whole course of Indian literature - Kaye and Malcolm to wit; but I am afraid I read it for duty's sake, without taking as much interest as I ought to do, in all the out-of-the-way names & places, none of which give me any distinct idea'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'I doubt if you ought to call France & Flaubert "dry". "L’Education Sentimentale" ought to be read with ease. Ditto "Thais", & "La Rotisserie". Personally, though, I think France over-rated. You ought to read "Bubu de Montparnasse" of Charles Louis Philippe. This is a great little novel, one of the finest modern French novels. I think "Coeur simple" is the best thing Flaubert ever wrote, except his correspondence, which is his best work, & ought to be read. I tell you that Lytton Strachey’s "Eminent Victorians" is a most juicy & devastating affair, I thoroughly enjoyed it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'I doubt if you ought to call France & Flaubert "dry". "L’Education Sentimentale" ought to be read with ease. Ditto "Thais", & "La Rotisserie". Personally, though, I think France over-rated. You ought to read "Bubu de Montparnasse" of Charles Louis Philippe. This is a great little novel, one of the finest modern French novels. I think "Coeur simple" is the best thing Flaubert ever wrote, except his correspondence, which is his best work, & ought to be read. I tell you that Lytton Strachey’s "Eminent Victorians" is a most juicy & devastating affair, I thoroughly enjoyed it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'I doubt if you ought to call France & Flaubert "dry". "L’Education Sentimentale" ought to be read with ease. Ditto "Thais", & "La Rotisserie". Personally, though, I think France over-rated. You ought to read "Bubu de Montparnasse" of Charles Louis Philippe. This is a great little novel, one of the finest modern French novels. I think "Coeur simple" is the best thing Flaubert ever wrote, except his correspondence, which is his best work, & ought to be read. I tell you that Lytton Strachey’s "Eminent Victorians" is a most juicy & devastating affair, I thoroughly enjoyed it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
Referring to criticism of Henry James by John Galsworthy that James did not 'write from the heart':
'To me even "R.T." ["The Real Thing" 1892,1893] seems to flow from the heart because and only because the work approaching [sic] so near perfection yet does not strike cold.[...] The outlines are so clear the figures so finished, chiselled, carved and brought out[...]. The volume of short stories entitled I think "The Lesson of the Master" [1892] contains a tale called "The Pupil" if I remember rightly where the underlying feeling of the man --his really wide sympathy--is seen nearer the surface.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Unknown
Referring to criticism of Henry James by John Galsworthy that James did not 'write from the heart':
'To me even "R.T." ["The Real Thing" 1892,1893] seems to flow from the heart because and only because the work approaching [sic] so near perfection yet does not strike cold.[...] The outlines are so clear the figures so finished, chiselled, carved and brought out[...]. The volume of short stories entitled I think "The Lesson of the Master" [1892] contains a tale called "The Pupil" if I remember rightly where the underlying feeling of the man --his really wide sympathy--is seen nearer the surface.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Unknown
'I hold "Ipané". Hoch! Hurra! Vivat! May you live! And now I know I am virtuous because I read and had no pang of jealousy. There are things in that volume that are like magic and though space and through the distance of regretted years convey to one the actual feeling, the sights, the sounds, the thoughts; one steps on the earth, breathes the air and has the sensation of your past. I know of course every sketch; what was almost a surprise was the extraordinarily good convincing effect of the whole. [...] I have read it already three times.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I read the [italics] Subsidiary Notes [end italics] first. It was so interesting I could not leave it. I finished it at one long morning sitting - hardly stirring between breakfast and dinner. I cannot tell you how much I like it, and for such numbers of reasons. First, because you know of a varnish that is as good or better than black-lead for grates (only I wonder what it is). Next, because of the little sentences of real deep wisdom which from their depth and true foundation may be real helps in every direction and to every person; and for the quiet continual devout references to God which make the book a holy one'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'Read Arthur Stanley's Three Introductory Lectures on the Study of Ecclesiastical History Parker Oxford - price [italics] perhaps [ed italics] 2s-6d, not more. I do so like them and so does Meta. And Dasent's Norse Tales, which are charming, & the introduction best of all and "Adam Bede" - you read Scenes from Clerical Life? did you not?'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Emily Gaskell Print: Book
'Read Arthur Stanley's Three Introductory Lectures on the Study of Ecclesiastical History Parker Oxford - price [italics] perhaps [ed italics] 2s-6d, not more. I do so like them and so does Meta. And Dasent's Norse Tales, which are charming, & the introduction best of all and "Adam Bede" - you read Scenes from Clerical Life? did you not?)'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'Do [italics] you [end italics] know what Hawthorne's tale is about? [italics] I [end italics] do; and I think it will perplex the English public pretty considerably.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'(do you know how [italics] very [end italics] beautiful that Cathedral [at Canterbury] is, & do you know Arthur Stanley's memorials of Canterbury?)'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'Thank you very much for sending me the Missing Link, and remembering my wish to know more about "Marian" [Evans]. The book came in the middle of a storm of wind & rain on Saturday Evening, and I began to read it, and pretty nearly finished it before I went to bed. It is very interesting, - and is indeed the discovery of the "Missing Link".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'thanks [...] most especially for those brilliant lines of Father Prout's; how we did delight in them, and how I should like to have written them. I think our Magazine promises to be a famous success; and I enjoy - now you know [italics] you [end italics] did, so you need not look moral - the Saturday's cutting up of 'Dead [?heart]; - oh [italics] how [end italics] stupid it was. - I don't think we shall ever be so stupid.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Serial / periodical
'thanks [...] most especially for those brilliant lines of Father Prout's; how we did delight in them, and how I should like to have written them. I think our Magazine promises to be a famous success; and I enjoy - now you know [italics] you [end italics] did, so you need not look moral - the Saturday's cutting up of 'Dead[?heart]; - oh [italics] how [end italics] stupid it was. - I don't think we shall ever be so stupid.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Serial / periodical
'we are reading with [Florence] Macaulay's Biographies and Milman's Latin Xtianity and I don't think it is a bad thing for either Marianne, Meta, or myself to have an obligation to sit and settle to a little steady reading every day'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Gaskell and her daughters Marianne, 'Meta' and Florence Print: Book
'I prefer to say nothing critical about John Buchan's story'.
Hence follow more than twenty lines of quite strong and pointed, almost entirely negative, criticism.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'I suspect that Meta has taken up either the 5th vol. of Modern Painters, or Tyndall on Glaciers, both of which books she is reading now, and Florence is probably reading the 'Amber-Witch'.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Emily Gaskell Print: Book
'I do [italics] not [end italics] know all Henry Vaughan's poems, - I know well 'They are all gone into &c', and parts of Silex Scintillans.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'I do [italics] not [end italics] know all Henry Vaughan's poems, - I know well 'They are all gone into &c', and parts of Silex Scintillans.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'['After Hawthorne's romance had come out she expresses to her friends her supposition that they will have read, as every one in England had, the "Cleopatra chapter", and assures them that she is proud of being able to say to people that she had been acquainted from the first with the statue commemmorated']'
Letter reproduced in this edition from a printed source which gives this precis.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'all this time I have never thanked you for Mr Aide's book. But at first I was ill (whh made the gift all the more valuable;) and then I thought I would read it first: and very pleasant it was to be carried out of murky smoky Manchester into something so purely Italian as the beginning is, - it is a regular atmosphere of Italy; I like the story much the best of any of his, don't you?'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'[...] but now since I've received the "Sat. Review" I've something to write about. The "German Tramp" is not only excellent[...] but it is something more. Of your short pieces I don't know but this this is the one I like best. The execution has a vigour-the right touch-- and an ease that delight me.'
Hence follows around ten lines of appreciative criticism including a reference to two other stories published in the Saturday Review in 1899.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'But as to "Buta" it is altogether and fundamentally good, good in matter--that's of course--but good wonderfully good in form and especially in expression.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'By the way, we all admire _very greatly_ your beautiful little poem in the Boston Book. I
dare say you
don't care for the opinion of we three "weaker vessels" [i.e. De Quincey's three daughters],
though Papa,
like the dutiful parent he is, and though a "vain man", admits that our judgment in such
matters is
equal if not sometimes better than his. However in this case we one and all came separately
to the
conclusion that there was exquisite poetic grace and beauty in the lines. Who is the Poet you
sent the
mosses too [sic]? for we don't know one who has spoken of Venice that has been living since
you could
have written this. My sister Florence says that with one or two exceptions in the case of
Longfellow
and that most beautiful of writers Hawthorne, yours is nearly the only good thing in the book.
I have
not had time to look it over yet.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Florence De Quincey Print: Book
''The MS heralded by your letter arrived this morning. I've had the time to read it . it is wonderfully well done: technically and in the clearness of the idea it is superior to the "Villa [Rubein]". Jack [Galsworthy] is making giant strides;[...]'
Hence follows twenty lines of encouragement.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'I've read "Cruz Alta" four days ago. c'est tout simplement magnifique. I know most of the sketches, in fact nearly all, except "Cruz Alta" itself.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I wanted to write to you about Your book [...] you know how paralysed one is sometimes-- and then we had talked--I had tried to talk of the book so many times that it seemed to have become part of me, that part of belief amd thought so intimate that it cannot be put into speech as if it cannot live apart from one coherent self.' [See also additional comments].
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I've read "The Silence" once but shall keep it till tomorrow. Certain remarks I keep for a note which I will send you together with the MS. Here I will only say that I feel strongly my good fortune in being able to sympathise more and more with your work, with its spirit, feeling and fundamental conception.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'Many thanks for your letter. The enclosure was most interesting. It reveals an original personality and to me attractive. It is at the same time a most flattering recognition of my qualities and shortcomings. I shall write to Mr Constable in a day or two.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Letter
'Nevertheless I've read the book ["A Man of Devon"] twice'.
Hence follows a page of constructive criticism.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I am altogether under the charm of that book ["A Vanished Arcadia"] in accord with its spirit and full of admiration for its expression.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I am reading, ... Layard's Nineveh.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'...- I spend 5 days of precious time toiling through Henry James' subtleties for Mrs Lyttleton, and write a very hardworking review for her...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'I feel so dull and muddle-headed that I daren't even attempt to give you now an idea of the effect the little volume ["Success"] had produced on me.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The children who like Bessy's Troubles are great geese, & no judges at all, which children generally are, for it is complete rubbish I am sorry to say'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: 'children', presumably known to Marianne Gaskell Print: Book
'All evening that I have been reading Lord Mahon aloud I have been thinking how I could rush home via Strasbourg & Paris to see her [Julia, her daughter, who was unwell] for myself.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 18 March 1845:
'Do you know "Le macon" by Michel Raymond --? It is not as vivid as most of these books from France, -- nor as passionate, -- but it is interesting as a picture of the life of the people in Paris & I have read it with pleasure.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Print: Book
'In a letter to Charles Boner (28 February 1851), Miss Mitford wrote that she had read L'Ecole des journalistes "in a Bruxelles edition with serveral feuilletons about it appended thereunto, especially a letter to the authoress by Jules Janin, one of his best'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 19 March 1845:
'Mind you read Andersen's "Improvisatore." I have just finished it, -- & am charmed, -- though of story, there is none, & of character, not much more. But the sense of inner life throughout it, & the exquisite visions & breathings into Italy, quite take away one's breath for pleasure. And then, there is a memoir of the author which interests one in him, for a beginning. He is a real poet, .. this Andersen, -- & worthy of being a countryman of Hamlet ... the Dane par excellence.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 5 April 1845:
'For Mr Horne's storybook, I like some of the stories & think it a pretty book. A few children of six years old might be too old for it, -- but, in general, I do not quarrel with the fitnesses [...] I remember a little book which was a favorite in our nursery, called "A visit to a farm-house [by S.W.]," with precisely the same characteristics, & a better & more interesting general construction. There are a few touches more of poetry in this book, -- owing to Mr. Horne, of course, but the defect is the absolute want of reference to Deity, as creator, which the child looks for, .. which the first instinct of the child looks out to meet. Not that I advocate the teaching of theological systems to children of that early age; but that if the sense of beauty is to be educated, the sense of God should be educated also.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 14 April 1845:
'We shall find no where on the earth, I believe, the climate of Paradise; -- not even at Hyeres. In Mdme. Charles Reybeaud's [sic] "Deux a deux," which interested me more than any book of hers I have read since, .. (I withdraw my praise of her, -- she is a weak commonplace writer, I think, --) there was some good praise of Hyeres & the orange trees.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, letter postmarked 30 April 1845:
'You ask me questions, "if I like novels," [...] There is a story of D'Israeli's, an old one, with an episode of strange interest, or so I found it years ago, -- well, you go breathlessly on with the people of it, page after page, till at last the end [italics]must[end italics] come, you feel -- and the tangled threads draw to one, and an out-of-door feast in the woods helps you .. that is, helps them, the people, wonderfully on and lo, dinner is done, and Vivian Grey is here, and Violet Fane there [...] At this moment, Mr Somebody, a good man [...] "in answer from a question from Violet, drew from his pocket a small, neatly written manuscript, and, seating himself on an inverted wine-cooler, proceeded to read the following brief remarks upon the characteristics of the Maeso-gothic literature" -- This ends the page, -- which you don't turn at once! But when you [italics]do[end italics], in bitterness of soul, turn it, you read -- "On consideration, I" (Ben, himself) "shall keep them for Mr Colburn's 'New Magazine" -- and deeply you draw thankful breath!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, letter postmarked 30 April 1845:
'That book you like so, the Danish novel, must be full of truth & beauty, to judge from the few extracts I have seen in Reviews. That a Dane should write so, confirms me in an old belief -- that Italy is stuff for the use of the North, and no more: pure Poetry there is none, nearly as possible none, in Dante even [...] strange that those great wide black eyes should stare nothing out of the earth that lies before them!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, 1 May 1845:
'Once I sate up all night to read Vivian Grey'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 2 May 1845:
'I have found [...] the continuation of David Sichard [novel by Balzac] [...] It is "Esther" in two volumes, & to all appearance full of life, & interest, & most atrocious wickedness, .. to judge from the first two chapters'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'The Frenchman who wrote Maxims says 'there is hardly anyone who does not repay great obligations with Ingratitude'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: George Crabbe Print: Book
'I do not perfectly understand Fabricius always, but I think his Genera more natural than those of any other Author; it is indeed almost impossible to follow him in the smaller insects through all the minutia of his researches, but admitting him to be right in these, his Disposition and discriptions [sic] are accurate. I [grant his] obscurity and the greater Facility of the method of Linn[aeus], but I find much to be pleased with in the Systema Entomologica Fabia and frequently recur to it'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: George Crabbe Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 26 May 1845:
'Thank you, thank you, for letting me see the pencilled lines by poor Clare! -- How strangely melancholy, that combination is -- of mental gifts & mental privations! Poor Clare! --'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Manuscript: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett to Allan Park Paton, 28 May 1845:
'For the newspapers, or rather for your verses in them, I thank you much [...] the stanzas on Kennedy's Mill road struck & pleased me so much, that I looked about vainly for your address contained in a mislaid note of yours, in order to write to you on the subject & advise you to choose some worthier medium with the public, than a provincial journal, .. though it were but a magazine. And now you write to tell me that you think of printing a book! -- to which I wish all manner of success [goes on to offer further advice on pursuing career as professional writer]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Newspaper
'Mr Pratt Author of a poem called "the Lower World" & of divers other works in prose & rhyme sent to me his Book with obliging direction where to find a Line of Panegyric in the Performance. This was flattering & yet (on the common principles of human Nature) calculated to move Envy & stir up the angry movements of the spirit for I had but one solitary line of applause, virtuous, to be sure was my Muse denominated, but the Muse of Marmion had 3 lines'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Crabbe Print: Book
'Mr Pratt & I began to write nearly about the same time & his Sympathy & my Village were [cancelled] nearly [ end cancelled] contemporaries, but this soon ceased & I was outrun in the first Season nor has his diligent Muse or whatever Spirit it be, ceased to prompt his ready Pen from that time to almost this present: The Lower World terminates his poetical career where Scott & Crabbe are handed down to'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Crabbe Print: Unknown
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 27 October 1845:
'Balzac's "Paysans" in its one volume, (for [italics]I[end italics] have only seen that one volume) is another proof of the pressure of the times towards sympathies with the people [...] he is Balzac still in "Les Paysans" -- but story there is none, & so no interest -- & no unity, as far as that first volume indicates: & I found it rather hard reading, despite the human character, & the scenic effects. As to "Le Juif" I have done with him, and am not sorry to have done. The last volumes fall off step by step.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 1 December 1845:
'I have been loitering over "Le monde comme il est" & think your thoughts of it. Good things, excellent things, admirable things are in it, but one cannot call it a success.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Print: Book
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, 21 December 1845:
'Yesterday I was reading the "Purgatorio" and the first speech of the group of which Sordello makes one, struck me with a new purpose [goes on to quote, and to translate "off hand", lines 52-57 from Purgatorio V]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 6 January 1846:
'Any more news of Balzac? "Les petits maneges" I have read & thought excellent -- but it is a continuation of that odious book .. "Les amours forces" -- "Beatrix," remember.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, 15 January 1846:
'Papa used to say .. "Dont read Gibbon's history -- it's not a proper book -- Dont read "Tom Jones" -- & none of the books on [italics]this[end italics] side, mind -- So I was very obedient & never touched the books on [italics]that[end italics] side, & only read instead, Tom Paine's Age of Reason, & Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, & Hume's Essays, & Werther, & Rousseau, & Mary Woolstonecraft [sic] .. books, which I was never suspected of looking towards, & which were not "on [italics]that[end italics] side" certainly, but which did as well.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Print: Book
'I have now read the remainder [underlined twice] nearly [end underlining] of Glenarvon! & should not give th[e Wr]iter as an Example of the good Ladies: the [wo]man absolutely holds forth the doctrine of [irre]sistable Passion, & that if Lady Avondale falls desperately in love with Lord Glenarvon, after marrying the Man of her own Choice, there is no help for it: if he spare her, well & good! if not she must fall! charming Morality & such as my dear Miss Houltons will never be taught.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Crabbe Print: Book
'Mr Boswell the younger. Malone's papers.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Crabbe Manuscript: Unknown
'Here is Mr Mackensie - with the Surprise I heard it - the Author of "the Man of Feeling" & indeed he is so called.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Crabbe Print: Book
'I like the books which we purchased though the Physiological Botany is rather too minute & supposes the Reader a Learner indeed. The Travels are I think really good & good humoured. Faust was not so terrific as I apprehended from the seduction of a Philosopher by an evil Spirit. I verily think that Business is conducted better (than in far more ostentatious works) in the Arabian Tales, (not Nights) where a pious old Lady is wrought upon by her Vanity into Compliance with a Devil who takes the Character of a pious old Man:I want this second part of these strange Tales & to have done with the Subject of Books I treated myself with Warton's History of Poetry: I have long wished for it, but the Quarto edition was so dear £ 5 that I waited for a Octavo & it is just published: it has a great deal of dull Matter but with much Information & Amusement & moreover it is in the way of my Vocation. There is a good Print of the Author & John having seen that, I believe has no wish to look a page further.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Crabbe Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Anna Brownell Jameson, 1 October 1849:
'We have had much quiet enjoyment here [...] read some amusing books, (Dumas & Sue! -- shake your head!) & seen our child grow fuller of roses & understanding day by day.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Anna Brownell Jameson, 2 April 1850:
'I have read Shirley lately: it is not equal to Jane Eyre in spontaneousness & earnestness: I found it heavy, I confess, though in [...] the compositional savoir faire, there is an advance. Robert has exhumed some French books, just now, from a little circulating li[brary] which we had not tried -- and we have just been making ourselves uncomfortable over Balzac's "Cousin Pons". But what a wonderful writer he is! Who could have taken such a subject, out of the lowest mud of humaity, & glorified & consecrated it?'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Isa Blagden, ?27 July 1850:
'I return the "Confidences" with thanks upon thanks. Both Robert & I began with a sort of interest & pleasure, & ended with a sort of sickness of the book & the man. Weakness & falseness are two bad things indeed.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Isa Blagden, ?27 July 1850:
'I am finishing the "Memoires d'un medecin"'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford, 7 November 1850:
'Miss Fanshawe is well worth your writing of [...] as one of the most witty of our wits in verse, men or women. I have only seen M.S. copies of her verses, & that years ago, but they struck me very much'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Manuscript: Unknown, copied
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Thomas Westwood, 12-13 December 1850:
'If you had not sent me the Athenaeum article I never should have seen it probably, for my husband only saw it in the reading room, where women dont penetrate, (because in Italy we cant read, you see) & where the periodicals are kept so strictly like Hesperian apples, by the dragons of the place, that none can be stolen away for even half an hour. So he could only wish me to catch sight of that article -- and you are good enough to send it & oblige us both accordingly.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Thomas Westwood, 12-13 December 1850:
'If you had not sent me the Athenaeum article I never should have seen it probably, for my husband only saw it in the reading room, where women dont penetrate, (because in Italy we cant read, you see) & where the periodicals are kept so strictly like Hesperian apples, by the dragons of the place, that none can be stolen away for even half an hour. So he could only wish me to catch sight of that article -- and you are good enough to send it & oblige us both accordingly.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Print: Serial / periodical
'(Florence MacCunn. [italics] Sir Walter Scott's Friends [end italics] Wm. Blackwood 1909) I have just finished this enchanting book which for a time has entirely seduced me from both Lawrence and Carlyle. I read the whole of D.H.L's letters last week when in bed with a cold; felt completely in sympathy with him and a passionate desire to be on his side, no matter whom I deserted or decried. Began the whole book again, marking passages,meaning to re-read all his works and try and make him out. All this prompted by an article in [italics] L[ife] and L[etters] [end italics] that annoyed me. J. Soames, comparing him with Rousseau. Probably everything she said was true, but the whole tone was patronising and self-righteous. I wanted to explode a squib under her chair.
Now I want to find if there's any likeness or not between Lawrence and Carlyle. But at the moment I am in revolt against L. Why does one veer about so with him?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Antonia White Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 1 September 1901:
'London in August! [...] I like it because I choose it by refusing to fly London with the rest of the world [...] I like wandering through the deserted streets tawdry with painter's ladders & half starved cats & soiled fluttering tags of newspapers [...] It fascinates me by its bare brutality of ugliness, & produces the aesthetic titillation of a slum. During that season too I batten upon Balzac & his hold remains on me for weeks afterwards so that I am rereading Le Pere Goriot out on the cliffs & rocks here.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 8 April 1902:
'I was glad to hear you had really read it [Le Pere Goriot] & I agree with you -- in the main -- about it. Of course personally I never or try never to compare it with Lear because though it challenges comparison all through on the face of it, I don't really think it is fair to do so.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lytton Strachey Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 2 January 1903:
'I don't think my December list of books read equals yours. It includes however Bernard Shaw, Schopenhauer, Barry Pain, Browning, D'Aurevilly, Oscar Wilde, Flaubert, A Manual of Ethics & Shakespeare [...] I don't see how anyone, after reading Madame Bovary, can doubt which is the supremest of all novels -- though I now remember writing the same to you about Le Pere Goriot.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 27 January 1905:
'I sit in the Kachcheri [a government office] most of the day & sign my name. I play tennis, dine, read Henry James (Jaffna has a library which contains him & [Dinah Craik's] John Halifax, Gentleman), & go to bed.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 5 March 1905:
'De Vigny has come. I haven't read him all, but I'm rather disappointed: isn't he rather metallic? I read a good deal in odd moments, & a curious mixture, I think. A book I have always meant to do, I finished last week & could hardly put down at all, The Life of Parnell [...] Also the Life of Russell by the same man [R. B. O'Brien] & [Disraeli's] Coningsby which is absolutely preposterous, & [Voltaire's] La Dictionnaire Philosophique.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 23 July 1905:
'I have just finished The Golden Bowl & am astounded. Did he invent us or we him? He uses [italics]all[end italics] our words in their most technical sense & we can't have got them all from him'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 13 January 1906:
'I have practically settled down for two weeks here [...] it is one immense sea of hills [...] I walk out onto these & wander from about 7-9 every morning & from 4-6 every evening, the rest of the day I read Voltaire's letters, Huysmans & Henry James.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
'[included in diary entry] [italics] Keats [end italics] (Letter to Geo and Thos Keats Dec 28 1817)
"negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason".
this quality goes to make "a man of achievement, especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously".
I do not think I have any 'creative' genius. What I have, if I have anything, is the capacity to [italics] recgnise [end italics] things.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Antonia White Print: Book
'I rarely take a book about with me now and Keats' letters have lasted me nearly two months'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Antonia White Print: Book
'[a young Quaker] has made me read Woolman's journal which I found very genuine and moving but not so [italics] bouleversant [italics] as to convert me to the Friends. Can one talk of spirituality as being "provincial"? Or is that just my old Catholic snobbery?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Antonia White Print: Book
'Every day I become more aware of the extraordinary interpenetration of people's lives. I think of the share Emily had in Djuna's book ['Nightwood'], of the share Emily will have in mine if I can write it, of the small share I have in hers and may have in Siepmann's, of the way I saw something in Tom's drowning story ['I have been Drowned'] of which he was unaware and which Emily brought to flower so that now he has written a quite extraordinary story, beyond anything he has done before and which gave me the same feeling of strangeness, delight, almost awe that Emily's two last poems, "Melville" and "The Creation" gave me'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Antonia White Print: Book
'Finished reading Mansfield Park, which more than ever convinces me that Jane Austen is trivial, facetious and commonplace.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lees-Milne Print: Book
'[Basil Nicholson] loves Marvell's poems and Durer's drawings. He has a great admiration for Keats but won't read the letters "because he feels they will probably annoy him".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Basil Nicholson Print: Book
'[Basil Nicholson] loves Marvell's poems and Durer's drawings. He has a great admiration for Keats but won't read the letters "because he feels they will probably annoy him".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Basil Nicholson Print: Book
'I feel a curious kinship with, dislike of, yet pity for Katherine Mansfield, whose letters I am reading again. I see all my weaknesses in her, admire her for her frantic attempts to be honest and deal with them. I can now read her, feeling her equal not an awestruck inferior as I used to. I know all she knew.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Antonia White Print: Book
'[King] likes Doughty, Arabian Knights [sic], Froissart.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Cecil King Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 4 November 1906:
'I was reading La Bruyere today with the irritation against [John Maynard] Keynes [following letter from Strachey] at the back of my mind. He is in full the "sot" of La Bruyere for his chief characteristic -- with all his damned intelligence -- is that once you have seen him, he never surprises you'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Virginia Woolf, 13 March 1914:
'Lytton read me last night what he had written about Manning. It's very good & amusing.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Giles Lytton Strachey Manuscript: Unknown
Leonard Woolf to Virginia Woolf, 13 March 1914:
'Another amusing book I looked at here is Hurrell Froude's Remains. I have read partly Newman's Apologia; he seems to me a self-sentimentalist.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 27 October 1916:
'I return the MS which I thought amazingly good. It made me laugh until I cried twice, once at "where he remained for the next thirty-six hours" and once at the painful mystery of the animal world.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Manuscript: Unknown
Leonard Woolf to Edmund Blunden, 14 August 1924:
'I admired your book on Clare very much. It passed through my hands en route for a reviewer last week, and it looked so good that I coveted it for my own.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Frank Hardie, 11 October 1933:
'Many thanks for your letter and for the copy of your article which I had already read with great interest. I think we probably agree to the extent of about 95%. Even on the subject of isolation I have always been strongly drawn to the policy under certain conditions. But the conditions do not at present exist and I feel the gravest doubts as to their ever existing.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Serial / periodical
'My own Jane!- You are a noble girl; and your true and generous heart shall not lie oppressed anotehr instant under any weight that I can tkae from it... This letter is, I think, the best you ever sent me; there is more of the true woman, of the essence of my Jane's honourable nature in it, than I ever saw before. Such calm quiet good-sense, and such confiding simple true affection! I were myself a pitiable man, if it did not move me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Manuscript: Letter
'It is known to every learned Divine, that the Priests engross'd the whole Country of [italics] Egypt [end italics], as the eldest Son of ev'ry Priest was born a Priest, and therefore intitled to a tenth Part of the Land, upon which [italics] Joseph [end italics] who was not only an admirable Man, but an excellent Politician, and had a divine Revelation that the Land should suffer Famine ten Years, ordered the Priests to pay in all their Subsidies to the King, whereby in those ten Years of Dearth the King purchased at so low a Rate, as giving the People a little Corn, all the Lands in [italics] Egypt [end italics]. These are Remarks of the admirable Lord [italics] Shaftesbury [end italics], whose inimitable Style and clear Manner of Reasoning, carry Conviction with them.
I never knew any Clergyman who quoted him, but to his prejudice, except Doctor [italics] Turnbull [end italics]: And yet I can't see why the Morality or the Preaching of it, should in any wise be offensive to a Christian'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington Print: Book
'I told the Doctor, my Writings might amuse, but his made the World the wiser and the better, as I had had the Pleasure of reading them.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington Print: Book
'My dear Alick, No piece of news that I have heard for a long time has given me more satisfaction than the intelligence contained in your letter of yesterday. For several weeks I had lived in a total dearth of tidings from you; and both on account of your welfare, and of our mutual projects in the farming line, I had begun to get into the fidgets, and was ready to hasten homewards with many unpleasant imaginations to damp the expected joy of again beholding friends so dear to me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Manuscript: Letter
'And here give me Leave to observe, that amongst the Ladies who have taken up the Pen, I never met with but two who deserved the Name of a [italics] Writer [end italics]; the first is Madam [italics] Dacier [end italics], whose Learning Mr [italics] Pope [end italiocs], while he is indebted to for all the notes on [italics] Homer [end italics], endeavours to depreciate; the second is Mrs. [italics] Catherine Philips [end italics], the matchless [italics] Orinda [end italics], celebrated by Mr [italics] Cowly [end italics], Lord [italics] Orrery [end italics], and all the Men of Genius who lived in her Time.
I think this incomparable Lady was one of the first Refiners of the [italics] English[end italics] Numbers; Mr [italics] Cowly [end italics]'s, though full of Wit, have somewhat harsh and uncouth in them, while her Sentiments are great, and virtuous; her Diction natural, easy, flowing, and harmonious.
Love she has wrote upon with Warmth, but then it was such as Angels might share in without injuring their oringinal purity. Her Elegy on her Husband's Daughter, is a Proof of the Excellency and Tenderness of her own Heart, rarely met with in a Stepmother; nor could I ever read it without tears, a Proof it was wrote from her Heart'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington Print: Book
'Could you learn for me which is Lafontaine's best novel in one moderate volume? I have read his Raphael (in French), his Rudolph von Werdenberg, and his Tinchen (in German): there is genius in all of these, but whether any of them is among the best of his half-a-century of works, I have no means of ascertaining.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'Could you learn for me which is Lafontaine's best novel in one moderate volume? I have read his Raphael (in French), his Rudolph von Werdenberg, and his Tinchen (in German): there is genius in all of these, but whether any of them is among the best of his half-a-century of works, I have no means of ascertaining.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'Could you learn for me which is Lafontaine's best novel in one moderate volume? I have read his Raphael (in French), his Rudolph von Werdenberg, and his Tinchen (in German): there is genius in all of these, but whether any of them is among the best of his half-a-century of works, I have no means of ascertaining.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'Dulness is not confined to them [Bishops], it descends to their Sons, witness our celebrated Comedy, [italics] The Suspicious Husband [end italics], which, but for its neither having one Character well drawn, any Plot, any thing like a Sentiment, and wrote too in a gallimawfry Stile, might be a good Performance; but as long as it is stamped with a Name, it passes current, though Sterling Nonsense.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington Print: Unknown
'Mr Donaldson has seen my will too with your name written in it in great letters. No matter! why should I be ashamed of shewing an affection which I am not ashamed to feel- But we will talk over all these things when we meet- It will take all your indulgence to excuse this breathless letter- God bless you my darling.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Donaldson Manuscript: Will
E. M. Forster to Laura Mary Forster, 3 March 1898:
'I will tell how I spent my prize money. I got Browning's Poems in two volumes, two volumes of Jebb's Sophocles, Kugler's History of Italian Painting in two volumes, and last but not least Jane Austen in 10 volumes. It is such a lovely edition, in green cloth with beautiful print and paper, and each volume is very light to hold [...] Each novel goes into two volumes, except Persuasion & Northanger Abbey, who only take one. I am reading the latter again, & I am more delighted with it than ever.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to George Barger, 27 July 1899:
'I have had a good time in Scotland & here [Northumberland] & go home next week. I have just read James' "A portrait of a Lady" [sic]. It is very wonderful but there's something wrong with him or me: he is not as George Meredith. Now I'm reading the Forest Lovers by Maurice Hewlett, and am a little bored though there is lots of delightful writing.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Alice Clara Forster, 5 November 1899:
'I have been reading Bernard Shaw's plays. Wonderfully clever & amusing, but they make me feel bad inside.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Alice Clara Forster, 2 July 1905:
'In the evening I read Elizabeth [employer] "Emma". Liebeth [employer's daughter and Forster's pupil] has just drawn me doing it on the black board.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Arthur Cole, 7 July 1905, following satirical account of English travellers met the previous day:
'These then are my thoughts [...] My books are equally stimulating: Wilhelm Tell -- which is thought mighty fine -- and Northanger Abbey, which I read aloud to Elizabeth [employer] in the evenings. Also Thais, but that I am only beginning.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Arthur Cole, 7 July 1905, following satirical account of English travellers met the previous day:
'These then are my thoughts [...] My books are equally stimulating: Wilhelm Tell -- which is thought mighty fine -- and Northanger Abbey, which I read aloud to Elizabeth [employer] in the evenings. Also Thais, but that I am only beginning.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 10 February 1910:
'I left off the last [letter to Darling] saying that I was going to tell you something special in the next, and now for the life of me I can't remember what it is. It's a comment on our civilisation. This reminds me: of my story being read to the Rajah [...] I don't know why it should make me smile, but it does [...] Perhaps he would think it odd to read a book about Indian Art, as I have been doing -- by Havell. A little petulant in tone, but fascinating.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'How kind, how simple, true and good! Beautifully welcome, in my sombre vacancy here! (Dumfries, Septr, 1868) This Letter to my Mother (dear kind Letter!) I must have brot [sic] with me from Templand. Legible without commentary,- or with almost none. The Nithsdale Visit is ab[ou]t terminating; and dull distant Haddington, with an uncertain future, lies ahead.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Manuscript: Letter
'Why sure every Person must acknowledge, that while [italics] he [Pope; end italics] is insulting [italics] his [end italics] Betters, his Ethic Epistles are little more than Lord [italics] Shaftesbury's [end italics] Rhapsody be rhym'd; his [italics] Windsor Forest [end italics] stollen [sic] from [italics] Cooper's [end italics] Hill; and his [italics] Eloisa and Abelard [end italics], the most beautiful Lines in it, taken from [italics] Milton's Il Penseroso [end italics]'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington Print: Unknown
'Why sure every Person must acknowledge, that while [italics] he [Pope; end italics] is insulting [italics] his [end italics] Betters, his Ethic Epistles are little more than Lord [italics] Shaftesbury's [end italics] Rhapsody be rhym'd; his [italics] Windsor Forest [end italics] stollen [sic] from [italics] Cooper's [end italics] Hill; and his [italics] Eloisa and Abelard [end italics], the most beautiful Lines in it, taken from [italics] Milton's Il Penseroso [end italics]'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington Print: Unknown
E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 29 June 1910:
'I am reading Manucci's "Storia do Mogor" -- a most entertaining book [...] He is so amusing & vivid about the Indian character that I can't believe it's all lies, though it is said to be partly.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 29 July 1911:
'I have been reading Kipling's child's history of England with mingled joy and disgust. It's a fine conception, but oh is it necessary to build character on a psychological untruth? In other words to teach the young citizen that he is absolutely unlike the young German or the young Bashahari -- that foreigners are envious and treacherous, Englishmen, through some freak of God, never --? Kipling and all that school know it's an untruth at the bottom of their hearts -- as untrue as it is unloveable. But, for the sake of patriotism, they lie. It is despairing [...]
'I couldn't on the other hand read the New Machiavelli, finding it too fretful and bumptious, and very inartistic, but must try again -- the more so as Wells, in an article in Le Temps has mentioned me among the authors qui meritent etre mieux connus en France [...] The best novels I have come across in the past year are Rosalind Murray's The Leading Note [...] and Wedgwood's Shadow of a Titan -- unfortunately written in an affected and unreadable style.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Jessica Darling, 6 February 1912:
'Before I get off books, I will put down the names of one or two that I have enjoyed lately. George Moore, Ave, William James, Memories & Studies, G. L. Strachey, Landmarks in French Literature (price 1/-, and oh so good), J. T. Sheppard, Greek Tragedy (also 1/-; Malcolm [Darling] knows him), Foemina, L'Ame des Anglais, Andre Chevrillon, Dans L'Inde, Forrest Reid, The Bracknels, Lascelles Abercrombie, Emblems of Love, Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'I read "Mansfield Park" [Jane Austen]. Proust applied to la petite noblesse de campagne. I also read Aristotle's Ethics, feeling that it was really high time, before I got to Rome, to know what was meant by "good".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harold Nicolson Print: Book
'Now I have mentioned this small but inimitable well wrote Book (Xenophon's 'Symposium'], which was recommended to me by Dr [italics] Swift [end italics], and which I in return commend to all such of my fair Readers as have a Taste for real Wit, in which the divine [italics] Socrates [end italics] as conspicuously shone, as he did in Purity of Life and Constancy in Martyrdom; that they peruse it with Care, as it will refine their Ideas and improve their Judgements, polish their Stile, shew them true Beauty, and lead them gently and agreeably to its prime Origin and Source. [LP then quotes from Milton's 'Comus' on beauty] I must here observe in my tracing Authors thro' each other, [italics] Zenophon [end italics] and [italics] Plato [end italics] borrowed from [italics] Socrates [end italics], whose disciples they were. [italics] Zenophon [end italics] acknowledges it as freely as I do the Instructions I received from Dr [italics] Swift [end italics]. Lord [italics] Shaftsbury's[end italics] Search after Beauty, is copied from [italics] Socrates [end italics]; Mr [italics] Pope's [end italics] Ethics stolen from both; and the leaned Mr [italics] Hutcheson[end italics]'s Beauty and Harmony, an Imitation of the great Philosophers and excellent Moralists first mentioned'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington Print: Book
'My mother started to read to me when I was very young indeed. She read aloud beautifully and never got tired, and she would never, from the first, read anything that she could not enjoy herself, which cut out all the poor quality writing which every right-minded child loves when he can get it. Her only concession was one weekly comic, "Rainbow". But apart from that, I was reared on a fine mixed diet of Beatrix Potter, A.A. Milne, Dickens, Stevenson, Hans Andersen, Kenneth Grahame and Kipling – especially Puck of Pook’s Hill whose three magnificent stories of Roman Britain were the beginning of my own passion for the subject, and resulted in the fullness of time in The Eagle of the Ninth. Hero myths of Greece and Rome I had, in an unexpurgated edition which my mother edited herself as she went along, and Norse and Saxon and Celtic legends. There were Whyte Melville’s The Gladiators and Bulwer Lytton’s Last Days of Pompeii and Weigal’s Egyptian Princess; for my mother loved historical novels – history of any kind, though her view of it was always the minstrel’s rather than the historian’s.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosemary Sutcliff Print: Book
'My mother started to read to me when I was very young indeed. She read aloud beautifully and never got tired, and she would never, from the first, read anything that she could not enjoy herself, which cut out all the poor quality writing which every right-minded child loves when he can get it. Her only concession was one weekly comic, "Rainbow". But apart from that, I was reared on a fine mixed diet of Beatrix Potter, A.A. Milne, Dickens, Stevenson, Hans Andersen, Kenneth Grahame and Kipling – especially Puck of Pook’s Hill whose three magnificent stories of Roman Britain were the beginning of my own passion for the subject, and resulted in the fullness of time in The Eagle of the Ninth. Hero myths of Greece and Rome I had, in an unexpurgated edition which my mother edited herself as she went along, and Norse and Saxon and Celtic legends. There were Whyte Melville’s The Gladiators and Bulwer Lytton’s Last Days of Pompeii and Weigal’s Egyptian Princess; for my mother loved historical novels – history of any kind, though her view of it was always the minstrel’s rather than the historian’s.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosemary Sutcliff Print: Book
'She did take to reading me The Little Matchgirl rather more frequently as time went on. Maybe she hoped that I would learn to read as a means of avoiding that particular story, but I have a nasty suspicion that it was done as a means of providing light relief for herself, because The Little Match Girl always made me cry.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosemary Sutcliff Print: Book
'I read the Keats letters coming up in a belated and dawdling train. His letter to [Charles Armitage] Brown from Naples is one of the most terrifying things that I have ever read.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harold Nicolson Print: Book
'Imagine my delight to find a footnote in Capefigs thus conceived ... Immediately after, Capefigues talks of la grande flotte de Dracke.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'Your preface to Aubrey is as delightful as it is learned, and Aubrey himself astonishes me more and more. Has there ever been a writer with more economy of phrase, or with a better gift of describing characters and appearances in two or three sentences? He seems to me to give every essential, and to cut off every wrapping which would take away from that essential. He is so companionable,too.
I do think your valuation, your criticism, of him is one of the most discerning and enlightening pieces of criticism of our time, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for giving me this book, so full of life, of warmth and of light....'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell Print: Book
'It was so charming of you to send me your anthology,..............It is particularly interesting to me, because, although your anthology and my second, and third(forthcoming) anthology cover the same period, we rarely cover the same ground. I am jealous, as well as happy, that you have included the four heavenly Keats Odes, and Shelley's "To Night", one of the loveliest of all poems, and the beauties from "Prometheus Unbound". I am especially delighted, too, with your Tennyson, because with the exception of "Tears, idle tears" we touch different ground again, and that means that, when I am travelling, if I take your anthology and my anthologies, I shall be rich with nearly all the beauties I could need.
We touch the same ground, again, in the inclusion of Rosetti's "The Woodspurge", but our choice of Christina Rosetti is different, for I have gone completely mad, and have included the whole of "Goblin Market".
Your anthology includes more poets than mine; your taste, I think, is more catholic. But under the influence of your anthology I am beginning to feel positively calm about Matthew Arnold - a state which I did not think would ever be mine, on that subject......'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell Print: Book
'I read about your earlier dinner quite by accident in "Books" - & by the way I have never had the copy with your Stephen Crane article. I liked [underlined] very [end underlining] much the article about Ezra -
I have read Hemingway's book - It seems pretty good. I like that hard clean sort of effect - but I think it gives also the effect of brittleness - or is that nonsense? It is also rather dazzling & tiring. He has touched me off rather nastily - rather on Jean's lines - So I feel very discouraged! Even you don't quite escape. Still its all of no consequence.
Jenny had Violet's book lying about yesterday, which really [underlined] did [end underlining] rather upset me - The Envoi appears to say, that with someone who has had so [underlined] many [end underlining] final grand Passions there will [underlined] never [end underlining] be [underlined] any [end underlining] means of knowing who was really "the" one!
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Esther Gwendolyn, 'Stella' Bowen Print: Book
'he swapped and shared books, especially Billy Bunter stories. ("[Bunter's] roars and squeaks of anguish were constantly imitated then and for years after", says Sutton; "Philip seemed to identify with Bunter up to a point.")'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin Print: Book
'Sydney [Larkin's father] gave him free run of his library and his appetite for books grew enormously. "Thanks to my father", he wrote later: "our house contained not only the principal works of most main English writers in some form or other (admittedly there were exceptions, like Dickens), but also nearly-complete collections of authors my father favoured - Hardy, Bennett, Wilde, Butler and Shaw, and later on Lawrence, Huxley and Katherine Mansfield".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Larkin Print: Book
'Sydney [Larkin's father] gave him free run of his library and his appetite for books grew enormously. "Thanks to my father", he wrote later: "our house contained not only the principal works of most main English writers in some form or other (admittedly there were exceptions, like Dickens), but also nearly-complete collections of authors my father favoured - Hardy, Bennett, Wilde, Butler and Shaw, and later on Lawrence, Huxley and Katherine Mansfield".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Larkin Print: Book
'Sydney shaped Larkin's taste skilfully, leading him away from J.C. Powys and towards Llewelyn and T.F., towards James Joyce with no expectation that he would enjoy him, and towards poets who would remain favourites all his life: Hardy, Christina Rossetti and A.E. Housman. In late 1939, when Larkin discovered T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood, Sydney also encouraged him - continuing, as he had always done, to make reading seem an independent activity, only tenuously linked to schoolwork.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin Print: Book
'Throughout 1939 his reports speak of "improvements", and even though he still did "not much like" his English teacher he worked hard, widening his reading to include Verlaine and Lamartine as well as Auden and Eliot'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin Print: Book
'The" River of Cathay" is good; it is right; perfectly right; right in tone and in expression. It pleased me much.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'I have been reading again the "[A] Vanished Arcadia" - from the dedication, so full of charm, to the last paragraph with its ironic aside about the writers of books "proposing something and concluding nothing" - and its exquisite last lines [...].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The "Mercure de France" notice is agreeable - and as he [Henry-Durand Davray] reproduces what I have been lately talking at him as to French fiction I am flattered.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'I read J. H. A. Macdonald's speech with interest.'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson
'This "new direction" [in literature], Larkin was beginning to realize, would depend on subtlety as well as candour - the sort of approach he was learning to associate with other writers he now re-read, or read for the first time. With Henry Green and Virginia Woolf (he admired "The Waves"); with Julian Hall, whose novel of public school life "The Senior Commoner" he approved for its "general atmosphere of not shoing one's feelings in public"; and with Katherine Mansfield. "I do admire her a great deal", he told Sutton, "and feel very close to her in some things".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin Print: Book
'This "new direction" [in literature], Larkin was beginning to realize, would depend on subtlety as well as candour - the sort of approach he was learning to associate with other writers he now re-read, or read for the first time. With Henry Green and Virginia Woolf (he admired "The Waves"); with Julian Hall, whose novel of public school life "The Senior Commoner" he approved for its "general atmosphere of not shoing one's feelings in public"; and with Katherine Mansfield. "I do admire her a great deal", he told Sutton, "and feel very close to her in some things".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin Print: Book
'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt:
"Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin Print: Book
'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt:
"Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin Print: Book
'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt:
"Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin Print: Book
'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt:
"Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin Print: Book
'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt:
"Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin Print: Book
'Before the meeting, Larkin had no detailed knowledge of Watkins's work - what he had read, including the newly published "Ballad of the Mari Lwyd", seemed to him too full of symbols, too arty, too removed from the recognizably modern world described by Auden.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin Print: Book
'In my sisters' letters, reading between the lines, I found a self-justifying resentment, the accusation - mystifying to me - that it was I who was guilty of severing the vital links, when in truth it was [italics] they [end italics] who had done so long ago when I was a small child'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ralph Glasser Manuscript: Letter
'Your mention of Hawthorne puts me in mind to tell you what rabid [underlined] admirers we
are of his [...] There is no prose write of the present day I have half the interest in I have in
him, his style, in my mind is so beautifully refined and there is such exquisite pathos and
quaint humour, and such an awfully [underlined] deep knowledge of human nature, not that
hard unloving detestable, and, as it is purely one sided (or wrong [underlined] sided) false
reading of it that one finds in Thackeray. He reminds me in many things of Charles Lamb, and
of heaps of our rare old English humourists, with their deep pathetic nature--and one faculty
he possesses beyond any writer I remember (not dramatic, for then I would certainly
remember Shakespeare, and others on further though perhaps) viz. that of exciting you to the
highest pitch without on any [underlined] occasion that I am aware of making you feel by his
catastrophe ashamed of having been excited. What I mean is, if you have ever read it, such a
case as occurs in the "Mysteries of Udolpho" where your disgust is beyond all expression on
finding that all your fright about the ghostly creature that has haunted you throughout the
volumes has been caused by a pitiful wax image! [...] And no Author I know does [underlined]
try to work upon them [i.e. the passions] more, apparently with no [underlined] effort to
himself. I cannot satisfy myself as to whether I like his sort of Essays contained in the twice
told tales best, or his more finished works such as Blithedale romance. Every touch he adds to
any character gives a higher interest to it, so that I should like the longer ones best, but there
is a concentration of excellence in the shorter things and passages that strike, in force like
daggers, in their beauty and truth, so that I generally end in liking that best which I have read
last [...] There are beautiful passages in Longfellow, above all, as far as my knowledge goes
in the Golden Legend, some of which in a single reading impressed themselves on my
memory.'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret De Quincey
'Your mention of Hawthorne puts me in mind to tell you what rabid [underlined] admirers we
are of his [...] There is no prose write of the present day I have half the interest in I have in
him, his style, in my mind is so beautifully refined and there is such exquisite pathos and
quaint humour, and such an awfully [underlined] deep knowledge of human nature, not that
hard unloving detestable, and, as it is purely one sided (or wrong [underlined] sided) false
reading of it that one finds in Thackeray. He reminds me in many things of Charles Lamb, and
of heaps of our rare old English humourists, with their deep pathetic nature--and one faculty
he possesses beyond any writer I remember (not dramatic, for then I would certainly
remember Shakespeare, and others on further though perhaps) viz. that of exciting you to the
highest pitch without on any [underlined] occasion that I am aware of making you feel by his
catastrophe ashamed of having been excited. What I mean is, if you have ever read it, such a
case as occurs in the "Mysteries of Udolpho" where your disgust is beyond all expression on
finding that all your fright about the ghostly creature that has haunted you throughout the
volumes has been caused by a pitiful wax image! [...] And no Author I know does [underlined]
try to work upon them [i.e. the passions] more, apparently with no [underlined] effort to
himself. I cannot satisfy myself as to whether I like his sort of Essays contained in the twice
told tales best, or his more finished works such as Blithedale romance. Every touch he adds to
any character gives a higher interest to it, so that I should like the longer ones best, but there
is a concentration of excellence in the shorter things and passages that strike, in force like
daggers, in their beauty and truth, so that I generally end in liking that best which I have read
last [...] There are beautiful passages in Longfellow, above all, as far as my knowledge goes
in the Golden Legend, some of which in a single reading impressed themselves on my
memory.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret De Quincey Print: Book
'Your mention of Hawthorne puts me in mind to tell you what rabid [underlined] admirers we
are of his [...] There is no prose write of the present day I have half the interest in I have in
him, his style, in my mind is so beautifully refined and there is such exquisite pathos and
quaint humour, and such an awfully [underlined] deep knowledge of human nature, not that
hard unloving detestable, and, as it is purely one sided (or wrong [underlined] sided) false
reading of it that one finds in Thackeray. He reminds me in many things of Charles Lamb, and
of heaps of our rare old English humourists, with their deep pathetic nature--and one faculty
he possesses beyond any writer I remember (not dramatic, for then I would certainly
remember Shakespeare, and others on further though perhaps) viz. that of exciting you to the
highest pitch without on any [underlined] occasion that I am aware of making you feel by his
catastrophe ashamed of having been excited. What I mean is, if you have ever read it, such a
case as occurs in the "Mysteries of Udolpho" where your disgust is beyond all expression on
finding that all your fright about the ghostly creature that has haunted you throughout the
volumes has been caused by a pitiful wax image! [...] And no Author I know does [underlined]
try to work upon them [i.e. the passions] more, apparently with no [underlined] effort to
himself. I cannot satisfy myself as to whether I like his sort of Essays contained in the twice
told tales best, or his more finished works such as Blithedale romance. Every touch he adds to
any character gives a higher interest to it, so that I should like the longer ones best, but there
is a concentration of excellence in the shorter things and passages that strike, in force like
daggers, in their beauty and truth, so that I generally end in liking that best which I have read
last [...] There are beautiful passages in Longfellow, above all, as far as my knowledge goes
in the Golden Legend, some of which in a single reading impressed themselves on my
memory.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret De Quincey Print: Book
'The more I read of Mr. Hawthorne's writings the more intense does my admiration become. I
read over the other day a part of his "House of the Seven Gables" and I don't remember any
delineation of character under Shakespeare's that is to me so exquisitely fascinating as his of
Phoebe, and it is the one I think, among all his characters which mark him most of all as a
man of very great genius, for in the hands of any but such a man, instead of being as she is
"A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still and bright
With something of an Angel light."
she would have been a common place stupid creature who only was good because she had not
will to be bad [...] The contrast too of the restless minded metaphysical Holgrave always
searching into the cause of things, and his tremendous delight in watching the development of
character are admirable [underlined]. This latter feature is I am sure a marking characteristic
of Mr. Hawthorne's and I just wish to warn him that though I have in thought [underlined]
quite an agonizing sympathy with him in it, yet when carried to such a pitch as he does in
practice that he won't give a hand to a pair of poor lovers that have fallen into the gutter on a
rainy night because his part is only to be a spectator. I have no patience with him, and beg to
say if I catch him at anything like that I will commit an assault upon him as sure as fate. I
should tell you, as more important than any thing that I can say on the subject, that for the
first time Papa read "The House of the Seven Gables" a few days ago [...] he said that if
anyone wished to give a very favorable notion to a non-German reader of Jean Paul Richter's
style of thought and sentiment they could not do it more successfully than by pointing out
many passages in it [i.e. the Hawthorne], and when I tell you that Papa admires him more
than any Author of his class by far, and has often regretted our not being German scholars
simply on his account you will have an idea....'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret De Quincey Print: Book
'The more I read of Mr. Hawthorne's writings the more intense does my admiration become. I
read over the other day a part of his "House of the Seven Gables" and I don't remember any
delineation of character under Shakespeare's that is to me so exquisitely fascinating as his of
Phoebe, and it is the one I think, among all his characters which mark him most of all as a
man of very great genius, for in the hands of any but such a man, instead of being as she is
"A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still and bright
With something of an Angel light."
she would have been a common place stupid creature who only was good because she had not
will to be bad [...] The contrast too of the restless minded metaphysical Holgrave always
searching into the cause of things, and his tremendous delight in watching the development of
character are admirable [underlined]. This latter feature is I am sure a marking characteristic
of Mr. Hawthorne's and I just wish to warn him that though I have in thought [underlined]
quite an agonizing sympathy with him in it, yet when carried to such a pitch as he does in
practice that he won't give a hand to a pair of poor lovers that have fallen into the gutter on a
rainy night because his part is only to be a spectator. I have no patience with him, and beg to
say if I catch him at anything like that I will commit an assault upon him as sure as fate. I
should tell you, as more important than any thing that I can say on the subject, that for the
first time Papa read "The House of the Seven Gables" a few days ago [...] he said that if
anyone wished to give a very favorable notion to a non-German reader of Jean Paul Richter's
style of thought and sentiment they could not do it more successfully than by pointing out
many passages in it [i.e. the Hawthorne], and when I tell you that Papa admires him more
than any Author of his class by far, and has often regretted our not being German scholars
simply on his account you will have an idea....'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas De Quincey Print: Book
'Your Saturday Review fling is first rate. Nothing I liked more since the gold-fish carrier story'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'In my own day all mothers strictly forbade their daughters to read Rousseau's "Nouvelle Heloise", and all daughters, of course, longed to read nothing so much. I knew one young lady who owned to me that she stole a reading of it standing on the top steps of her father's library-ladder; and another, who procured it and carried it into the country with her on her wedding day, as the first fruits of being her own mistress. Yet within these few years I happened to hear a girl of very warm feeling, enthusiastic, romantic, just the person whose head it would have turned of old, declare she had tried to read it, but been so disgusted that she threw it away before she got through half the first volume'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'In my own day all mothers strictly forbade their daughters to read Rousseau's "Nouvelle Heloise", and all daughters, of course, longed to read nothing so much. I knew one young lady who owned to me that she stole a reading of it standing on the top steps of her father's library-ladder; and another, who procured it and carried it into the country with her on her wedding day, as the first fruits of being her own mistress. Yet within these few years I happened to hear a girl of very warm feeling, enthusiastic, romantic, just the person whose head it would have turned of old, declare she had tried to read it, but been so disgusted that she threw it away before she got through half the first volume'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'In my own day all mothers strictly forbade their daughters to read Rousseau's "Nouvelle Heloise", and all daughters, of course, longed to read nothing so much. I knew one young lady who owned to me that she stole a reading of it standing on the top steps of her father's library-ladder; and another, who procured it and carried it into the country with her on her wedding day, as the first fruits of being her own mistress. Yet within these few years I happened to hear a girl of very warm feeling, enthusiastic, romantic, just the person whose head it would have turned of old, declare she had tried to read it, but been so disgusted that she threw it away before she got through half the first volume'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'She comments, with discrimination, on Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, Rousseau and Cervantes, "Tom Jones", "Emma", "A Man of Feeling", Coleridge, Mrs Shelley, and Crabbe'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'Did you ever read "Emma", a novel of Miss Austen's? I have seen three or four [italics] Harriet Smiths [end italics] taken up and let down again, and you not being a [italics] Harriet Smith [end italics], your [italics] good genius [end italics] would rather you were not of the number. The present inmate is, I acknowledge, rather of the [italics] Miss Jane Fairfax [end italics] class, and the first I have known so favoured... Oh! how I wish (and have long wished) for the [italics] Mr Knightly [sic, end italics] to come and take the government on his own shoulders, then everything would go on as it ought... which proves me to be something like a romantic old fool.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'You need not be at all afraid that I should think your journal an odd composition. I am so much charmed with it that I long for the second part, and want to see the characters you have painted in action; but I pity you for being forced to spend so much of your time visiting and playing at cards by daylight'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Manuscript: Unknown
'Next to tell you that "H.[Hernando] de Soto" is most exquisitely excellent: your very mark and spirit upon a subject that only you can do justice to-with your wonderful English and your sympathetic insight into the souls of the Conquistadores.' Thence follows half a page of praise.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Look at the 19th Century for October. It has an article in by me which the Editor has called “Stray Thoughts of an India Girl” – I called it Social India but found that changed in the proof. He is so pleased with it & entreats so earnestly that I would write often that I think next time I send him a contribution I will ask him to value it in coin of the realm. It will be a nice way of supplementing my allowance and the 19th Centy. pays rather well.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Knowles Manuscript: Sheet
'By the way the Mother gave him some of Miss Sorabji to read and he finds it as I did, very good – “splendid” he said in parts and is inclined to prophesy a great success for her. I feel sure of it for you see she knows so much more than other people and has many gifts as a writer.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rudyard Kipling
E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 6 November 1914:
'I am not a Pro-German [...] I have read the White Paper, and Cramb, and some Bernhardi, and I am sure we could not have kept out of this war.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster
E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 6 November 1914:
'I am not a Pro-German [...] I have read the White Paper, and Cramb, and some Bernhardi, and I am sure we could not have kept out of this war.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'Plato and tact sounds like Plato and puppy, an incongruous mixture of ancient and modern, such as only suits the language of second-rate novels. Lady Morgan, I suppose, talked of tact in her "Ida of Athens".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'Your observation on the Waverley novels is perfectly just; instead of misleading one concerning the true history, or giving one a distaste for it, they make one relish it the better. Whereas Mrs Radcliffe's, for example, always abound with the most disgusting species of anachronism, the polished manners and sentimental cant of modern times put in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The enlightened philosophy likewise! young ladies arguing with their maids against their belief in ghosts and witches, when a judge durst not have expressed his doubts of either upon the bench. This [italics] palavering [end italics] style has crept into history through Miss Aitken, the language of whose memoirs of Elizabeth is so suited to modern notions that Mrs Scott has said it reminded her of Puddingfield's newspaper in the Anti-Jacobin German play. "Magna Charta was signed on Friday three weeks, and their Majesties, after partaking of a cold collation, returned to Windsor".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'a thousand thanks for [your letter], and for Sir John Stanley's speech, which I like very much, though I own I think he gives a little into commonplace towards the end, when he says the French Revolution would never have happened if so and so - forgetting that the unfortunate sovereign under whom it did happen was religious, moral, and virtuous to the highest degree, solely attached to his own wife, - and it was an old observation that a wife, a Queen's having any influence over her husband was a thing the French at no time could bear' [LS critiques various other points of the speech at length]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart
'There is a part of Sir John's speech I think quite beautiful, that which describes the sensation of vacancy; and his waiving any observations of a political nature is extremely judicious.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart
'Mrs Scott (here) is as thorough-paced a lover of those books [The Waverley Novels] as either of us. I have been looking over the Ayrshire Legatees, which I do not like at all. Mme de Stael's "Dix Annees d'Exil" is here, but a lord of the creation has got possession of it and reads so slowly that I have no chance of it while I stay'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'Mrs Scott (here) is as thorough-paced a lover of those books [The Waverley Novels] as either of us. I have been looking over the Ayrshire Legatees, which I do not like at all. Mme de Stael's "Dix Annees d'Exil" is here, but a lord of the creation has got possession of it and reads so slowly that I have no chance of it while I stay'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'Have you read the "Martyr of Antioch"? I read it (aloud) at Ditton, and did not like it much - heavy and dragging, I think.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'As for reading, I have much to say of the "Memoires de l'Europe sous Napoleon", but not time for it till quiet in my own house. I piously believe them genuine; they have the [italics] sceau [end italics] of his genius and of his profound art. I am also reading "Journal de Las Cases". I shut one book where he himself details the precautions taken to secure personal liberty under his government, the strict laws for the purpose, no person could be kept in prison a day without so, and so, and so, judges, privy council, and I know not what. I opened the other where Las Cases says that on looking over papers at St Helena, the Emperor was himself surprised to see the number of books prohibited and of [italics] persons arrested by the police [end italics], whom he had never heard of and knew nothing about'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'Pray, if you love laughing, read "the [italics] Entail [end italics] or the Lairds of Grippy". It is admirable for that purpose, tho' far more broadly Scotch than I can understand; but besides the patois, the old lady has a slip-slop of her own quite incomparable - [italics] concos montes [end italics] for [italics] compos mentis [end italics], etc. - and the author [Galt] this time is so wise as to keep quite out of good company, avoid lords and ladies, and only describe the people he has seen'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
[Marginalia]: several pencil and ink annotations (some fading to illegibility) throughout text, usually of the form of a marked item within the text followed by annotation in the margin example(1) p.542 (v.1. The Prince chpt. VI) against the footnote "r" on religion and armed conflict is the marginal note "NB The hindoo religion refutes Machiavel's position"; (2)p. 690 (v.1. The Prince chpt XXV) has the marginal note "his Majesty first defined the word chance or fortune" against the translator's note "o".
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Drummond Erskine Print: Book
'I take this opportunity of returning you A.K.'s fragments. I do believe it has been of material service... as for A.K.'s French pasage, you will be surprised at the impression it makes on my mind - as neither more nor less than [italics] commonplace [end italics] Perhaps she has not, but I have read so many descriptions of concentrated feelings, boiling passion under [italics] un froid exterieur [end italics], dark and gloomy minds, that this strikes me as only what I have seen fifty times before [LS then critiques 'The school of Sentiment']
By her further description I should pronounce it [italics] unwholesome [italics] reading. The smallest grain of [italics] amour physique [end italics] poisons the whole, renders it literally and positively [italics] beastly [end italics], for it is describing the sensations of a brute animal. And here lies the difference between even [italics] bad [end italics] English books and the French ones, which everyone reads without blushing. Mrs Bellamy and Mrs Baddeley, two women of the town, whom I remember as actresses, wrote their Memoirs. They painted their first false steaps either as the effect of seduction, they were victims to the arts employed to ruin them, or else they had been led away by their [italics] affections [end italics]; they had conceived a violent passion for such and such a man, whom they took pains to paint as formed to captivate the [italics] heart [end italics]. Madame Roland, one of the heroines of the French Revolution, a [italics] virtuous [end italics] woman, so far as chastity goes, writes her Memoirs and tells you what were her [italics] sensations towards the opposite sex in general [end italics] (without any particular object) at 14 or 15 years old!!! And young ladies were taught to read and admire this who would not have been allowed to open "Tom Jones", where Fielding does describe [italics] l'amour physique [end italics] between Tom and Molly Seagrim, but I daresay would as soon have given Sophia an inclination to commit murder as hinted that she ever had Madame Roland's [italics] sensations[end italics], or even that Tom had them towards her'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'I take this opportunity of returning you A.K.'s fragments. I do believe it has been of material service... as for A.K.'s French pasage, you will be surprised at the impression it makes on my mind - as neither more nor less than [italics] commonplace [end italics] Perhaps she has not, but I have read so many descriptions of concentrated feelings, boiling passion under [italics] un froid exterieur [end italics], dark and gloomy minds, that this strikes me as only what I have seen fifty times before [LS then critiques 'The school of Sentiment']
By her further description I should pronounce it [italics] unwholesome [italics] reading. The smallest grain of [italics] amour physique [end italics] poisons the whole, renders it literally and positively [italics] beastly [end italics], for it is describing the sensations of a brute animal. And here lies the difference between even [italics] bad [end italics] English books and the French ones, which everyone reads without blushing. Mrs Bellamy and Mrs Baddeley, two women of the town, whom I remember as actresses, wrote their Memoirs. They painted their first false steaps either as the effect of seduction, they were victims to the arts employed to ruin them, or else they had been led away by their [italics] affections [end italics]; they had conceived a violent passion for such and such a man, whom they took pains to paint as formed to captivate the [italics] heart [end italics]. Madame Roland, one of the heroines of the French Revolution, a [italics] virtuous [end italics] woman, so far as chastity goes, writes her Memoirs and tells you what were her [italics] sensations towards the opposite sex in general [end italics] (without any particular object) at 14 or 15 years old!!! And young ladies were taught to read and admire this who would not have been allowed to open "Tom Jones", where Fielding does describe [italics] l'amour physique [end italics] between Tom and Molly Seagrim, but I daresay would as soon have given Sophia an inclination to commit murder as hinted that she ever had Madame Roland's [italics] sensations[end italics], or even that Tom had them towards her'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'This moment I receive "Progress", or rather the moment (last night) occurred favorably to let me read before I sat down to write. Nothing in my writing life [...] has give mre a greater pleasure, a deeper satisfaction of innocent vanity [...] than the dedication of the book so full of admirable things, from the wonderful preface to the slightest of the sketches between the covers.' Hence follow nine more lines of unqualified praise.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Florence Barger, 2 July 1916:
'I talk to patients [at Red Cross centre, Alexandria]; with one of them -- a sensitive and intelligent fellow -- I have become real friends [...] He is, incongruously enough, a Ship's Steward [...] He is absolutely independent, but not with the theoretical independence of the Socialist. He devours masses of Dickinson [...] and Shaw.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frank Vicary Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Laura Mary Forster (aunt), 25 August 1916:
'Your welcome letter to Darkest Africa has been followed by a "real" Missionary magazine, which I have also enjoyed. Work here [as Red Cross officer tracing missing soldiers] is quieter again, which leaves me time for reading, and while you were at H. J.'s Portrait of a Lady I was tackling his latter and tougher end in the person of What Maisie Knew. I haven't [italics]quite[end italics] got through her yet, but I think I shall: she is my very limit -- beyond her lies The Golden Bowl, The Ambassadors and other impossibles. I don't think James could have helped his later manner -- is [sic] a natural development, not a pose. All that one can understand of him seems so genuine, that what one can't understand is likely to be genuine also.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Laura Mary Forster (aunt), 25 August 1916:
'Your welcome letter to Darkest Africa has been followed by a "real" Missionary magazine, which I have also enjoyed. Work here [as Red Cross officer tracing missing soldiers] is quieter again, which leaves me time for reading, and while you were at H. J.'s Portrait of a Lady I was tackling his latter and tougher end in the person of What Maisie Knew. I haven't [italics]quite[end italics] got through her yet, but I think I shall: she is my very limit -- beyond her lies The Golden Bowl, The Ambassadors and other impossibles. I don't think James could have helped his later manner -- is [sic] a natural development, not a pose. All that one can understand of him seems so genuine, that what one can't understand is likely to be genuine also.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Laura Mary Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Florence Barger,30 September 1917:
'Thanks for The Feet of the Young Men, but I wish I hadn't docked 2/- from your £ for it: an undistinguished little book [...] I enjoy books and such thoughts as progress from them greatly, and am pleased to find I can understand a little of Spinoza and that he is every bit as fine as I had suspected. He holds my intellect at its utmost strain'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Robert Trevelyan, 29 January 1918:
'I am already deep in The Piddle Years [sic]. I never find Henry James difficult to understand, though it [italics]is[end italics] difficult to throw off the interests of one's larger life, and flatten oneself -- flat flatter flattest -- to crawl down his slots.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Robert Trevelyan, 29 January 1918:
'I have been reading Racine and Claudel.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Siegfried Sassoon, 2 May 1918:
'Have just finished The Sense of the Past, and though it's so obscure -- find it much nearer the work of other writers than is the rest of the later James. He is really interested in his subject [time travel] as well as in his treatment of it. And a topping subject.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'I had a letter from Ly. -- on Tuesday that gave me great content, for I, like you, felt a little afraid that the Lady Augusta might give offence. However, her withers are altogether unwrung, and she speaks of "Trevelyan" just as I could wish, enumerating all her bothers and businesses, but saying she cannot resist taking it up at odd times, "it is so very, very interesting!!" She has not yet come to the end; however, this has quite dispelled my fears. For that matter, when we all read "Emma" together at poor Bothwell - the duchess one - we could not help laughing a little more at the devotion of father and daughter to their respective apothecaries, and all the coddling that ensued from it, but we did not find that it struck the devotees in existence. People are so used to themselves! One of Foote's most comical farces represented to the life a certain Mr. Ap. Rees, whom, as old people told me, it did not in the least exaggerate. They swore to having heard him utter the very things the farce put in his mouth. But he himself never found it out. He was intimate with Foote, read the play, told him it was d- stupid and would not suceed, wondered it did, yet went to it and laughed for company, till some good-natured friend informed him he was the person ridiculed; then he went in a rage to the Lord Chamberlain and desired it might be suppressed'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'I always thought Chateaubriand had a great deal of the mountebank in him. I bought the play [which she also watched] so you will see it. In his preface he talks of Racine's sacred dramas, but, after all, the histories of Esther and Athalie, though in the Bible, are [italics] mere history [end italics; this is significant because LS is objecting to Chateaubriand representing Moses on stage - implicitly a different thing from what Racine did - this is elaborated on] When I got the book I could scarcely follow the actors, who ate half their words and bellowed the other half.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'Or perhaps she [Madame de Stael] may wish to have it appear as if she thought so [that English women were less uncouth than they used to be] since she wrote the history of Lady Edgermond's Society "elles sont d'une grace d'une simplicite charmante et belles comme le jour", but I am not certain that she would not place us all or at least with a very few exceptions on Lady Cooke's bench of idiots'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Book
'Benjamin Constant is writing some of the most successful pamphlets of the day, particularly one in favour of the liberty of the press which Lady Holland has just sent to Sir Samuel, together with a very excellent one of Gallois's on the same side'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly
'Benjamin Constant is writing some of the most successful pamphlets of the day., particularly one in favour of the liberty of the press which Lady Holland has just sent to Sir Samuel, together with a very excellent one of Gallois's on the same side'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Romilly
'I've just read Nelson. It is very good. Some criticism can be made mainly on the point that you presuppose too much knowledge of facts in your readers. Still we shall try to place it where it may be judged sympathetically.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
Gone on with Comparetti Vergilio nel Medio Evo. Bourget’s Physiologie de l’Amour. [next unclear] Dumas Nouveaux Entr’actes. Ribot Maladies de la Volonté. In Flaubert’s Correspondance. Mercier Sanity and Insanity. Zola La fortune des Rougon. Son Excellence ER. Loti Roman d’un Enfant. Zola La Curée. Mme Bovary. Manresa (Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius). Ribot. Hérédité Psychologique. Zola Nana. Bjornson. In God’s Way. Tolstoy Marchez pendant que vous avez la lumiere. In Mary Wilkins. Tolstoy Les fruits de la Science. Vacherot Science et conscience. Tolstoy. Ivan imbecile etc. Zola Au bonheur des Dames. Julius Caesar. In Numa Roumestan 2nd time. In Chartreuse de Parma 3rd time. Zola La Terre. Tolstoy & Bondareff. Le Travail. Ibsen Canard Sauvage & Rosmersholm. Goncourt Clairon. Meinhold Amber Witch. The Newcomes. Ibsen H. Gabler. Kingsley Alton Locke. Spencer etc Plea for Liberty. Arnold White Tries at Truth. Merimée Venus d’Ille & Ames du Purgatoire. [next unclear] Havelock Ellis The Criminal. Zola La Reine. Stevenson Cervennes. Maeterlinck Les Aveugles, L’Intruse. Maupassant Bel Ami. Fabre L’abbe Tigrane. Much Kipling – Meredith Beauchamp. Morris News from nowhere. Mill on the Floss.- Zola l’argent. Diderot Religieuse. Laveleye Luxe. Mary Marguerites. Spencer Ethics. Sand La Morceau Diable. La Petite Fadette. Guyau Morale sans obligation. In Hazlitt. Zola Pot Bouille. Balzac Paysans.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
Gone on with Comparetti Vergilio nel Medio Evo. Bourget’s Physiologie de l’Amour. [next unclear] Dumas Nouveaux Entr’actes. Ribot Maladies de la Volonté. In Flaubert’s Correspondance. Mercier Sanity and Insanity. Zola La fortune des Rougon. Son Excellence ER. Loti Roman d’un Enfant. Zola La Curée. Mme Bovary. Manresa (Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius). Ribot. Hérédité Psychologique. Zola Nana. Bjornson. In God’s Way. Tolstoy Marchez pendant que vous avez la lumiere. In Mary Wilkins. Tolstoy Les fruits de la Science. Vacherot Science et conscience. Tolstoy. Ivan imbecile etc. Zola Au bonheur des Dames. Julius Caesar. In Numa Roumestan 2nd time. In Chartreuse de Parma 3rd time. Zola La Terre. Tolstoy & Bondareff. Le Travail. Ibsen Canard Sauvage & Rosmersholm. Goncourt Clairon. Meinhold Amber Witch. The Newcomes. Ibsen H. Gabler. Kingsley Alton Locke. Spencer etc Plea for Liberty. Arnold White Tries at Truth. Merimée Venus d’Ille & Ames du Purgatoire. [next unclear] Havelock Ellis The Criminal. Zola La Reine. Stevenson Cervennes. Maeterlinck Les Aveugles, L’Intruse. Maupassant Bel Ami. Fabre L’abbe Tigrane. Much Kipling – Meredith Beauchamp. Morris News from nowhere. Mill on the Floss.- Zola l’argent. Diderot Religieuse. Laveleye Luxe. Mary Marguerites. Spencer Ethics. Sand La Morceau Diable. La Petite Fadette. Guyau Morale sans obligation. In Hazlitt. Zola Pot Bouille. Balzac Paysans.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Vernon Lee Print: Book
'Thank you for sending me your novel. I think that there is much good writing, and that you have a strong visual sense, but I do get tired of the perpetual pillow fights. Frankly, don't either of you young men know anybody who is capable of getting into his own bed and staying there? If you do for goodness sake cultivate his acquaintance, and write about him next time for a change. Also, calling a spade a spade never made the spade interesting yet. Take my advice, leave spades alone, or if you must mention them, then mention the garden too.
All the miners round here - they are not an expressive race- use words which recur over and over again on your pages. But I don't find they add anything to my consciousness.
No, no, you[should] develop your talent along different lines, and let us have some more writing like that page about the girl and the sailor - with the last phrase left out.
P.S I mean that our forefathers, though an ignorant lot in some ways, were no more ignorant of the process of excretion than are their descendents today. But apart from medical treatises, these things do not in themselves make interesting reading.
The prose rythms of your book really do deserve a more worthy subject, next time.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell Print: Book
'Now I'm reading Festivals of Fire, which I had sent for before I got your letter; it was most charming of you to offer to send it it to me, and I think it remarkable, and it is obvious that you are a real poet. As I said before, the rhythmical quality of "The Loosening" its fluidity and perfect control, was most remarkable, and I never doubted that you have a most remarkable mind; all I wanted was more sifting of the material. When I know Festivals of Fire properly, I shall write to you again...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell Print: Book
' have not yet seen him [Sir James Mackintosh], but I hear that he has read or has heard some chapters of "L'Angleterre". He says it is full of talent, but that there are some strange mistakes as to English Manners; but that a dinner at Lord Grey's is very well described'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Mackintosh Manuscript: Unknown
'Mr Rocca's "Memoirs sur la guerre Des Francois en Espagne" [sic] is just out. I have only read a very few pages but they give me a great desire to read more, particularly as Sophie who took it up could not lay it down again, and in general a girl of fourteen is a pretty good judge of the interest'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Book
'Mr Rocca's "Memoirs sur la guerre Des Francois en Espagne" [sic] is just out. I have only read a very few pages but they give me a great desire to read more, particularly as Sophie who took it up could not lay it down again, and in general a girl of fourteen is a pretty good judge of the interest'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sophie Romilly Print: Book
'Since I wrote the first two pages of this letter I have read Eugene and Guilliaume, and quite agree with you. Pray correct Sir James Mackintosh's opinion [about "Waverley"], and for [italics] best [end italics] read [italics] worst [end italics] which was his opinion, altho' I was told the contrary. He is now I understand a little softened, and says it comes before Rokeby but after all the others. Have you read "Discipline" by Mrs Brunton? With many defects it is much above the common class, and the last Volume is very pretty indeed some scenes nearly as good as "Waverley" who I might have added to my list of Lovers belonging to Walter Scott one can take no interest in. - Have you read La Baume's act. of the Campaign in Russia? I am told it is very well done. I am sure you will be pleased with Mr Rocca's Book if you read it'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Book
'I have read both Emma and [torn and illegible]. In the first there is so little to remember, and in the last so much that one wishes to forget, that I am not inclined to write about them'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Book
'By the bye have you read Mr C.'s "Adolphe"? It divides the whole world, and I think the general opinion seems to be that it is not worthy of the talents he is supposed to possess. Nevertheless one must see that it has been written by a man of no common mind, and by a close observer of human nature under the particular situation which he describes. At least I should think he only expresses what hundreds of men have felt when they have been hampered and tied down by an unfortunate connection which they vainly wish but have not force of mind enough to break through. And now I must tell you that I am very bold in defending it for my oracle Mr Whishaw (my husband has not read it), is at the head of a large party who abuse it; but they will talk of it as a novel, and as such I am quite willing to allow that it has no great interest or merit; but take it as he calls it, an anecdote, and read it without the intention of being amused, but merely as a study of character, and surely it has considerable merit. It is impossible that the Lady can be intended for Madame de Stael, altho' many traits point out his own vacillating character in "Adolphe", and perhaps some of the scenes may have been drawn from life. I should very much like to have your opinion, and still more Mr Edgeworth's, for a man must from his knowledge of men in the world, be a better judge of such subjects than a woman'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Book
'By the bye have you read Mr C.'s "Adolphe"? It divides the whole world, and I think the general opinion seems to be that it is not worthy of the talents he is supposed to possess. Nevertheless one must see that it has been written by a man of no common mind, and by a close observer of human nature under the particular situation which he describes. At least I should think he only expresses what hundreds of men have felt when they have been hampered and tied down by an unfortunate connection which they vainly wish but have not force of mind enough to break through. And now I must tell you that I am very bold in defending it for my oracle Mr Whishaw (my husband has not read it), is at the head of a large party who abuse it; but they will talk of it as a novel, and as such I am quite willing to allow that it has no great interest or merit; but take it as he calls it, an anecdote, and read it without the intention of being amused, but merely as a study of character, and surely it has considerable merit. It is impossible that the Lady can be intended for Madame de Stael, altho' many traits point out his own vacillating character in "Adolphe", and perhaps some of the scenes may have been drawn from life. I should very much like to have your opinion, and still more Mr Edgeworth's, for a man must from his knowledge of men in the world, be a better judge of such subjects than a woman'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Whishaw Print: Book
'I imagine "Glenarvon" has lost much of its merit in your eyes from not being acquainted with the different persons intended to be portrayed. Many characters are drawn I think full as well as the Princess of Madagascar. The circle at Lady Oxford's is surely well drawn and faithful; Buchanan, Sir Godfrey Webster - and even Lady Byron's own character is not ill done. The letter is an original, the signature alone different, and I am a firm believer in the whole history as far as relates to Calantha and "Glenarvon". He did not quit her until he was tired, and the letter was actually sealed with Lady Oxford's seal and directed in her hand writing'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Book
'Do you not think the contrast of the manners between Melbourne House and Devonshire House [in "Glenarvon"] well drawn? One of our friends, well read in Johnson, told me most of the serious parts were extracts from the "Rambler". I have not had time or patience to compare them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'[Maria Edgeworth's brother] talked a great deal of you and of "Glenarvon". Have you read the preface of the second edition? I took it up at the Library, having read an extract from it in the newspapers, I brought it home, and really think if Lady Caroline wrote it she deserves high place amongst the fair authors of the present day. I cannot think it is hers.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Book
'[Maria Edgeworth's brother] talked a great deal of you and of "Glenarvon". Have you read the preface of the second edition? I took it up at the Library, having read an extract from it in the newspapers, I brought it home, and really think if Lady Caroline wrote it she deserves high place amongst the fair authors of the present day. I cannot think it is hers.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Edgeworth Print: Book
'Have you not been delighted with Mrs Marcet? What an extraordinary work for a woman! Everybody who understands the subject is in a state of astonishment, and those, who like me know very little or nothing about it, are delighted with the knowledge they have acquired. One of our ci-devant Judges, Sir James Mansfield, who in his 83rd year devours all that is new in Literature, is charmed and laments extremely that he did not know as much as that Book has taught him when he was at the Bar'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Book
'Have you not been delighted with Mrs Marcet? What an extraordinary work for a woman! Everybody who understands the subject is in a state of astonishment, and those, who like me know very little or nothing about it, are delighted with the knowledge they have acquired. One of our ci-devant Judges, Sir James Mansfield, who in his 83rd year devours all that is new in Literature, is charmed and laments extremely that he did not know as much as that Book has taught him when he was at the Bar'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Mansfield Print: Book
'How merciless and ungentlemanlike the"Quarterly Review" is upon Lady Morgan! It is the only thing that could have made me pity her, for she is very flippant and full of error from beginning to end'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Book
'In this [producing a biography of Johnson] he has not been very successful, as I have found upon a perusal of those papers, which have been since transferred to me. Sir John Hawkins's ponderous labours, I must acknowledge, exhibit a [italics] farrago [end italics], of which a considerable portion is not devoid of entertainment to the lovers of literary gossiping; but besides its being swelled out with long unnecessary extracts from various works [...], a very small part of it relates to the person who is the subject of the book; and, in that, there is such an inaccuracy in the statement of facts, as in so solemn an author is hardly excusable, and certainly makes his narrative very unsatisfactory'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'There is, in the British Museum, a letter from Bishop Warburton to Dr Birch, on the subject of biography; which, though I am aware it may expose me to a charge of artfully raising the value of my own work, by contrasting it with that of which I have spoken, is so well conceived and expressed, that I cannot refrain from here inserting it: [the letter follows, including this passage] "Almost all the life-writers we have had before Toland and Desmaiseaux, are indeed strange inspid creatures; and yet I had rather read the worst of them, than be obliged to go through with this of Milton's, or the other's life of Boileau, where there is such a dull, heavy succession of long quotations of disinteresting passages, that it makes their method quite nauseous".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Dr Warburton Print: Book
Among entries made in 1926 in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book is a passage from Vanbrugh, The Provok'd Wife III.i (opening '[italics]Virtue[end italics], alas, is no more like the thing that is called so than 'tis like vice itself').
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Among texts discussed and quoted from at length in 1926 Commonplace Book of E. M. Forster is Henry James, The Ambassadors, with comments including 'Pattern exquisitely woven,' and 'However hard you shake his sentences, no banality falls out.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Among texts discussed and quoted from in 1926 Commonplace Book of E. M. Forster is Norman Douglas, D. H. Lawrence and Maurice Magnus: A Plea for Better Manners (1924).
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Remarks in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book of 1926 include 'Nearly all novels go off at the end,' with examples including Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes ('how silly the book becomes when the witchcraft starts, how worse than silly when it culminates').
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'[editor's words] without literary pretensions, Mrs Marshall had a genuine love of reading, and when no other engagement intervened, it was one of her domestic regulations, that a book should be read aloud in the evening for general amusement; the office of reader commonly devolved on Miss Hamilton, who was thus led to remark that the best prose style was always that which could be longest read without exhausting the breath. These social studies were far from satisfying her avidity for information; and she constantly perused many books by stealth. Mrs Marshall, on discovering what had been her private occupation, expressed neither praise nor blame, but quietly advised her to avoid any display of superior knowledge by which she might be subjected to the imputation of pedantry. This admonition produced the desired effect, since, as she herself informs us, she once hid a volume of Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism under the cushion of a chair lest she should be detected in a study which prejudice and ignorance might pronounce unfeminine'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Hamilton Print: Book
'Let me add, that Hawkesworth's imitations of Johnson are sometimes so happy,that it is extremely difficult to distinguish them, with certainty, from the compositions of his great archetype'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Serial / periodical
'There is an old English and Latin book of poems by Barclay, called "The Ship of Fools"; at the end of which are a number of [italics] Eglogues [end italics]; so he writes it, from [italics] Egloga [end italics], which are probably the first in our language. If you cannot find the book I will get Mr Dodsley to send it to you'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1928) include reflections on lovers' perceptions from Francois Mauriac, Le Desert de l'Amour (1925), and one line, 'La nuit etait vouee au vent et a la lune,' from Mauriac's La Pharisienne, added by Forster in 1942.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1928) include reflections on lovers' perceptions from Francois Mauriac, Le Desert de l'Amour (1925), and one line, 'La nuit etait vouee au vent et a la lune,' from Mauriac's La Pharisienne, added by Forster in 1942.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1929):
'It does not mattter what men say in words so long as their activities are controlled by settled instincts. The words may ultimately destroy the instincts. But until this has occurred, words do not count. [Whitehead, Science & the Modern World.]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1929) include anecdotes on pigmies from Ernest Hubert Lewis Schwarz, The Kalahari and its Native Races (1928) p.153, p.155.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'Raw February Afternoon 2-30 [...] Reading Vaughan [quotes two stanzas beginning 'Thou art a moon-like toil'] [...] Reading F. R. Lucas also [quotes seven lines beginning with 'Your quiet altar after all was best']'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'L'Heroisme consiste a ne pas permettre au corps de renier les impudences de l'esprit
'runs an epigram of Maurois which bowled me at the first reading; then, as so often, I thought "not really worth writing down." He is only saying that [italics]Byron[end italics] acted up to his theories. But he has written a very fine biography in which one always feels secure over the facts and has not to depend on the flashes of intuition cultivated by the Strachey school.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'Her [Mrs Sheridan's] novel, entitled "Memoirs of Miss Sydney Biddulph", contains an excellent moral, while it inculcates a future state of retribution; and what it teaches is impressed upon the mind by a series of as deep distress as can affect humanity, in the amiable and pious heroine who goes to her grave unrelieved, but resigned, and full of hope of "heaven's mercy". Johnson paid her this high compliment upon it: "I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'Her [Mrs Sheridan's] novel, entitled "Memoirs of Miss Sydney Biddulph", contains an excellent moral, while it inculcates a future state of retribution; and what it teaches is impressed upon the mind by a series of as deep distress as can affect humanty, in the amiable and pious heroine who goes to her grave unrelieved, but resgned, and full of hope of "heaven's mercy". Johnson paid her this high compliment upon it: "I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Sir, this book ("The Elements of Criticism", which he had taken up,) is a pretty essay, and deserves to be held in some estimation, though much of it is chimerical'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Dr John Campbell, the celebrated political and biographical writer, being mentioned, Johnson said, "Campbell is a man of much knowledge, and has a good share of imagination. His "Hermippus Redivivus" is very entertaining, as an account of the Hermetick philosophy, and as furnishing a curious history of the human mind. If it were merely imaginary it would be nothing at all.".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'If you don't know already it may interest you to know that in Anatole France's last book ["Sur la pierre blanche"] there are two allusions to you.'
Hence follow eleven lines of clarification and discussion.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I don't know whether I ought to mention my delight at your approval of "Abeille" [by Anatole France]. I put it in your hands with confidence and trust - but one never knows.[...] I must tell you in confidence that some time ago dear Jack [Galsworthy] sat upon me so heavily for my admiration of "Thais" that I promised to myself to walk very delicately in the way of recommending books for the future.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I don't know whether I ought to mention my delight at your approval of "Abeille" [by Anatole France]. I put it in your hands with confidence and trust - but one never knows.[...] I must tell you in confidence that some time ago dear Jack [Galsworthy] sat upon me so heavily for my admiration of "Thais" that I promised to myself to walk very delicately in the way of recommending books for the future.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
Texts on which detailed notes made in E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1930) include Boileau, L'Art Poetique, comments on which include: 'He realises that experience is valuable to a writer and that the heart of the reader must be touched: but his conceptions of experience and the heart are jejune.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'Dante, De Vulgari Eloquentia 1309 (?) which I'd never read and now only have in translation, must have been written excitedly, and while Div[ina]. Com[media] was forming in his mind. What a pity it only deals with Canzone! [goes on to comment further on passages noted from text]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'Shaw's St Joan and Joyce's Ulysses into which I looked today (8-11-30) made me ashamed of my own writing. They have something to say, but I am only paring away insincerities.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Texts quoted from at length in E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1931) include Henry James, Letters, passages from which cover topics including the writings of Pater, Kipling and Hardy.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'Aubrey in young John Collier's book of selections has reminded me of the value of the quaint and the charming: they may bring the past when properly juxtaposed. How many anecdotes and conversations I've let die -- half a civilisation already'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'"Bayle's Dictionary is a very useful work for those to consult who love the biographical part of literature, which is what I love most."
Talking of the eminent writers in Queen Anne's reign, he observed, "I think Dr. Arbuthnot the first man among them. He was the most universal genius, being an excellent physician, a man of deep learning, and a man of much humour. Mr. Addison was, to be sure, a great man; his learning was not profound; but his morality, his humour, and his elegance of writing, set him very high."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'He told me, that his father had put Martin's account of those islands into his hands when he was very young, and that he was highly pleased with it; that he was particularly struck with the St. Kilda man's notion that the high church of Glasgow had been hollowed out of a rock; a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnson had directed his attention.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'He told me, that his father had put Martin's account of those islands into his hands when he was very young, and that he was highly pleased with it; that he was particularly struck with the St. Kilda man's notion that the high church of Glasgow had been hollowed out of a rock; a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnson had directed his attention.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Michael Johnson Print: Book
'He had in his pocket, "Pomponius Mela de Situ Orbis," in which he read occasionally, and seemed very intent upon ancient geography.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Uncle Henry writes very superior Sermons. You & I must try to get hold of one or two & put them into our Novels; it would be a fine help to a volume; & we could make our Heroine read it aloud of a Sunday Evening, just as Isabella Wardour in the Antiquary, is made to read the History of the Hartz Demon in the ruins of St Ruth - tho I beleive [sic], on reflection, Lovell is the Reader.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Book
'Your Anne is dreadful - . But nothing offends me so much as the absurdity of not being able to pronounce the word Shift. I could forgive her any follies in English, rather than the Mock Modesty of that french word...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Manuscript: Sheet
'This violence [of Dr Johnson against Rousseau] seemed very strange to me, who had read many of Rousseau's animated writings with great pleasure, and even edification; had been much pleased with his society, and was just come from the Continent, where he was very generally admired. Nor can I yet allow that he deserves the very severe censure which Johnson pronounced upon him. His absurd preference of savage to civilized life and other singularities are proofs rather of a defect in his understanding than of any depravity in his heart. And notwithstanding the unfavourable opinion which many worthy men have expressed of his "Profession de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard," I cannot help admiring it as the performance of a man full of sincere reverential submission to Divine Mystery, though beset with perplexing doubts: a state of mind to be viewed with pity rather than with anger.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'This violence [of Dr Johnson against Rousseau] seemed very strange to me, who had read many of Rousseau's animated writings with great pleasure, and even edification; had been much pleased with his society, and was just come from the Continent, where he was very generally admired. Nor can I yet allow that he deserves the very severe censure which Johnson pronounced upon him. His absurd preference of savage to civilized life and other singularities are proofs rather of a defect in his understanding than of any depravity in his heart. And notwithstanding the unfavourable opinion which many worthy men have expressed of his "Profession de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard," I cannot help admiring it as the performance of a man full of sincere reverential submission to Divine Mystery, though beset with perplexing doubts: a state of mind to be viewed with pity rather than with anger.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'Do not oblige him to read any more. - Have mercy on him and tell him the truth [about the authorship of Austen's novels] & make him an apology...he deserves better treatment than to be obliged to read any more of my Works.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Wildman Print: Book
'I meant to inform you, that besides those books already mentioned, I sent for Bishop Horne's Sermons, 4 vols. Carr's Sermons, Blairs Sermons, 5vols. Scott's Christian Life, 5vols. several leaned and sensible expositions of the Bible; Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible, with the Fragments; Josephus' Works, Prideaux's Connections, 4vols. Mrs H. More's Works, and various other excellent Works. For some time one sermon was read on every Sunday, but soon Mrs L. began to like them, and then two or three were read in the course of the week; at last one at least was ready every day, and very often part of some other book in divinity, as Mrs. L said that she preferred such kind of reading far beyond the reading of novels.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington Print: Book
'He [Dr Johnson] said, "Macaulay, who writes the account of St. Kilda, set out with a prejudice against prejudice, and wanted to be a smart modern thinker; and yet he affirms for a truth, that when a ship arrives there all the inhabitants are seized with a cold".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'A Lady of Norfolk, by a letter to my friend Dr. Burney, has favoured me with the following solution [to the question of why the St Kildans always got a cold when visited by outsiders]: "Now for the explication of this seeming mystery, which is so very obvious as, for that reason, to have escaped the penetration of Dr. Johnson and his friend, as well as that of the author. Reading the book with my ingenions friend, the late Reverend Mr. Christian of Docking—after ruminating a little, 'The cause, (says he,) is a natural one: The situation of St. Kilda renders a North-East wind indispensably necessary before a stranger can land. The wind, not the stranger, occasions an epidemick cold'."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'A Lady of Norfolk, by a letter to my friend Dr. Burney, has favoured me with the following solution [to the question of why the St Kildans always got a cold when visited by outsiders]: "Now for the explication of this seeming mystery, which is so very obvious as, for that reason, to have escaped the penetration of Dr. Johnson and his friend, as well as that of the author. Reading the book with my ingenions friend, the late Reverend Mr. Christian of Docking—after ruminating a little, 'The cause, (says he,) is a natural one: The situation of St. Kilda renders a North-East wind indispensably necessary before a stranger can land. The wind, not the stranger, occasions an epidemick cold'."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Reverend Christian Print: Book
'When I talked of our [the Scots'] advancement in literature, "Sir, (said he,) you have learnt a little from us, and you think yourselves very great men. Hume would never have written History, had not Voltaire written it before him. He is an echo of Voltaire." Boswell "But, Sir, we have Lord Kames." Johnson. "You [italics] have [italics] Lord Кames. Keep him; ha, ha, ha! We don't envy you him. Do you ever see Dr. Robertson?" Boswell. "Yes, Sir." Johnson. "Does the dog talk of me ?" Boswell. "Indeed, Sir, he does, and loves you." Thinking that I now had him in a corner, and being solicitous for the literary fame of my country, I pressed him for his opinion on the merit of Dr. Robertson's "History of Scotland". But, to my surprise, he escaped.—" Sir, I love Robertson, and I won't talk of his book."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Passages transcribed at length in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1932) include reflections by Indu Rakshit on 'the representation of the feminine' in contemporary Western and Indian art.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical
Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1935) include reflections on associations of placenames and other words, and on effects of 'the world' upon strong and weak characters, in Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1935-6) include quotation from Norman Douglas, Together, opening: 'How many avenues of delight are closed to the mere moralist or immoralist who knows nothing of things extra-human; who remains absorbed in mankind and its half-dozen motives of conduct, so unstable yet forever the same, which we all fathomed before we were twenty!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937) include the description of the death of Mr Badman's wife (opening 'Now, said she, I am going to rest for my sorrows, my sighs, my tears, my mournings, and complaints') from chapter 16 of John Bunyan, The Life and Death of Mr Badman.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937) include reflections upon benefits of reading both devotional and 'gallant' books, and the heart's ability to '[reconcile contrary things]' [source ed's translation] from La Bruyere's essay 'Du Coeur'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages transcribed at length into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937) include the description of the suicide of John Cox, from chapter 19 of John Bunyan's Life and Death of Mr Badman.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages transcribed at length into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937-38) include extracts on the art and literature of different historical periods from Les Grands Textes deu Marxism, sur litterature et l'Art, anthology edited by Jean Freville; topics and authors covered include the Renaissance; comedy; poetry; Goethe; Shakespeare; Carlyle, and Disraeli. Following transcriptions, Forster notes: 'I read this anthology to find material for the Ivory Tower.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'Johnson proceeded :— "The Scotchman has taken the right method in his 'Elements of Criticism.' I do not mean that he has taught us any thing; but he has told us old things in a new way." Murphy. "He seems to have read a great deal of French criticism, and wants to make it his own; as if he had been for years anatomizing the heart of man, and peeping into every cranny of it." Goldsmith. "It is easier to write that book, than to read it." Johnson. "We have an example of true criticism in Burke's 'Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful'; and, if I recollect, there is also Du Bos; and Bouhours, who shews all beauty to depend on truth. There is no great merit in telling how many plays have ghosts in them, and how this Ghost is better than that. You must shew how terrour is impressed on the human heart.— In the description of night in Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness,—inspissated gloom".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Murphy Print: Book
'Johnson proceeded :— "The Scotchman has taken the right method in his 'Elements of Criticism.' I do not mean that he has taught us any thing; but he has told us old things in a new way." Murphy. "He seems to have read a great deal of French criticism, and wants to make it his own; as if he had been for years anatomizing the heart of man, and peeping into every cranny of it." Goldsmith. "It is easier to write that book, than to read it." Johnson. "We have an example of true criticism in Burke's 'Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful'; and, if I recollect, there is also Du Bos; and Bouhours, who shews all beauty to depend on truth. There is no great merit in telling how many plays have ghosts in them, and how this Ghost is better than that. You must shew how terrour is impressed on the human heart.— In the description of night in Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness,—inspissated gloom".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Oliver Goldsmith Print: Book
'Johnson proceeded :— "The Scotchman has taken the right method in his 'Elements of Criticism.' I do not mean that he has taught us any thing; but he has told us old things in a new way." Murphy. "He seems to have read a great deal of French criticism, and wants to make it his own; as if he had been for years anatomizing the heart of man, and peeping into every cranny of it." Goldsmith. "It is easier to write that book, than to read it." Johnson. "We have an example of true criticism in Burke's 'Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful'; and, if I recollect, there is also Du Bos; and Bouhours, who shews all beauty to depend on truth. There is no great merit in telling how many plays have ghosts in them, and how this Ghost is better than that. You must shew how terrour is impressed on the human heart.— In the description of night in Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness,—inspissated gloom".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'[Boswell having expressed doubt about the power of prayer, Johnson] mentioned Dr. Clarke and Bishop Bramhall on "Liberty and Necessity", and bid me read South's "Sermons on Prayer"; but avoided the question which has excruciated philosophers and divines, beyond any other.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Under heading 'Early Greek Science. -- And Lucretius':
'Farington (Science and Politics in the Ancient World) thinks that Ionia observed and experimented freely; that Science became conditioned by politics [...]
'Now I am reading Cornford (From Religion to Philosophy). I doubt whether Farington has. For Cornford proves that Ionian Science was conditioned by religion. This, though less exciting, is probable.
'I find these early speculations useful in clearing my own mind, and helping it to see how it has been twisted. And Farington recalls me to my proper job [...] I ought to think a little more, and not to slop about being diffident or charming.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages quoted in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1940) include remarks on value of cultural works for successive generations of civilised people from Lord Acton's Lecture on the Study of History ('A speech of Antigone, a single sentence of Socrates [...] come nearer to our lives than the ancestral wisdom of barbarians who fed their swine on the Hercynian acorns').
Forster responds with comment that 'Lord Acton is right, but [...] He forgot that that most people do not respond to culture or intellectual honesty [...] he appears to this generation as an old man lecturung in a cap and gown,' having also noted 'This afternoon (29-2-40) I was at Bishops Cross, where new born lambs were dying in the cold, and Hughie Waterson, a Nazi by temperament, was trying to save them [...] Him the ancestral wisdom inspired.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1941) include remarks on bigotry (opening 'Bigotry is an odd thing') from chapter 13 of Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1941).
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1941) include stanza 7 of Malherbe, 'Consolation a Monsieur du Perier, sur la Mort de sa Fille' (1607, followed by remark: 'If I admire this, do I like French poetry? I do admire it. And, mythology lost, what will become of poetry? Mythology gave a stiffening to the fabric.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1941) include stanza 32 of Malherbe, 'Pour le Roi, allant chatier la Rebellion des Rochelois' (1628), followed by remark: 'If I admire this, do I like French poetry? I do admire it. And, mythology lost, what will become of poetry? Mythology gave a stiffening to the fabric.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
He had said in the morning that "Macaulay's 'History of St. Kilda' was very well written, except some foppery about liberty and slavery. I mentioned to him that Macaulay told me, he was advised to leave out of his book the wonderful story that upon the approach of a stranger all the inhabitants catch cold; but that it had been so well authenticated, he determined to retain it. Johnson. "Sir, to leave things out of a book merely because people tell you they will not be believed is meanness. Macaulay acted with more magnanimity".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'He censured Ruffhead's "Life of Pope"; -and said, "he knew nothing of Pope, and nothing of poetry." He praised Dr. Joseph Warton's "Essay on Pope"; but said, he supposed we should have no more of it, as the author had not been able to persuade the world to think of Pope as he did. Boswell. "Why, sir, should that prevent him from continuing his work? He is an ingenious counsel who has made the most of his cause: he is not obliged to gain it." Johnson. "But, sir, there is a difference when the cause is of a man's own making".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'The conversation now turned on critical subjects. Johnson. "Bayes, in 'The Rehearsal', is a mighty silly character. If it was intended to be like a particular man, it could only be diverting while that man was remembered. But I question whether it was meant for Dryden, as has been reported; for we know some of the passages said to be ridiculed were written since 'The Rehearsal'; at least a passage mentioned in the Preface is of a later date." I maintained that it had merit as a general satire on the self-importance of dramatick authours. But even in this light he held it very cheap.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'The conversation now turned on critical subjects. Johnson. "Bayes, in 'The Rehearsal', is a mighty silly character. If it was intended to be like a particular man, it could only be diverting while that man was remembered. But I question whether it was meant for Dryden, as has been reported; for we know some of the passages said to be ridiculed were written since 'The Rehearsal'; at least a passage mentioned in the Preface is of a later date." I maintained that it had merit as a general satire on the self-importance of dramatick authours. But even in this light he held it very cheap.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'I mentioned Sir John Dalrymple's "Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland", and his discoveries to the prejudice of Lord Russel and Algernon Sydney. Johnson. " Why, Sir, every body who had just notions of government thought them rascals before. It is well that all mankind now see them to be rascals." Boswell. "But, Sir, may not those discoveries be true without their being rascals?" Johnson. "Consider, Sir, would any of them have been willing to have had it known that they intrigued with France? Depend upon it, Sir, he who does what he is afraid should be known has something rotten about him. This Dalrymple seems to be an honest fellow; for he tells equally what makes against both sides. But nothing can be poorer than his mode of writing, it is the mere bouncing of a school boy: Great He! but greater She! and such stuff."
I could not agree with him in this criticism; for though Sir John Dalrymple's style is not regularly formed in any respect, and one cannot help smiling sometimes at his affected grandiloquence, there is in his writing a pointed vivacity, and much of a gentlemanly spirit.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'I mentioned Sir John Dalrymple's "Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland", and his discoveries to the prejudice of Lord Russel and Algernon Sydney. Johnson. " Why, Sir, every body who had just notions of government thought them rascals before. It is well that all mankind now see them to be rascals." Boswell. "But, Sir, may not those discoveries be true without their being rascals?" Johnson. "Consider, Sir, would any of them have been willing to have had it known that they intrigued with France? Depend upon it, Sir, he who does what he is afraid should be known has something rotten about him. This Dalrymple seems to be an honest fellow; for he tells equally what makes against both sides. But nothing can be poorer than his mode of writing, it is the mere bouncing of a school boy: Great He! but greater She! and such stuff."
I could not agree with him in this criticism; for though Sir John Dalrymple's style is not regularly formed in any respect, and one cannot help smiling sometimes at his affected grandiloquence, there is in his writing a pointed vivacity, and much of a gentlemanly spirit.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'I spoke of Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd," in the Scottish dialect, as the best pastoral that had ever been written; not only abounding with beautiful rural imagery, and just and pleasing sentiments, but being a real picture of manners; and I offered to teach Dr. Johnson to understand it. "No, sir (said he), I won't learn it. You shall retain your superiority by my not knowing it".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'Johnson praised John Bunyan highly. "His 'Pilgrim's Progress' has great merit, both for invention, imagination, and the conduct of the story; and it has had the best evidence of its merit, the general and continued approbation of mankind. Few books, I believe, have had a more extensive sale. It is remarkable, that it begins very much like the poem of Dante; yet there was no translation of Dante when Bunyan wrote. There is reason to think that he had read Spenser".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Johnson praised John Bunyan highly. "His 'Pilgrim's Progress' has great merit, both for invention, imagination, and the conduct of the story; and it has had the best evidence of its merit, the general and continued approbation of mankind. Few books, I believe, have had a more extensive sale. It is remarkable, that it begins very much like the poem of Dante; yet there was no translation of Dante when Bunyan wrote. There is reason to think that he had read Spenser".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Talking of puns, Johnson, who had a great contempt for that species of wit, deigned to allow that there was one good pun in "Menagiana," I think on the word corps'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'La Silence de la Mer by "Vercors" (Schlumberger?) was given me by Raymond Mortimer yesterday and read without much admiration though with plenty of sympathy: published secretly under the Nazis in France. Read also too slow a story by Giono of the coming of Pan: it quickens at the end where human beings and animals dance together, with regrettable results [...] Read too in Illusions Perdues [...] and in Gide's Journal [...] Gide aroused my envy by reading, reading, but if I kept a journal I too should appear to have read, read a lot.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
[under heading 'Lord Acton Some "shining precepts" for the historical student]
E. M. Forster transcribes passage opening 'Keep men and things apart; guard against the prestige of great names,' and phrase 'The critic is one who, when he lights on an interesting statement, begins by suspecting it,' noting underneath:
'The above are from his lecture "The Study of History" [...] Transcribing them while the planes whirr, I wonder how far Liberalism might have progressed if the world had kept calm.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1944) include two short quotations, from Bede ('Two most wicked spirits rising with forks in their hands[...]') and Amiel ('S'en aller toute d'un fois est un privilege; tu periras par morceaux'), accompanied by note:
'I encounter these two mournful small fry on the same day. Boo hoo down the ages.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'The [Tennyson] boys had one great advantage [as home-educated pupils], the run of their father's excellent library. Amongst the authors most read by them were Shakespeare, Milton, Burke, Goldsmith, Rabelais, Sir William Jones, Addison, Swift, Defoe, Cervantes, Bunyan and Buffon.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Tennyson children (boys) Print: Book
'The [Tennyson] boys had one great advantage [as home-educated pupils], the run of their father's excellent library. Amongst the authors most read by them were Shakespeare, Milton, Burke, Goldsmith, Rabelais, Sir William Jones, Addison, Swift, Defoe, Cervantes, Bunyan and Buffon.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Tennyson children (boys) Print: Book
[on the Apostles, Cambridge students' society to which Alfred Tennyson belonged]
'These friends not only debated on politics but read their Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Butler, Hume, Bentham, Descartes and Kant, and discussed such questions as the Origin of Evil, the Derivation of Moral Sentiments, Prayer and the Personality of God.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: The Apostles Print: Book
[on the Apostles, Cambridge students' society to which Alfred Tennyson belonged]
'These friends not only debated on politics but read their Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Butler, Hume, Bentham, Descartes and Kant, and discussed such questions as the Origin of Evil, the Derivation of Moral Sentiments, Prayer and the Personality of God.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: The Apostles Print: Book
'My father said of his friend: "Arthur Hallam could take in the most abstruse ideas with the utmost rapidity and insight [...] On one occasion, I remember, he mastered a difficult book of Descartes at a single sitting.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Arthur Hallam Print: Book
'In the late 1880s Gissing immersed himself in contemporary European fiction, as he had during previous periods of his life. Gissing's wide reading has been often noted but rarely assessed. Salient in any study of it would be his reading of Goethe and Heine in 1876 (and throughout his life), Eugene Sue and Henri Murger (in 1878 "Scenes de la Vie Boheme" was deepy influential), Comte (notably "Cours de Philosophie Positive" in 1878), Turgenev (in 1884 - but also constantly, for by the end of the decade he had read "Fathers and Sons" five times), Moliere, George Sand, Balzac, de Musset (whom he called indispensable" in 1885), Ibsen (in German, in the late 1880s), Zola, Dostoevski, the Goncourts (at least by the early 1890s). Gissing read with equal ease in French, German, Greek and latin, and these from an early age. Later he added Italian and late in life some Spanish'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
'He [George Gissing] recommended [in letters to his siblings] books like Morris's "Earthly Paradise", a poem "abounding in the quaintest archaisms"; Ruskin's "Unto this last", which Gissing liked as a "contribution to - or rather onslaught upon - Political Economy"; Landor's "Imaginary Conversations", for its "perfect prose"; and Scott's "Redgauntlet", for the romantic situations of which he must "try to find parallel kinds in modern life". Gissing kept up the habit throughout his life: he was always reading and always recommending books to his friends and family. In the early 1880s he read a lot of German, and to his brother, Algernon, particularly recommended Eckerman's "Conversations with Goethe", "a most delightful book". Meanwhile his sister, Margaret, was reading Schiller under his direction'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
'Now [after 1890] he [Gissing] read books that seemed to have had a direct impact on his development, turning him away from working-class subjects (to which he never returned) and making him more interested in the nihilistic or purely intellectual attitudes of his characters than in those of them who had a Walter Egremont type of social conscience. Thus, he re-read Bourget, on [his friend] Bertz's recommendation looked at J.P. Jacobsen's "Niels Lyhne" and "Marie Grube", reread Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" (for the seventh time), reread Dostoevski, whom he recomended to his brother but disliked himself, once again mulled over Hardy's "The Woodlanders" and "The Mayor of Casterbridge" (he later said that "Jude" was poor stuff by comparison with these), and began to ponder Ibsen, starting with "Hedda Gabler".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
'Now [after 1890] he [Gissing] read books that seemed to have had a direct impact on his development, turning him away from working-class subjects (to which he never returned) and making him more interested in the nihilistic or purely intellectual attitudes of his characters than in those of them who had a Walter Egremont type of social conscience. Thus, he re-read Bourget, on [his friend] Bertz's recommendation looked at J.P. Jacobsen's "Niels Lyhne" and "Marie Grube", reread Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" (for the seventh time), reread Dostoevski, whom he recomended to his brother but disliked himself, once again mulled over Hardy's "The Woodlanders" and "The Mayor of Casterbridge" (he later said that "Jude" was poor stuff by comparison with these), and began to ponder Ibsen, starting with "Hedda Gabler".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
'[During summer 1831] Hallam was at Hastings [...] After his holiday Hallam returned to his reading of law, and enjoyed "the old fellow Blackstone," culling for Alfred [Tennyson] poetic words like "forestal" [...] The friends exchanged thoughts on the political state of the world [...] Miss Austen's novels were read and compared. My father preferred Emma and Persuasion, and Hallam wrote, "Emma is my first love, and I intend to be constant. The edge of this constancy will soon be tried, for I am promised the reading of Pride and Prejudice."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Arthur Hallam Print: Book
'[During summer 1831] Hallam was at Hastings [...] After his holiday Hallam returned to his reading of law, and enjoyed "the old fellow Blackstone," culling for Alfred [Tennyson] poetic words like "forestal" [...] The friends exchanged thoughts on the political state of the world [...] Miss Austen's novels were read and compared. My father preferred Emma and Persuasion, and Hallam wrote, "Emma is my first love, and I intend to be constant. The edge of this constancy will soon be tried, for I am promised the reading of Pride and Prejudice."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'[During summer 1831] Hallam was at Hastings [...] After his holiday Hallam returned to his reading of law, and enjoyed "the old fellow Blackstone," culling for Alfred [Tennyson] poetic words like "forestal" [...] The friends exchanged thoughts on the political state of the world [...] Miss Austen's novels were read and compared. My father preferred Emma and Persuasion, and Hallam wrote, "Emma is my first love, and I intend to be constant. The edge of this constancy will soon be tried, for I am promised the reading of Pride and Prejudice."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'Gissing, probably more than any of his contemporaries, knew well the main trends of European literature at that time, for he continued to read widely in both French and German, as well as English. During the eighteen-eighties, he re-read George Sand and much of Balzac; read Zola for the first time; purchased cheap German editions of Turgenev and read them all; was famiiar with Daudet, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and later de Maupassant; and read Ibsen as his work became available and in the late eighties saw his plays when they were performed for the first time in London'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
'Gissing, probably more than any of his contemporaries, knew well the main trends of European literature at that time, for he continued to read widely in both French and German, as well as English. During the eighteen-eighties, he re-read George Sand and much of Balzac; read Zola for the first time; purchased cheap German editions of Turgenev and read them all; was famiiar with Daudet, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and later de Maupassant; and read Ibsen as his work became available and in the late eighties saw his plays when they were performed for the first time in London'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
'Not long ater this he brought from Bristol Dr Whitehead's Life of Mr Wesley, 2 vols. 8vo. I having expressed a wish to see in what state of mind Mr Wesley died. After having satisfied myself on that head, I returned the set of books, as I had no intention to read any more of the work, but the account of his death.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington Print: Book
'I again took up Dr Whitehead's Life of Mr Wesley, and as I saw by the title-page that it contained an account of Mr Wesley's ancestors and relations, the life of Mr Charles Wesley, (whom I had often heard preach) and a history of Methodism, I requested Mrs L to help me in reading it through. // To describe the conflict, and the difference commotions which passed in my mind while we were reading this excellent work is impossible. I have been instructed, delighted, much confounded, and troubled.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James and Mary Lackington Print: Book
'Johnson said, I might see the subject [a controversy about the Church of Scotland] well treated in the "Defence of Pluralities".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Talking of birds, I mentioned Mr. Daines Barrington's ingenions Essay against the received notion of their migration'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Unknown
I am very busy with Beranger for the "Britannica".
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Unknown
'In spite of my vague memories of the South African campaigns, Spion Kop and Magersfontein were hardly more real to me than the battles between giants and mortals in the Andrew Lang fairy-tale books that I began to read soon afterwards.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'As for his private occupations [during 1834], my father was still reading his Racine, Moliere, and Victor Hugo among other foreign literature; and had also dipped into Marurice's work Eustace Conway, which appears [from letters] to have been in great disfavour, and into Arthur Coningsby by John Sterling, "a dreary book"'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'As for his private occupations [during 1834], my father was still reading his Racine, Moliere, and Victor Hugo among other foreign literature; and had also dipped into Marurice's work Eustace Conway, which appears [from letters] to have been in great disfavour, and into Arthur Coningsby by John Sterling, "a dreary book"'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'The "faithful Fitz" [Edward Fitzgerald] writes that as early as 1835, when he met my father in the Lake Country, at the Speddings' (Mirehouse, by Bassenthwaite Lake) he saw what was to be part of this 1842 volume [of Tennyson's poetry], the "Morte d'Arthur," "The Day-Dream," "The Lord of Burleigh," "Dora," and "The Gardener's Daughter." They were read out of an MS. "in a little red book to him and Spedding of a night, when all the house was mute [...] My father read them a great deal of Wordsworth, "the dear old fellow," as he called him [...] Fitzgerald notes again:
'"I could remember A. T. saying he remembered the time when he could see nothing in 'Michael' which he now read us in admiration [...]"
'My father also read Keats and Milton'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
[Aubrey De Vere writes] 'In 1854 I went [...] to Farringford, where the poet [Tennyson] then made abode with his wife and two children [...] in the afternoon we sometimes read aloud in the open air, or rather we listened to the Poet's reading [...] On one occasion our book, which we agreed in greatly admiring, was Coventry Patmore's Angel in the House, then recent.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson and Aubrey De Vere 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 and Emily Tennyson Print: Book
'On his [Tennyson's] return [to Farringford] the evening books were Milton, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Thackeray's Humourists, some of Hallam's History and of Carlyle's Cromwell.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred and Emily Tennyson Print: Book
'From time to time, Lang writes charming articles in the "Daily News": witness one, a week or so past, on Montaigne: it was a little gem.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Newspaper
'The book ["The Man of Property"] is in parts marvellously done and in its whole a piece of art-undubitably [sic] a piece of art. I've read it 3 times. My respect for you increased with every reading.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: presumably copy of MS which had been sent for publication, or the page proofs, since the book was not published until 23 March 1906
'I've read Jack's article in the "Speaker". Hum! Hum! He had better be careful.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'Friday, April 7, I dined with him at a Tavern, with a numerous company. Johnson. "I have been reading Twiss's 'Travels in Spain', which are just come out. They are as good as the first book of travels that you will take up. They are as good as those of Keysler or Blainville: nay, as Addison's, if you except the learning. They are not so good as Brydone's, but they are better than Pococke's. I have not, indeed, cut the leaves yet; but I have read in them where the pages are open, and I do not suppose that what is in the pages which are closed is worse than what is in the open pages. It would seem (he added), that Addison had not acquired much Italian learning, for we do not find it introduced into his writings. The only instance that I recollect is his quoting '[italics] Stavo bene, per star meglio, sto qui' [end italics]".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'I've read your book ["His People"] with the usual delight and more than the usual admiration.[...] Three times I've gone through your pages so vigorous, so personal and so exquisite. What a "Return of the Native" you have given us! "His People" is a wonderful piece of description and an amazing piece of analysis.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'My dearest Jack I read the "C[ountry H[ouse]" with perfectly unalloyed delight. [...] I can only say it came to me in book form with a freshness, with a force, with an authority which simply amazed me.'
Hence follow four more lines of unqualified praise.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The late "worthy'' Duke of Queensberry, as Thomson, in his "Seasons," justly characterises him, told me that when Gay showed him "The Beggar's Opera," his Grace's observation was, "This is a very odd thing, Gay; I am satisfied that it is either a very good thing, or a very bad thing." It proved the former, beyond the warmest expectations of the authour or his friends'.
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Douglas, Third Duke of Queensberry
' I didn't write before because I was finishing something. That does not mean that I did not read the play ["Joy"] at once. I've read it more than once the very first day, then many times since in whole of in parts[...]'
Hence follows a page of praise with some mild negative criticism.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: probably a playscript
'[Letter from Johnson to Boswell] I have now three parcels of Lord Hailes's history, which I purpose to return all the next week: that his respect for my little observations should keep his work in suspense makes one of the evils of my journey. It is in our language, I think, a new mode of history which tells all that is wanted, and, I suppose, all that is known, without laboured splendour of language, or affected subtilty of conjecture. The exactness of his dates raises my wonder. He seems to have the closeness of Renault without his constraint.
Mrs. Thrale was so entertained with your [italics] Journal [end italics] that she almost read herself blind. She has a great regard for you'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Oct. 25. Wednesday. I went with the Prior to St. Cloud, to see Dr. Hooke.—We walked round the palace, and had some talk.—I dined with our whole company at the Monastery.—In the library, "Beroald",—"Cymon",—"Titus", from Boccace.—"Oratio Proverbialis" to the Virgin, from Petrarch; Falkland to Sandys;—Dryden's Preface to the third vol. of Miscellanies.'
[Boswell's footnote: 'He means, I suppose, that he read those different pieces, while he remained in the library'.]
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Oct. 25. Wednesday. I went with the Prior to St. Cloud, to see Dr. Hooke.—We walked round the palace, and had some talk.—I dined with our whole company at the Monastery.—In the library, "Beroald",—"Cymon",—"Titus", from Boccace.—"Oratio Proverbialis" to the Virgin, from Petrarch; Falkland to Sandys;—Dryden's Preface to the third vol. of Miscellanies.'
[Boswell's footnote: 'He means, I suppose, that he read those different pieces, while he remained in the library'.]
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'[Letter to Boswell] I Have at last sent you all Lord Hailes's papers. While I was in France, I looked very often into Henault; but Lord Hailes, in my opinion, leaves him far and far behind'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
' [Johnson said] "When Lord Lyttelton's 'Dialogues of the Dead' came out, one of which is between Apicius, an ancient epicure, and Dartineuf, a modern epicure, Dodsley said to me, 'I knew Dartineuf well, for I was once his footman.'"
Biography led us to speak of Dr. John Campbell, who had written a considerable part of the "Biographia Britannica" Johnson, though he valued him highly, was of opinion that there was not so much in his great work, "A Political Survey of Great Britain," as the world had been taught to expect'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Johnson had with him upon this jaunt, "Il Palmerino d'Inghilterra", a romance praised by Cervantes; but did not like it much. He said, he read it for the language, by way of preparation for his Italian expedition'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'I asked him whether he would advise me to read the Bible with a commentary, and what commentaries he would recommend. JOHNSON. "To be sure, Sir, I would have you read the Bible with a commentary; and I would recommend Lowth and Patrick on the Old Testament, and Hammond on the New".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'The new edition of the "Island Ph[arisee]" arrived during the crisis of horrors [severe gout and the debilitating effects of the then new colchicine treatment] and I tackled the preface with as much mind as I had then. It is thoroughly good I think.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I have no doubt that a good many sermons were composed for Taylor [with whom Johnson and Boswell were staying] by Johnson. At this time I found, upon his table, a part of one which he had newly begun to write: and [italics] Concio pro Tayloro [end italics] appears in one of his diaries. When to these circumstances we add the internal evidence from the power of thinking and style, in the collection which the Reverend Mr. Hayes has published, with the [italics] significant [end italics] title of "Sermons [italics] left for publication [end italics] by the Reverend John Taylor, LL.D.", our conviction will be complete.
I, however, would not have it thought, that Dr. Taylor, though he could not write like Johnson, (as, indeed, who could?) did not sometimes compose sermons as good as those which we generally have from very respectable divines. He showed me one with notes on the margin in Johnson's hand-writing; and I was present when he read another to Johnson, that he might have his opinion of it, and Johnson said it was "very well". These, we may be sure, were not Johnson's; for he was above little arts, or tricks of deception.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'I have no doubt that a good many sermons were composed for Taylor [with whom Johnson and Boswell were staying] by Johnson. At this time I found, upon his table, a part of one which he had newly begun to write: and [italics] Concio pro Tayloro [end italics] appears in one of his diaries. When to these circumstances we add the internal evidence from the power of thinking and style, in the collection which the Reverend Mr. Hayes has published, with the [italics] significant [end italics] title of "Sermons [italics] left for publication [end italics] by the Reverend John Taylor, LL.D.", our conviction will be complete.
I, however, would not have it thought, that Dr. Taylor, though he could not write like Johnson, (as, indeed, who could?) did not sometimes compose sermons as good as those which we generally have from very respectable divines. He showed me one with notes on the margin in Johnson's hand-writing; and I was present when he read another to Johnson, that he might have his opinion of it, and Johnson said it was "very well". These, we may be sure, were not Johnson's; for he was above little arts, or tricks of deception.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Taylor Manuscript: Unknown
'He [Johnson] told me that Bacon was a favourite authour with him; but he had never read his works till he was compiling the "English Dictionary", in which, he said, I might see Bacon very often quoted.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Often, when my incompetent needle refused, as it has always refused throughout my life, to collaborate with my intentions, the kimono was abandoned for such scanty literature as I had collected from home - Thomas Hardy's poems, John Masefield's "Gallipoli", numerous copies of "Blackwood's Magazine", and the recently published Report of the Commission on the Dardanelles.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Serial / periodical, magazines
I have read, conversed, and thought much upon the subject, and would recommend to all who are capable of conviction, an excellent Tract by my learned and ingenious friend John Ranby, Esq. entitled "Doubts on the Abolition of the Slave Trade." To Mr. Ranby's "Doubts," I will apply Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's expression in praise of a Scotch Law Book, called "Dirleton's Doubts"; "HIS [italics] Doubts [end italics], (said his Lordship,) are better than most people's [italics] Certainties [end italics]."
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell
'[in a conversation about journals, Boswell said] "And as a lady adjusts her dress
before a mirrour, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal." I next year found the very same thought in Atterbury's "Funeral Sermon on Lady Cutts" where, having mentioned her diary, he says, " In this glass she every day dressed her mind." This is a proof of coincidence, and not of plagiarism ; for I had never read that sermon before'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'I had lent him "An Account of Scotland, in 1702," written by a man of various enquiry, an English chaplain to a regiment stationed there. JOHNSON. "It is sad stuff, Sir, miserably written, as books in general then were. There is now an
elegance of style universally diffused. No man now writes so ill as Martin's "Account of the Hebrides" is written, A man could not write so ill, if he should try. Set a merchant's clerk now to write, and he'll do better".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'I looked into Lord Kaimes's "Sketches of the History of Man"; and mentioned to Dr. Johnson his censure of Charles the Fifth, for celebrating his funeral obsequies in his life-time'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'Sir John Pringle had expressed a wish that I would ask Dr. Johnson's opinion what were the best English sermons for style. I took an opportunity to-day of mentioning several to him. "Atterbury?" Johnson. "Yes, Sir, one of the best". Boswell. "Tillotson?". Johnson. "Why, not now. I should not advise a preacher at this day to imitate Tillotson's style: though I don't know; I should be cautious of objecting to what has been applauded by so many suffrages. — South is one of the best, if you except his peculiarities, and his violence, and sometimes
coarseness of language. — Seed has a very fine style; but he is not very theological. — Jortin's sermons are very elegant. — Sherlock's style too is very elegant, though he has not made it his principal study. — And you may add Smallridge. All the latter preachers have a good style. Indeed, nobody now talks much of style: everybody composes pretty well. There are no such inharmonious periods as there were a hundred years ago. I should recommend Dr. Clarke's sermons, were he orthodox. However, it is very well known where he is not orthodox, which was upon the doctrine of the Trinity, as to which he is a condemned heretic: so one is aware of it." Boswell. "I like Ogden's "Sermons
on Prayer" very much, both for neatness of style and subtilty of reasoning. "Johnson. "I should like to read all that Ogden has written." Boswell. "What I wish to know is, what sermons afford the best specimen of English pulpit eloquence." Johnson. "We have no sermons addressed to the passions, that are good for anything; if you mean that kind of eloquence".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Unknown
'Those 2 poems of Masefield's are very good....Poetry counteracts the deadening influence a good deal....I am reading "The Loom of Youth" in bits....It is very good and it is very true even if slightly exaggerated....'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Brittain
'No − my “Burns” is not done yet, it has led me so far afield that I cannot finish it ; every time I think I see my way to an end, some new game (or perhaps wild goose) starts up and away I go. And then again, to be plain, I shirk the work of the critical part, shirk it as a man shirks a long jump. It is awful to have to express and differentiate Burns, in a column or two. All the more as I’m going to write a book about it. "Ramsay, Fergusson and Burns: an Essay" (or "A Critical Essay" but then I’m going to give lives of the three gentlemen, only the gist of the book is the criticism) “by Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate, MS., P.P.C., etc.” How’s that for cut and dry? And I [italics]could[end italics] write that book. Unless I deceive myself in a superior style, I could write it pretty adequately. I feel as if I was really in it, and knew the game thoroughly. You see what comes of trying to write an essay on Burns in ten columns.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book, Unknown
'He marked personal details in Colvin's biography of Keats, particularly when they seemed to coincide with his own, noticing that Keats's mind was "naturally unapt for dogma", that Keats and Hunt were given to "luxuriating" over "deliciousness", and that Reynolds came from Shrewsbury and "lacked health and energy". He involved himself similarly in the poems. "Endymion" and 'Lamia' kept his pencil especially busy as he underlined rich vocabulary and marked lush descriptions, including that of the sleeping Adonis. A bookmarker in "Endymion", embroidered with the text "create in me a clean heart O God", seems to have prayed in vain among sensuous passages in which he evidently delighted, but perhaps guilt overcame him after reading 'Lamia', because four pages of erotic description have been carefully stuck together'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'He marked personal details in Colvin's biography of Keats, particularly when they seemed to coincide with his own, noticing that Keats's mind was "naturally unapt for dogma", that Keats and Hunt were given to "luxuriating" over "deliciousness", and that Reynolds came from Shrewsbury and "lacked health and energy". He involved himself similarly in the poems. "Endymion" and 'Lamia' kept his pencil especially busy as he underlined rich vocabulary and marked lush descriptions, including that of the sleeping Adonis. A bookmarker in "Endymion", embroidered with the text "create in me a clean heart O God", seems to have prayed in vain among sensuous passages in which he evidently delighted, but perhaps guilt overcame him after reading 'Lamia', because four pages of erotic description have been carefully stuck together'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'His [Wilfred Owen's] literary interests must always have been a mystery to her, although she admired them, for her own reading scarcely extended beyond light novels and the pious, naive verse of John Oxenham'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Susan Owen Print: Book
'Owen turned to his third main interest, the earth sciences, doing his earnest but unscholarly best to tackle the Victorian debate between science and religion. He was soon "reading analysing, collecting, sifting and classifying Evidence" and "grappling as I never did before with the problem of Evolution". He read a statement of the Christian answer to Darwinism but contemptuously wrote "Shallow!" against its discussion of art. His conclusion was probably summed up in a comment he had marked in Keats's letters, "Nothing in this world is proveable"; when he met these words again in W.M. Rossetti's life of Keats, he added, "at least [italics] proved [end italics] W.O.".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'[Laurent Tailhade] must have lent him one of his two volumes of collected poems because Owen soon started a translation of a [italics] ballade elegiaque [end italics] from it'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'In his copy of Vigny's "Chatterton" he marked the sentence, "En toi la reverie continuelle a tue l'action", and in Renan he marked a comment that the Celts knew how to plunge their hands into a man's entrails and bring out secrets of the infinite. What he always thought of as his Celtic strain would have been fascinated by "La Tentation de St Antoine", in which Flaubert meticulously describes the saint's visions of strange and dreadful beings. Owen read the book with care, underlining frequently. Tailhade had also marked it, writing "cretin!" against a criticism by the editor of the novel's "grands defauts". Evidently agreing with Tailhade, Owen went on to read at least two more of Flaubert's novels, "Madame Bovary" and "Salammbo". "Flaubert has my vote for novel-writing!", he exclaimed to Gunston in July 1915, and he told his mother that he was reading "Salammbo" "with more interest than the Communiques".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'Still sore and indignant, I happened one day to read some verses by Sir Owen Seaman which I found in a copy of "Punch" dated April 3rd, 1918 - the very week in which our old strongholds had fallen and the camp at Etaples had been a struggling pandemonium of ambulances, stretchers and refugee nurses:'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Serial / periodical, magazine
'I read […] Martin’s "History of France"[…]'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'I read […] Allan Ramsay […]'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'I read […] Juvenal des Ursins, etc. [….]'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Unknown
'For years I continued to detest the founder of modern nursing and all that she stood for - a state of mind which persisted until, quite recently, I read her essay "Cassandra" in the Appendix to Ray Strachey's "The Cause", and realised the contrast between her rebelliious spirit, her administrator's grasp of the essentials, and the bigoted narrowness of some of her successors.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'Monro gave [Owen] access to new work that was to be invaluable to him in 1917-18 and may have drawn his attention to several established writers whom he had hitherto neglected (Yeats, Housman and Tagore, for instance, are mentioned in 1916 letters for the first time)'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'the two poets [Owen and Sassoon] probably talked more about literature than anything else. Owen found that they had been "following parallel trenches all our lives" and "had more friends in common, authors I mean, than most people can boast of in a lifetime". By chance, Sassoon was reading a small volume of Keats which Lady Ottoline [Morrel] had sent him. He shared Owen's interest in the late-Victorian poets, including Housman, whose influence is often apparent in his war poems, but Owen was surprised to discover that he admired Hardy "more than anybody living". No doubt Sassoon persuaded him to start reading Hardy's poems. In return, Owen showed him Tailhade's book'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Siegfried Sassoon Print: Book
'[that civilians could believe soldiers were happy in the trenches] is evident from plenty of civilian verse, including, for example, a poem in John Oxenham's "The Vision Splendid" (1917), a book Owen had read at Craiglockhart'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'Nothing before "Le Feu" had given such an appallingly vivid description of trench warfare or combined it with such passionate political conviction. The English translation, "Under Fire", appeared in June 1917 and Sassoon was reading it by mid-August; he lent it to Owen, who seems to have read it at Craiglockhart and again in December'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'Nothing before "Le Feu" had given such an appallingly vivid description of trench warfare or combined it with such passionate political conviction. The English translation, "Under Fire", appeared in June 1917 and Sassoon was reading it by mid-August; he lent it to Owen, who seems to have read it at Craiglockhart and again in December'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Siegfried sassoon Print: Book
'DILLY. "Mrs. Glasse's "Cookery", which is the best, was written by Dr. Hill. Half the trade know this.' JOHNSON. "Well, Sir. This shews how much better the subject of cookery may be treated by a philosopher. I doubt if the book be written by Dr. Hill; for, in Mrs. Glasse's "Cookery", which I have looked into, salt-petre and sal-prunella are spoken of as different substances, whereas sal-prunella is only salt-petre burnt on charcoal; and Hill could not be ignorant of this. However, as the greatest part of such a book is made by transcription, this mistake may have been carelessly adopted. But you shall see what a Book of Cookery I shall make! I shall agree with Mr. Dilly for the copy-right". Miss SEWARD. "That would be Hercules with the distaff indeed". JOHNSON. "No, Madam. Women can spin very well; but they cannot make a good book of Cookery".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Dilly Print: Book
'DILLY. "Mrs. Glasse's "Cookery", which is the best, was written by Dr. Hill. Half the trade know this.' JOHNSON. "Well, Sir. This shews how much better the subject of cookery may be treated by a philosopher. I doubt if the book be written by Dr. Hill; for, in Mrs. Glasse's "Cookery", which I have looked into, salt-petre and sal-prunella are spoken of as different substances, whereas sal-prunella is only salt-petre burnt on charcoal; and Hill could not be ignorant of this. However, as the greatest part of such a book is made by transcription, this mistake may have been carelessly adopted. But you shall see what a Book of Cookery I shall make! I shall agree with Mr. Dilly for the copy-right". Miss SEWARD. "That would be Hercules with the distaff indeed". JOHNSON. "No, Madam. Women can spin very well; but they cannot make a good book of Cookery".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'DR. MAYO (to Dr. Johnson). "Pray, Sir, have you read Edwards, of New England, on "Grace"?" JOHNSON. "No, Sir". BOSWELL. "It puzzled me so much as to the freedom of the human will, by stating, with wonderful acute ingenuity, our being actuated by a series of motives which we cannot resist, that the only relief I had was to forget it". MAYO. "But he makes the proper distinction between moral and physical necessity".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'DR. MAYO (to Dr. Johnson). "Pray, Sir, have you read Edwards, of New England, on "Grace"?" JOHNSON. "No, Sir". BOSWELL. "It puzzled me so much as to the freedom of the human will, by stating, with wonderful acute ingenuity, our being actuated by a series of motives which we cannot resist, that the only relief I had was to forget it". MAYO. "But he makes the proper distinction between moral and physical necessity".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Dr Mayo Print: Book
'JOHNSON. "The fallacy of that book [Mandeville's "Fable of the Bees"] is, that Mandeville defines neither vices nor benefits. He reckons among vices everything that gives pleasure. He takes the narrowest system of morality, monastick morality, which holds pleasure itself to be a vice, such as eating salt with our fish, because it makes it eat better; and he reckons wealth as a publick benefit, which is by no means always true. Pleasure of itself is not a vice. Having a garden, which we all know to be perfectly innocent, is a great pleasure. [Johnson discusses Mandeville at length, concluding] I read Mandeville forty, or, I believe, fifty years ago. He did not puzzle me; he opened my views into real life very much".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Soon after the Honourable Daines Barrington had published his excellent "Observations on the Statutes", Johnson waited on that worthy and learned gentleman; and, having told him his name, courteously said, "I have read your book, Sir, with great pleasure, and wish to be better known to you". Thus began an acquaintance, which was continued with mutual regard as long as Johnson lived.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Figure to yourself, I wrote a review of Lord Lorne for "Vanity Fair" − a few pages of scurrility that I wrote laughing in an hour or two − and I got − guess! − I got five pounds for it and the price of the book! That was jolly, wasn’t it? Long live "Vanity Fair"!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'Staying for a fortnight with Miss Heath Jones in Cornwall - where I read aloud to her a large selection of the works of Bernard Shaw, including the newly published "Back to Methuselah", but otherwise had plenty of time for reminiscent meditation - I realised that the past two years at Oxford were going to take a good deal of getting over; they had meant an effort so great that I had not calculated its cost until it was finished.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Unknown
'Yesterday I read bits of Barbellion, whose life seemd to be filled, like mine, with rejected manuscripts.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'We talked of antiquarian researches. JOHNSON. "All that is really known of the ancient state of Britain is contained in a few pages. We can know no more than what the old writers have told us; yet what large books have we upon it, the whole of which, excepting such parts as are taken from those old writers, is all a dream, such as Whitaker's "Manchester".'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'He [Johnson] said, "I have been reading Lord Kames's 'Sketches of the History of Man'. In treating of severity of punishment, he mentions that of Madame Lapouchin, in Russia, but he does not give it fairly; for I have looked at 'Chappe de l'Auteroche', from whom he has taken it. He stops where it is said that the spectators thought her innocent, and leaves out what follows; that she nevertheless was guilty".'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'He [Johnson] said, "I have been reading Lord Kames's 'Sketches of the History of Man'. In treating of severity of punishment, he mentions that of Madame Lapouchin, in Russia, but he does not give it fairly; for I have looked at Chappe de l'Auteroche, from whom he has taken it. He stops where it is said that the spectators thought her innocent, and leaves out what follows; that she nevertheless was guilty".'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Looking at Messrs. Dilly's splendid edition of Lord Chesterfield's miscellaneous works, he laughed, and said, "Here now are two speeches ascribed to him, both of which were written by me: and the best of it is, they have found out that one is like Demosthenes, and the other like Cicero".
He censured Lord Kames's "Sketches of the History of Man" for misrepresenting Clarendon's account of the appearance of Sir George Villiers's ghost, as if Clarendon were weakly credulous; when the truth is, that Clarendon only says, that the story was upon a better foundation of credit, than usually such discourses are founded upon; nay, speaks thus of the person who was reported to have seen the vision, "the poor man, if he had been at all waking"; which Lord Kames has omitted.'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Having regretted to him that I had learnt little Greek, as is too generally the case in Scotland; that I had for a long time hardly applied at all to the study of that noble language, and that I was desirous of being told by him what method to follow; he recommended to me as easy helps, Sylvanus's "First Book of the Iliad"; Dawson's "Lexicon to the Greek New Testament"; and "Hesiod", with "Pasoris Lexicon" at the end of it.'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'At Sturbridge faire last, having by chance loo[k]ed on Mr Whately, Bishop Andrewes, and Mr Perkins on the commandments (in which I owne a secret hand of God) I was clearly convinced that my former practise was sinfull, and deserved the stroak of God's vengeance'.
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Isaac Archer Print: Book
'that gentleman [Dr Shebbeare], whatever objections were made to him, had knowledge and abilities much above the class of ordinary writers, and deserves to be remembered as a respectable name in literature, were it only for his admirable "Letters on the English Nation", under the name of "Battista Angeloni, a Jesuit".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'Lang’s French ballads is neatly enough ticked off.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Serial / periodical
'I have read these leaves of your thesis; and really I find them very far beyond my expectation, which had satisfied itself with ranking your Latin (I now discover) far too little above the usual Grinder Latin. Some of these sentences are quite good. The sense too so far as it extends in these few lines is clear and flowing; and I have no doubt, if the rest in any way correspond to it, your Essay will be very far above the average.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Manuscript: Degree thesis
'BOSWELL. "Pray, Sir, is the 'Turkish Spy' a genuine book?" JOHNSON. "No, Sir. Mrs. Manley, in her 'Life', says that her father wrote the first two volumes: and in another book, 'Dunton's Life and Errours', we find that the rest was written by one Sault, at two guineas a sheet, under the direction of Dr. Midgeley".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'A pleasing instance of the generous attention of one of his [Dr Johnson's] friends has been discovered by the publication of Mrs. Thrale's collection of "Letters". In a letter to one of the Miss Thrales, he writes,--
"A friend, whose name I will tell when your mamma has tried to guess it, sent to my physician to enquire whether this long train of illness had brought me into difficulties for want of money, with an invitation to send to him for what occasion required. I shall write this night to thank him, having no need to borrow".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'He had dined that day [30th May 1784] at Mr. Hoole's, and Miss Helen Maria Williams being expected in the evening, Mr. Hoole put into his hands her beautiful "Ode on the Peace": Johnson read it over, and when this elegant and accomplished young lady was presented to him, he took her by the hand in the most courteous manner, and repeated the finest stanza of her poem; this was the most delicate and pleasing compliment he could pay.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Unknown
'I then read Mason on self knowledge till dinner, not with so much attention as I could wish; I seldom attend sufficiently to what I am reading, to remember at all accurately what I have been reading about'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Gurney Print: Book
'After that Kitty made a proposition very pleasant to me, that we should sit together all the afternoon and read "Pilgrim's Progress" and work; and we sat snugly over the nursery fire, and it was interesting and pleasant to me on two accounts, as I feel interested in the Allegory of the pilgrim and it was pleasant to be so snug with Kitty who I don't like to say much about ... We then drank tea; after tea Kitty and I read a little further ... after supper I read with Kitty until bed time.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Gurney Print: Book
'I had a quiet afternoon on the sofa in my room reading Mason on self knowledge, French, and Job Scott's journal, which I like vastly and found really doing me good, at least edifying me'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Gurney Print: Book
'[letter to Hector MacNeil - H.M.] Do I not well remember hiding "Kaims's Elements of Criticism", under the cover of an easy chair, whenever I heard the approach of a footstep, well knowing the ridicule to which I should have been exposed, had I been detected in the act of looking into such a book?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Hamilton Print: Book
'Mr. Walpole thought Johnson a more amiable character after reading his "Letters to Mrs. Thrale": but never was one of the true admirers of that great man'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Horace Walpole Print: Book
'I shewed him some verses on Lichfield by Miss Seward, which I had that day received from her, and had the pleasure to hear him approve of them. He confirmed to me the truth of a high compliment which I had been told he had paid to that lady, when she mentioned to him "The Colombiade", an epick poem, by Madame du Boccage:--"Madam, there is not any thing equal to your description of the sea round the North Pole, in your Ode on the death of Captain Cook".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Manuscript: Unknown
'I shewed him some verses on Lichfield by Miss Seward, which I had that day received from her, and had the pleasure to hear him approve of them. He confirmed to me the truth of a high compliment which I had been told he had paid to that lady, when she mentioned to him "The Colombiade", an epick poem, by Madame du Boccage:--"Madam, there is not any thing equal to your description of the sea round the North Pole, in your Ode on the death of Captain Cook".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Unknown
'I shewed him some verses on Lichfield by Miss Seward, which I had that day received from her, and had the pleasure to hear him approve of them. He confirmed to me the truth of a high compliment which I had been told he had paid to that lady, when she mentioned to him "The Colombiade", an epick poem, by Madame du Boccage:--"Madam, there is not any thing equal to your description of the sea round the North Pole, in your Ode on the death of Captain Cook".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Manuscript: Unknown
'A distinguished authour in "The Mirror", a periodical paper, published at Edinburgh, has imitated Johnson very closely. Thus, in No. 16,--
"The effects of the return of spring have been frequently remarked as well in relation to the human mind as to the animal and vegetable world. The reviving power of this season has been traced from the fields to the herds that inhabit them, and from the lower classes of beings up to man. Gladness and joy are described as prevailing through universal Nature, animating the low of the cattle, the carol of the birds, and the pipe of the shepherd."
The Reverend Dr. KNOX, master of Tunbridge school, appears to have the [italics]imitari aveo [end italics] of Johnson's style perpetually in his mind; and to his assiduous, though not servile, study of it, we may partly ascribe the extensive popularity of his writings.
In his "Essays, Moral and Literary", No. 3, we find the following passage:--
"The polish of external grace may indeed be deferred till the approach of manhood. When solidity is obtained by pursuing the modes prescribed by our fore-fathers, then may the file be used. The firm substance will bear attrition, and the lustre then acquired will be durable."
There is, however, one in No. 11, which is blown up into such tumidity, as to be truly ludicrous. The writer means to tell us, that Members of Parliament, who have run in debt by extravagance, will sell their votes to avoid an arrest, which he thus expresses:--
"They who build houses and collect costly pictures and furniture with the money of an honest artisan or mechanick, will be very glad of emancipation from the hands of a bailiff, by a sale of their senatorial suffrage".
But I think the most perfect imitation of Johnson is a professed one, entitled "A Criticism on Gray's Elegy in a Country Church-Yard", said to be written by Mr. Young, Professor of Greek, at Glasgow, and of which let him have the credit, unless a better title can be shewn. It has not only the peculiarities of Johnson's style, but that very species of literary discussion and illustration for which he was eminent. Having already quoted so much from others, I shall refer the curious to this performance, with an assurance of much entertainment'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Serial / periodical
'[quotation from Maurice Bowra's Memoirs] The first time I met him [John Betjeman] he talked fluently about half forgotten authors of the nineteenth century - Sir Henry Taylor, Ebeneezer Elliott, Philip James Bailey, and Sir Lewis Morris'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Betjeman Print: Book
'Rousseau says that the Man who finding his Affairs embarrassed - puts an end to his own Life; is like one who finding his House in Disorder sets it on Fire in stead of setting it to rights.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'When Doctor Parker had read the foregoing Poem [given - a long poem by Mrs Thrale on his dog Pompey] he wrote these verses upon it Impromptu. [the verses are given]'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Dr Parker Manuscript: Unknown
'the Verses written by Bentley upon Learning & publish'd in Dodsley's Miscellanies - how like they are to Evelyn's Verses on Virtue published in Dryden's Miscellanies! yet I do not suppose them a Plagiarisme; old Bentley would have scorned such Tricks, besides what passed once between myself and Mr Johnson should cure me of Suspicion in these Cases. We had then some thoughts of giving a Translation of Boethius, and I used now & then to shew him the Verses I had made towards the Work: in the Ode with the Story of Orpheus in it - beginning
"felix qui potuit &c"
he altered some of my Verses to these which he [italics] thought [end italics] his own.
"Fondly viewed his following Bride
Viewing lost, and losing died."
Two Years after this, I resolved to go through all the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, and in one of them - Bonduca, I found two Lines so like these of Johnson's that one would have sworn he had imitated them: that very Afternoon he came, & says I, did you ever delight much in Reading Beaumont & Fletcher's Plays - I never read any of them at all replied he, but I intend some Time to go over them, here in your fine Edition'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'the Verses written by Bentley upon Learning & publish'd in Dodsley's Miscellanies - how like they are to Evelyn's Verses on Virtue published in Dryden's Miscellanies! yet I do not suppose them a Plagiarisme; old Bentley would have scorned such Tricks, besides what passed once between myself and Mr Johnson should cure me of Suspicion in these Cases. We had then some thoughts of giving a Translation of Boethius, and I used now & then to shew him the Verses I had made towards the Work: in the Ode with the Story of Orpheus in it - beginning
"felix qui potuit &c"
he altered some of my Verses to these which he [italics] thought [end italics] his own.
"Fondly viewed his following Bride
Viewing lost, and losing died."
Two Years after this, I resolved to go through all the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, and in one of them - Bonduca, I found two Lines so like these of Johnson's that one would have sworn he had imitated them: that very Afternoon he came, & says I, did you ever delight much in Reading Beaumont & Fletcher's Plays - I never read any of them at all replied he, but I intend some Time to go over them, here in your fine Edition'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'[Mrs Thrale is about to give 'an Ode written when I was between sixteen and seventeen Years old'] As I read it over this Moment I resolved once to burn it, but recollecting that my poor Father had in his foolish Fondness given Copies to a Friend or two, I thought it might as well have a place here'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Manuscript: Unknown
'[Mrs Thrale is about to give 'an Ode written when I was between sixteen and seventeen Years old'] As I read it over this Moment I resolved once to burn it, but recollecting that my poor Father had in his foolish Fondness given Copies to a Friend or two, I thought it might as well have a place here'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Salusbury Manuscript: Unknown
'amongst all else she [Causley's mother] found a little time for reading from a two-penny library: novels by the Cornish writers Silas and Joseph Hocking ("Rosemary Carew", by the latter, was a tremendous favourite) and "Stella Dallas" by the American Olive Higgins Prouty. She also had a few books of her own: "The Following of the Star" by Florence L. Barclay, "The Sorrows of Satan" by Marie Corelli, and the like. I tried them all, and enjoyed most: especially "Stella Dallas", which exercised a peculiar fascination over me. I re-read it constantly and with such devotion that she forbade me ever to read it again. I couldn't think why; and not until years later did it occur to me that the central character was a prostitute'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Causley Print: Book
'amongst all else she [Causley's mother] found a little time for reading from a two-penny library: novels by the Cornish writers Silas and Joseph Hocking ("Rosemary Carew", by the latter, was a tremendous favourite) and "Stella Dallas" by the American Olive Higgins Prouty. She also had a few books of her own: "The Following of the Star" by Florence L. Barclay, "The Sorrows of Satan" by Marie Corelli, and the like. I tried them all, and enjoyed most: especially "Stella Dallas", which exercised a peculiar fascination over me. I re-read it constantly and with such devotion that she forbade me ever to read it again. I couldn't think why; and not until years later did it occur to me that the central character was a prostitute'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mrs Causley Print: Book
'I had by this time [his mid-teens] also struck up a friendship with a young, unemployed, linotype operator, six or seven years older than myself. He lived in a street at the back of the Lodging House, was a member of the Left book Club, and lent me (among much else) his copy of Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier". Somehow, too, I came upon the poems of Auden, Spender, Day-Lewis, MacNeice; Isherwood's "Goodbye to Berlin".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Causley Print: Book
'[Mrs Thrale gives her 'Verses on the Fall of the Great Ash Tree in Offley Park'] This trifling performance brought Tears into my Uncle's Eyes, and Money into my Pocket for having celebrated so artfully I will own the virtues of a Woman he rememberd with Gratitude and Esteem. He read 'em to every body he saw I believe'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Salusbury Manuscript: Unknown
'[Mrs Thrale gives her long poem entitled 'Offley Park'] This little poem will be easily seen to have been written by way of Flattery to Sir Thomas Salusbury with whom I then lived - he was I well remember exceedingly pleased with it, and made me a handsome present'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Salusbury Manuscript: Unknown
This book, originally owned and read by Lord Macaulay in June-Oct 1836, was given to his nephew who wrote on flyleaf: "Given me when at Harrow, by Macaulay to prepare for the examination for the Gregory Scholarship Summer 1856".
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Otto Trevelyan Print: Book
MS note on final flyleaf: "This book gets very poor towards the end. The omissions in the Shield of Achilles, - both in the key and the index, - are nothing less than disgraceful".
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Otto Trevelyan Print: Book
MS notes and marks throughout, including: "May 2 1919. Exquisite book! I seem to hear my dear friend [Henry James] talk, - oh so slowly - as we stroll arm in arm in the Warwickshire meadows which he loved so long and well - as I loved him, and he me". On t-p: "Trevelyan Welcombe"
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Otto Trevelyan Print: Book
MS note at the end of "The man of destiny": "Dec 5 1926 Read aloud to C, [i.e. Lady Caroline Trevelyan] - as I once did to poor George Vanderbilt".
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Otto Trevelyan Print: Book
Various MS notes and marks including date of reading: June 23 1923 and a note on p.311 "The birthplace": "This was based on the story of Mr. Skipsey, told to Carry [i.e. Lady Caroline Trevelyan] by the Spence Watsons, and by her to Henry James."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Otto Trevelyan Print: Book
Marginal marks and MS notes. Dates of reading on final page and the note: "What was the year when we saw so much of the American family who so much reminded us of the Dossons? It could not be 1913; as we spent Christmas with them in Rome; and in 1913 Carry [i.e. Lady Caroline Trevelyan] never left her bed!"
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Otto Trevelyan Print: Book
Various marginal marks and MS dates of reading including: "Welcombe. Read to C[Lady Caroline Trevelyan] and Anna [his sister-in-law]. Feb 14 1910"; "Feb 21 1924".
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Otto Trevelyan Print: Book
This book has copious notes and marginal marks, including many unrelated to the text written on pastedown and fly-leaf: "I used to note down sentences for my history, that had ocurred to me in the watches of the night, in the flyleaf of the novel which I had in hand at that time."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Otto Trevelyan Print: Book
Many MS notes, some of which are transcribed from those of Lord Macaulay in another edition: "Macaulay's notes and marginal lines (on the outside margins) are transferred from his Bipontine edition. His notes are marked with an "M"." Sir George's dates of reading include: "Florence Jan. 22 1901. The day of Queen Victoria's death"; Jam 25 1901 "On way from Florence to Rome, Edward the Seventh proclaimed yesterday"; June 22 1920; Aug 2 1924 "Read with unceasing zest and admiration. May I live to finish him! But I was 86 last month"; p.740: "a rare good writer. But a very difficult one to read, I must confess, as a student of very mature age (1924)"; Dec 24 1924 "With Herodotus and Thucydides, he appertains to the first three historians of the Ancient World. I am reading them all again, with Suetonius if indeed I can live to finish them. This is the 4th time in this century that I have read them all through"; Jan 17 1925. P.1629, Sir George writes: "The development of Nero is a marvellous story, marvellously told; - as Carlyle would have written it, had he been a Roman of the age of Tacitus. I read it as I read the "French Revolution" in the Trinity backs in the summer of 1858, when I ought to have been reading Pindar and Thucydides. That summer I read the French Revolution three times on end [underlined twice]; besides devouring the Third Volume of "Modern Painters" and "Men and Women". As far as a place in the classical Tripos was concerned I doubt if I could have been better employed." P.2750: "As fine history, and as much to my mind, as any I ever read. Tacitus was much the same age as Carlyle, when he wrote the French Revolution, - which I read as an undergraduate at Trinity; reading three times through one end, with no book between. I did very much the same by this volume of Tacitus in the course of this winter, at 87 years of age."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Otto Trevelyan Print: Book
'Fortune has written another book, the Equipage of the Devil, which is fully worse than words can describe.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'Lang's Library is very pleasant reading.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'We talked of Dryden - Buckingham's Play said I has hurt the Reputation of the Poet, great as he was; such is the force of Ridicule! - on the contrary my dearest replies Doctor Johnson The greatness of Dryden's Character is even now the only principle of Vitality which preserves that play from a State of Putrefaction'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'We talked of Dryden - Buckingham's Play said I has hurt the Reputation of the Poet, great as he was; such is the force of Ridicule! - on the contrary my dearest replies Doctor Johnson The greatness of Dryden's Character is even now the only principle of Vitality which preserves that play from a State of Putrefaction'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'He had in his Youth been a great Reader of Mandeville, and was very watchful for the Stains of original corruption both in himself & others'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Transcribed in Elizabeth Lyttelton's hand, Elizabeth I's 'On the words hoc est corpus meum', titled 'Queen Elizas answer to Bishop Gardner'.
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton Print: Book
'On this journey [to the Western Pyrenees] he took Balzac's novels with him, especially delighting in Le pere Goriot and Eugenie Grandet.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'On this journey [to the Western Pyrenees] he took Balzac's novels with him, especially delighting in Le pere Goriot and Eugenie Grandet.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'When I shewed him [Johnson] his Character next day - for he would see it; he said it was a very fine Piece of Writing; and that I had improved upon [italics] Young [end italics] who he saw was my [italics] Model[end italics] he said; for my Flattery was still stronger than [italics] his [end italics], & yet somehow or other less [italics] hyperbolical [end italics].'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Manuscript: Unknown
'I myself like Smollet's Novels better than Fielding's; the perpetual Parody teizes one; - there is more Rapidity and Spirit in the Scotsman: though both of them knew the Husk of Life perfectly well - & for the Kernel - you must go to either Richardson or Rousseau'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'having shewed her [Sophia Streatfield] the other day three Translations of a few Verses written by Voltaire She immediately guessed one of them to be mine, and pitched upon the right. The Verses are very like some in Parnell, but rather better in my Opinion'
[the translation of 'A Madame de Chatelet' follows]
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Sophia Streatfield Print: Book
'Doctor Hawkesworth has left a Tragedy in manuscript, which I have had the reading of, that I think capital; if want of Probability in the Story be excusable, for that seems to me its only Defect: but Hawkesworth doubtless was one of the few, both as a Man & a Writer; his ode on Life in Some of the latter Vols of Dodsley's Collection has more of an original Poem about it than one often meets with, & his Story of Sultan Amurath in the Adventurer excels any Eastern Tale either by Addison or Johnson: there is another Number of the Adventurer particularly happy in showing off the Foibles in common Life; I mean the Story of Mr Friendly & his Nephew John'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Manuscript: Unknown
'Doctor Hawkesworth has left a Tragedy in manuscript, which I have had the reading of, that I think capital; if want of Probability in the Story be excusable, for that seems to me its only Defect: but Hawkesworth doubtless was one of the few, both as a Man & a Writer; his ode on Life in Some of the latter Vols of Dodsley's Collection has more of an original Poem about it than one often meets with, & his Story of Sultan Amurath in the Adventurer excels any Eastern Tale either by Addison or Johnson: there is another Number of the Adventurer particularly happy in showing off the Foibles in common Life; I mean the Story of Mr Friendly & his Nephew John'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'Doctor Hawkesworth has left a Tragedy in manuscript, which I have had the reading of, that I think capital; if want of Probability in the Story be excusable, for that seems to me its only Defect: but Hawkesworth doubtless was one of the few, both as a Man & a Writer; his ode on Life in Some of the latter Vols of Dodsley's Collection has more of an original Poem about it than one often meets with, & his Story of Sultan Amurath in the Adventurer excels any Eastern Tale either by Addison or Johnson: there is another Number of the Adventurer particularly happy in showing off the Foibles in common Life; I mean the Story of Mr Friendly & his Nephew John'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Serial / periodical
'Doctor Hawkesworth has left a Tragedy in manuscript, which I have had the reading of, that I think capital; if want of Probability in the Story be excusable, for that seems to me its only Defect: but Hawkesworth doubtless was one of the few, both as a Man & a Writer; his ode on Life in Some of the latter Vols of Dodsley's Collection has more of an original Poem about it than one often meets with, & his Story of Sultan Amurath in the Adventurer excels any Eastern Tale either by Addison or Johnson: there is another Number of the Adventurer particularly happy in showing off the Foibles in common Life; I mean the Story of Mr Friendly & his Nephew John'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Serial / periodical
'Was I to make a Scale of Novel Writers I should put Richardson first, then Rousseau; after them, but at an immeasurable Distance Charlotte Lenox, Smollet & Fielding. The Female Quixote & Count Fathom I think far before Tom Jones or Joseph Andrews with regard to Body of Story, Height of Colouring, or General Powers of Thinking. Fielding however knew the Shell of Life - and the Kernel is but for a few.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
[List of books read to Sir Thomas Browne by Elizabeth Lyttelton]. Headed in commonplace book: 'The books which my daughter Elizabeth hath read unto me at nights till she read ym all out'. The books are: 'all Plutarch's Lives, folio; all the Turkish historie, folio ; all the three added of ye Turkish emperours by Rycaut, fol.; all Rycaut's books of ye Turks, fol; all Baker's Cronicle of England, fol; all ye history of China by Semedo, fol; all the history of Josephus, fol; all fox his book of Martyrs, fol; all the Travills of Olearius & Mandelilo, fol; all the Travells of Taverniere, fol; all the Travells of Petrus della valle, fol; all the Travells of Vincent Le Blanck, fol; all the Travells of Pinto, fol; all the Travells of Gage, fol; the Travells of Terre, octavo; all the Historie of the life of Monsieur d' Espernoon, fol; all the historie of naples, fol; all the historie of Venice, fol; all the historie of Queen Elizabeth by Camden, fol; all the history of Herodian, fol; all the history of Procopius, fol; all Sands his Travells, fol; all Olaus Magnus of the Northern Countrys, fol; all Camerarius his observations, fol; all Suetonius of the Twelve Caesars, fol; all appians warrs, fol; all Speed's Cronicle to the life of King James, fol; So some parts of Purchas his Relations; some hundreds of Sermons. Many other Books, Treatises, discourses of severall Kinds, which may amount unto halfe the quantety of halfe the books in folio, which are before set down.'
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton Print: Book
Transcription in Elizabeth Lyttelton's hand of John Taylor, 'There for a token I did thinke it meete'.
Unknown
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton
Transcription in Elizabeth Lyttelton's hand of Henry Savile, 'To the King'.
Unknown
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton
'Lord Kaimes again tells us a wild Story of Savages who eat all their own children & have done so for six Hundred Years backward - he then begins gravely to argue about parental Affection, never reflecting that if the children were eaten the Race could not be continued'.
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'[Having given her verses 'A Tale for the Times'] This wild irregular Measure is a sort of Favourite with me, I learnt it in Vanbrugh's Esop - a sweet Comedy though impracticable upon the Stage'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'The two [italics] wittiest [end italics] things in our Language in Verse & Prose are Dr Young's Conjectures on Original Composition I think, and Dr Swift's Ballad on the South Sea.
The two Tragedies which go nearest one's Heart I think - in our Language I mean - are Southern's Fatal Marriage and Lillo's Fatal Curiosity.
The two best Comic Scenes in our Language according to my Taste are the Scene between Squire Richard & Myrtilla in the Provoked Husband, and that between Sir Joseph Wittol, Nol Bluff and Sharper in the Old Batchelor - not the kicking scene but the friendly one.
The two best [italics] Declamatory [end italics] Scenes where the Sentiments and Language are most perfect, seem to be the Scene between Juba and Syphax in Addison's Cato, & that between the two Ladies in Johnson's Irene. I know that both are unDramatic, the latter more peculiarly so, than ever was, or ever ought to have been hazarded - but for Language & Sentiment it is most Superb. - Superieure as the French say.
Johnson says the finest Tragic Scene in our Language, for Drama sentiment, Language, Power over the Heart, & every Requisite for Theatre or Closet, is the Tomb Scene in the Mourning Bride.
[italics] I [end italics] think, that trying to be [italics] every [end italics] thing it escapes being [italics] anything [end italics]'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale 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
'He [Tennyson] read many novels after his evening's work, and among others he looked through Henrietta Temple again. He had told Disraeli that the "silly sooth" of love was given perfectly there. Lothair he did not admire, "altho' it was written to stir up the English gentry and nobility to be leaders of the people."'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'He [Tennyson] read many novels after his evening's work, and among others he looked through Henrietta Temple again. He had told Disraeli that the "silly sooth" of love was given perfectly there. Lothair he did not admire, "altho' it was written to stir up the English gentry and nobility to be leaders of the people."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'He [Tennyson] would always talk of Thackeray's novels, Esmond, Pendennis, and The Newcomes as being "delicious; they are so mature. But now the days are so full of false sentiment that, as Thackeray said, one cannot draw a man as he should be." He would read and re-read them as well as Walter Scott's and Miss Austen's novels. His comments on Walter Scott and Miss Austen were: "Scott is the most chivalrous literary figure of this century and the author with the widest range since Shakespeare. I think Old Mortality is his greatest novel. The realism and life-likeness of Miss Austen's Dramatis Personae come nearest to those of Shakespeare. Shakespeare however is a sun to which Jane Austen, tho' a bright and true little world, is but an asteroid."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'In respect of contemporary novels he [Tennyson] had a very catholic taste. Latterly he read Stevenson and George Meredith with great interest: also Walter Besant, Black, Hardy, Henry James, Marion Crawford, Anstey, Barrie, Blackmore, Conan Doyle, Miss Braddon, Miss Lawless, Ouida, Miss Broughton, Lady Margaret Majendie, Hall Caine, and Shorthouse. He liked Edna Lyall's Autobiography of a Slander, and the Geier-Wally by Wilhelmina von Hillern; and often gave his friends Surly Tim to read, for its "concentrated pathos." "Mrs Oliphant's prolific work," he would observe, "is amazing, and she is nearly always worth reading."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Unknown
'In respect of contemporary novels he [Tennyson] had a very catholic taste. Latterly he read Stevenson and George Meredith with great interest: also Walter Besant, Black, Hardy, Henry James, Marion Crawford, Anstey, Barrie, Blackmore, Conan Doyle, Miss Braddon, Miss Lawless, Ouida, Miss Broughton, Lady Margaret Majendie, Hall Caine, and Shorthouse. He liked Edna Lyall's Autobiography of a Slander, and the Geier-Wally by Wilhelmina von Hillern; and often gave his friends Surly Tim to read, for its "concentrated pathos." "Mrs Oliphant's prolific work," he would observe, "is amazing, and she is nearly always worth reading."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Unknown
'In respect of contemporary novels he [Tennyson] had a very catholic taste. Latterly he read Stevenson and George Meredith with great interest: also Walter Besant, Black, Hardy, Henry James, Marion Crawford, Anstey, Barrie, Blackmore, Conan Doyle, Miss Braddon, Miss Lawless, Ouida, Miss Broughton, Lady Margaret Majendie, Hall Caine, and Shorthouse. He liked Edna Lyall's Autobiography of a Slander, and the Geier-Wally by Wilhelmina von Hillern; and often gave his friends Surly Tim to read, for its "concentrated pathos." "Mrs Oliphant's prolific work," he would observe, "is amazing, and she is nearly always worth reading."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Unknown
E. Fry writes to her husband and daughter, Rachel, of the death of her sister, Priscilla Gurney, dated 25 Mar 1821: 'In the morning she appeared very full of love - put out her hand to several of us - showed much pleasure in your uncle Buxton's being here, and tried to speak to him but could not be understood - expressed her wish for reading, and from her feeling of love and fondness for the chapter and some signs, we believed she meant the thirteenth of 1 Corinthians, and we had a very sweet animating time together, and afterwards our dear brother Fowell spoke very sweetly to her; and besides the Bible she appeared to have some satisfaction in hearing other books read, as it has been her habit during her illness, just like mine when ill ... though she confined it to religious books, yet many of these were of an interesting nature; her hymns [Selection of Hymns, by P. Gurney] interested her much - she liked Samuel Scott's Diary - Piety Promoted - Accounts of the Missions - Watts and How - and many other books of that description ... I think her object in reading was gentle amusement and at times edification - she was very particular not to read the Bible except she felt herself in rather a lively state'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Priscilla Gurney Print: Book
'In 1885 he [Tennyson] came across Amiel's Journal Intime, and thought his criticisms on Hugo and literature in general good; but that the Journal throughout was too morbid for anything.
'The modern French poets were read by him with great interest. The last French poems he read were by Coppee, and by Jean Aicard.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Unknown
From Hallam Tennyson's account of his father's last days:
'On Sept. 3rd [1892] he complained of weakness and of pain in his jaw [...]
'On Wednesday the 29th we telegraphed for Sir Andrew Clark [?physician] [...]
'He read Job, and St Matthew, and Miss Swanwick's new book on Poets as the Interpreters of the Age. Sir Andrew arrived, and did not think so badly of him as I did. He and my father fell to discussing Gray's "Elegy."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'The Characters in the modern Comedies of Puff, Snake & Spatter are quite new, & peculiar to this age I think; it is to Novels & Dramatic Representations that one owes the History of Manners certainly, yet those which give one nothing else are paltry performances: witness Tom Jones and the Clandestine Marriage, yet they are the best in their kind acording to my Notion'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'The Characters in the modern Comedies of Puff, Snake & Spatter are quite new, & peculiar to this age I think; it is to Novels & Dramatic Representations that one owes the History of Manners certainly, yet those which give one nothing else are paltry performances: witness Tom Jones and the Clandestine Marriage, yet they are the best in their kind acording to my Notion'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'The Sonnet of Mr des Yveteaux the odd Man who shut himself up with a Wench, & played Shepherd & Shepherdess when he was past threescore; beginning
Avoir peu de parens, moins de Train que de rente &c.
resembles both in its Style & Measure our Ballad of the old Man's wish - without Gout or Stone in a gentle decay.
I wonder which was written first, or whether one of the Writers ever heard of the other - most probably not.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Unknown
From F. T. Palgrave's 'Personal Recollections' of Tennyson:
'I had put the scheme of my Golden Treasury before him during a walk near to Land's End in the late summer of 1860 [...] at the Christmas-tide following, the gathered materials [...] were laid before Tennyson for final judgement [...] With most by far of the pieces submitted he was already acquainted: but I seem to remember more of less special praise of Lodge's "Rosaline," of "My Love in her attire...": and the "Emigrant's Song" by Marvell. For some poems by that writer then with difficulty accessible, he had a special admiration: delighting to read, with a voice hardly yet to me silent, and dwelling more than once, on the magnificent hyperbole, the powerful union of pathos and humour in the lines "To his coy Mistress" [...]
'After reading Cowper's "Poplar Field": "People nowadays, I believe, hold this style and metre light; I wish there were any who could put words together with such exquisite flow and evenness." Presently we reached the same poet's stanzas to Mary Unwin. He read them, yet could barely read them, so deeply was he touched by their tender, their almost agonising pathos.'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson
From F. T. Palgrave's 'Personal Recollections' of Tennyson:
'I had put the scheme of my Golden Treasury before him during a walk near to Land's End in the late summer of 1860 [...] at the Christmas-tide following, the gathered materials [...] were laid before Tennyson for final judgement [...] With most by far of the pieces submitted he was already acquainted: but I seem to remember more of less special praise of Lodge's "Rosaline," of "My Love in her attire...": and the "Emigrant's Song" by Marvell. For some poems by that writer then with difficulty accessible, he had a special admiration: delighting to read, with a voice hardly yet to me silent, and dwelling more than once, on the magnificent hyperbole, the powerful union of pathos and humour in the lines "To his coy Mistress" [...]
'After reading Cowper's "Poplar Field": "People nowadays, I believe, hold this style and metre light; I wish there were any who could put words together with such exquisite flow and evenness." Presently we reached the same poet's stanzas to Mary Unwin. He read them, yet could barely read them, so deeply was he touched by their tender, their almost agonising pathos.'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson
'During the day I read the War Supplement of the Australasian & made myself tolerably conversant with the particulars of the war so far as it has proceeded. Read also another portion of Lothair must confess with less pleasure than I felt in perusing some of the previous chapters. The part I read to-day related exclusively to the Wiles of the Roman Catholic Clergy in their strenuous efforts to ensnare Lothair in their toils & win him & his money over to the Church. It did not seem natural to me High Dignitaries of the Church within a step of the Pope himself would have condescended to plot as they are represented to Plot, nor that any one in his senses could have been imposed upon & made act so foolishly as Lothair is represented to have acted.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'Was pleased with Harry. This evening he read a scene with me from the School for Scandal & showed a good deal understanding'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harry Castieau Print: Book
'After Muster read "Gil Blas" for a while, then played "Bezique" with Polly.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'In the evening read "Gil Blas"'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'In the evening I was very lazily inclined & sat over "Gil Blas" for some time'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'Mustered in the afternoon & read "Gil Blas" till tea was ready. After tea went to "the Yorick", read for a while & chatted a little, then came away home'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'You will never in the world guess what sort of a pastime I have had resourse to in this windbound portion of my voyage. Nothing less than the reading of Kant's Transcendental Philosophy! So it is: I am at the hundred and fiftieth page of the Kritik der reinen verbubft; not only reading but partially understanding, and full of projects for instructing my benighted countrymen on the true merits of this sublime system at some more propitious season.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'In reference to 'N.A.'s' notes on young Rob Roy, I should like to ask the writer if he will kindly inform us what authority he has for understanding so much in his notes.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Newspaper
'I wrote endless imitations, though I never thought them to be imitations but, rather wonderfully original things, like eggs laid by tigers. They were imitations of anything I happened to be reading at the time: Sir Thomas Brown, de Quincey, Henry Newbolt, the Ballads, Blake, Baroness Orczy, Marlowe, Chums, the Imagists, the Bible, Poe, Keats, Lawrence, Anon., and Shakespeare. A mixed lot as you see, and randomly remembered'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dylan Thomas Print: Book
'The weather was very wet all the evening so I was not able to go out & contented myself with reading Gil Blas till nearly bed-time'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'In the evening I stayed at home & read "Gil Blas" till it was time to go to bed'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'The ladies did not retire till after eleven & then I laid myself down on the sofa & tried to sleep. The mosquitoes however would'ent allow anything of the kind & so after kicking about & turning over several scores of times I got up again, raised the gas & went on reading Dumas' "Memoirs of a Physician".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'While Darvall was with us this evening, Harry was anxious to show off his reading & so essayed a Piece. He was however so affected by mumps & Stammering, that his heart failed him & he declined to proceed. To please his mamma I read a dialogue with him. This he managed very well & so we read another then Harry was wound up & would have gone on forever, had I not let him gently down. I continued the entertainment by reading "The Execution of Montrose" & was by particular desire reading Byron's "Battle of Waterloo" when my sweet voice was closed by the arrival of Mr Hadley.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'Harry this evening commenced reading McAuley's (sic) History of England. He is getting a great deal too fond of Plays & funny pieces & as he reads for marks I mean for the future to make him earn them with literature more solid & substantial. Polly amused herself this evening with the Family Herald & I read the Australasian until it was time to go to bed.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harry Castieau Print: Book
'In the evening I read to the youngsters out of Peter [Parley?] & then heard Harry read a Page of Macauley. Went into the office & looked over some of the pages of my last year's Diary.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Manuscript: Codex
'In the evening I read to the youngsters out of Peter [Parley?] & then heard Harry read a Page of Macauley. Went into the office & looked over some of the pages of my last year's Diary.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harry Castieau Print: Book
'It was while serving here [Willenslee at the farm of Mr Laidlaw] , in the eighteenth year of my age, that I first got a perusal of "The Life and Adventures of Sir William Wallace", and "The Gentle Shepherd"; and though immoderately fond of them, yet (which you will think remarkable in one who hath since dabbled so much in verse) I could not help regretting deeply that they were not in prose, that every body might have understood them; or, I thought if they had been in the same kind of metre with the Psalms, I could have borne with them. The truth is, I made exceedingly slow progress in reading them. The little reading that I had learned I had nearly lost, and the Scottish dialect quite confounded me; so that, before I got to the end of a line, I had commonly lost the rhyme of the preceding one; and if I came to a triplet, a thing of which I had no conception, I commonly read to the foot of the page without perceiving that I had lost the rhyme altogether. I thought the author had been straitened for rhymes, and had just made a part of it do as well as he could without them. Thus, after I got through both works, I found myself much in the same predicament with the man of Eskdalemuir, who had borrowed Bailey's Dictionary from his neighbour. On returning it, the lender asked him what he thought of it. "I dinna ken man", replied he: "I have read it all through, but canna say that I understand it; it is the most confused book that ever I saw in my life!".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'It was while serving here [Willenslee at the farm of Mr Laidlaw] , in the eighteenth year of my age, that I first got a perusal of "The Life and Adventures of Sir William Wallace", and "The Gentle Shepherd"; and though immoderately fond of them, yet (which you will think remarkable in one who hath since dabbled so much in verse) I could not help regretting deeply that they were not in prose, that every body might have understood them; or, I thought if they had been in the same kind of metre with the Psalms, I could have borne with them. The truth is, I made exceedingly slow progress in reading them. The little reading that I had learned I had nearly lost, and the Scottish dialect quite confounded me; so that, before I got to the end of a line, I had commonly lost the rhyme of the preceding one; and if I came to a triplet, a thing of which I had no conception, I commonly read to the foot of the page without perceiving that I had lost the rhyme altogether. I thought the author had been straitened for rhymes, and had just made a part of it do as well as he could without them. Thus, after I got through both works, I found myself much in the same predicament with the man of Eskdalemuir, who had borrowed Bailey's Dictionary from his neighbour. On returning it, the lender asked him what he thought of it. "I dinna ken man", replied he: "I have read it all through, but canna say that I understand it; it is the most confused book that ever I saw in my life!".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'Scribbled away for some hours at the Article I was writing. Altered the whole of the Introduction & then let Polly read the Paper. She approved & I felt a little excited & went away to the Argus office with my production at once.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Polly Castieau Manuscript: Sheet
'Young as he [Allan Cunnigham] was, I had heard of his name, although slightly, and, I think, seen one or two of his juvenile pieces. Of an elder brother of his, Thomas Mouncey, I had, previous to that, conceived a very high idea, and I always marvel how he could possibly put his poetical vein under lock and key, as he did all at once; for he certainly then bade fair to be the first of Scottish bards'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Unknown
'I was astonished at the luxuriousness of his [Allan Cunningham's] fancy. it was boundless; but it was the luxury of a rich garden overrun with rampant weeds. he was likewise then a great mannerist in expression, and no man could mistake his verses for those of any other man. I remember seeing some imitations of Ossian by him, which I thought exceedingly good; and it struck me that that style of composition was peculiarly fitted for his vast and fervent imagination.
When Cromek's "Nithsdale and Galloway Relics" came to my hand, I at once discerned the strains of my friend, and I cannot describe with what sensations of delight I first heard Mr Morrison read the "Mermaid of Galloway", while at every verse I kept naming the author'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Manuscript: Unknown
'I was astonished at the luxuriousness of his [Allan Cunningham's] fancy. it was boundless; but it was the luxury of a rich garden overrun with rampant weeds. he was likewise then a great mannerist in expression, and no man could mistake his verses for those of any other man. I remember seeing some imitations of Ossian by him, which I thought exceedingly good; and it struck me that that style of composition was peculiarly fitted for his vast and fervent imagination.
When Cromek's "Nithsdale and Galloway Relics" came to my hand, I at once discerned the strains of my friend, and I cannot describe with what sensations of delight I first heard Mr Morrison read the "Mermaid of Galloway", while at every verse I kept naming the author'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Morrison Print: Book
'then returned home & amused myself for an hour reading "Gil Blas".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'Got on in the evening the best way that I could, amusing myself for an hour or more in looking up some old papers & reading through printed papers that I had published from time to time.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Unknown
‘Wayfarer’ expresses the ignorance of himself and his friends about the late Charles Garvice . . . He brackets Charles Garvice and Mrs Florence Barclay together. This he should not do. Charles Garvice had an immensely greater hold on the public than Mrs, Barclay . . . The work of Charles Garvice has little artistic importance; but he was a thoroughly competent craftsman.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'Commenced as soon as I had been through the Gaol to read some of my Diary for 1871'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Manuscript: Codex
'Spent the evening reading with Harry & Sissy, both of these youngsters have some idea of dramatic reading & like very much to show off their capabilities. Sissy & I read a scene from the School for Scandal. Harry & I soared higher for we tried several Shaksperian (sic) pieces.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Castieau family Print: Book
'In the evening I played a game of bagatelle with Dotty & a game of Bezique with Sissy & with that & "Monte Christo" managed to get through the evening until Polly went to bed'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'it was during this year [1884] that she began her translation of Amiel's "Journal".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Augusta Ward Print: Book
'[letter to Mrs Ward from Mr Creighton] I have read "Miss Bretherton" with much interest. It was hardly fair on the book to know the plot beforehand, but I found myself carried away by the delicate feeling with which the development of character was traced. The Nuneham scene, the death-bed and the final reconciliation were really touching and powerfully worked out.
At the same time it is not a novel of my sort. I demand that I should have given me an entire slice of life, and that I should see the mutual interaction of a number of characters. Your interest centres entirely on one character: your characters all move in the same region of ideas, and that a narrow one.' [the critique continues at length; Creighton asks Mrs Ward] 'Have you read Sainte Beuve's solitary novel, "Volupte"? it is instructive reading.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Creighton Print: Book
'[from a letter from Mary Ward to her father] I have been reading Joubert's "Pensees" and "Correspondance" lately, with a view to the Amiel introduction. You would be charmed with the letters and some of the [italics] pensees [end italics] are extraordinarily acute. Now I am deep in Senancour, and for miscellaneous reading I have been getting through Horace's Epistles and dawdling a good deal over Shakespeare. My feeling as to him gets stronger and stronger, that he was, strictly speaking, a great poet, but not a great dramatist! [she discusses this at length, concluding] I have always felt it most strongly in Othello, and of course in the last act of Hamlet, which, in spite of the magnificent poetry in it, is surely a piece of dramatic bungling'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Ward Print: Book
'[letter from Mrs Ward's brother William Arnold] I served on a jury at the Assizes last week - two murder cases and general horrors. I sat next to a Mr Amiel - prounounced "Aymiell" - a worthy Manchester tradesman; no doubt his ancestor was a Huguenot refugee. I had one of your vols. in my pocket, and showed him the passage about the family. He was greatly interested, and borrowed it. Returned it next day with the remark that it was "too religious for him". Alas divine philosophy!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Amiel Print: Book
'I told him that from reading Gay's writings, I had taken an affection to his Grace's family from my earliest years.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'[letter from Mrs Ward to Gladstone] Thank you very much for the volume of "Gleanings" with its gracious inscription. I have read the article you point out to me with the greatest interest, and shall do the same with the others. Does not the difference between us on the question of sin come very much to this - that to you the great fact of the world and in this history of man, is [italics] sin [end italics] - to me, [italics] progress [end italics]? I remember Amiel somewhere speaks of the distinction as marking off two classes of thought, two orders of temperament.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Augusta Ward Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Collins, 12-13 January 1793: 'Whether or not man has the stain of original sin I leave to theologians & metaphysicians. That education tends to give it him I do not even doubt. Rousseau's plan is too visionary — it supposes such unremitted attention in the tutor & such natural virtue in the pupil that I doubt its practability of this however when we read Emilius (an occupation I look forward to with pleasure) we will freely determine. Madame Brulerck (late Genlis) appears to me to have struck out a path equally new & excellent — the Emilius of L Homme de la Nature existed only in his imagination. but the two sons of Phillipe Egalitè are living proofs of her capacity.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Unknown
Robert Southey to Charles Collins, 12-13 January 1793: 'Whether or not man has the stain of original sin I leave to theologians & metaphysicians. That education tends to give it him I do not even doubt. Rousseau's plan is too visionary — it supposes such unremitted attention in the tutor & such natural virtue in the pupil that I doubt its practability of this however when we read Emilius (an occupation I look forward to with pleasure) we will freely determine. Madame Brulerck (late Genlis) appears to me to have struck out a path equally new & excellent — the Emilius of L Homme de la Nature existed only in his imagination. but the two sons of Phillipe Egalitè are living proofs of her capacity.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Unknown
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 4-20 April 1793: 'I have lately read the Man of Feeling — if you have never yet read it — do now from my recommendation — few books have ever pleasd me so painfully or so much — it is very strange that man should be delighted with the highest pain that can be produced — I even begin to think that both pain & pleasure exist only in idea but this must not be affirmed, the first twitch of the toothache or retrospective glance will undeceive me with a vengeance. It is Mackenzies writing if I am not mistaken the author of Julia de Roubigne & La Roche & Louisa Venoni in the Mirror.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 31 July - 6 August 1793: 'I have just met with a passage in Rousseau which expresses some of my religious opinions better than I could do it myself. "Je ne trouve point de plus doux hommage a la divinite, que l’admiration enuette qu’excite la contemplation de ses œuvres. Je ne puis comprendre comment des campagnards, et sur-tout des solitaires, peuvent ne pas avoir de foi; comment leur ame ne s’eleve pas cent fois le jour avec extase a l’auteur des merveilles qui les frappent. Dans ma chambre je prie plus rarement & séchement, mais a l’aspect d’un beau paysage, je me sens emu. Une vielle femme, pour toute priere, ne savoit dire que ô! L’eveque lui dit: Bonne femme continuez de prier ainsi, votre priere vaut mieux que les notres. — cette meilleure priere est aussi la mienne." — '
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
John Wilson Croker to his wife, 20 July 1815:
'[General] Becker showed us a copy of Buonaparte's letter to the Prince Regent, in which he
says that driven out of home by internal factions and foreign enemies, he came, like
Themistocles, to sit on the British hearth, and to claim the protection of our laws [...] In
reading this, when I came to "[italics]Themistocle[end italics]" who certainly was the last
person I expected to meet there, I could not help bursting out into a loud laugh, which
astonished the French, who thought all beautiful, but "[italics]Themistocle[end italics]" sublime
and pathetic. I called the whole letter a base flattery, and said Buonaparte should have died
rather than have written such a one; the only proper answer would have been to have
enclosed him a copy of one of his Moniteurs, in which he accused England of assassination and
every other horror.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Manuscript: Unknown, Copied.
'She had been reading much of Chateaubriand and Mme de Beaumont during the winter, and had felt her imagination kindled by the relationship between the two'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Augusta Ward Print: Book
'She had been reading much of Chateaubriand and Mme de Beaumont during the winter, and had felt her imagination kindled by the relationship between the two'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Augusta Ward Print: Book
'[letter from Mrs Ward to her husband describing an inept Cardinal's lack of knowledge about the crypt of St Peters, Rome] I said not a word - and came home and read Harnack!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Augusta Ward Print: Book
'[report by Mrs Ward of the library at her Passmore Edwards Settlement] boys were sitting hunched up over "Masterman Ready", or the ever-adored "Robinson Crusoe"; girls were deep in "Anderson's [sic] Fairy Tales" or "The Cuckoo Clock", the little ones were reading Mr Stead's "Books for the Bairns" or looking at pictures'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: girls at the Passmore Edwards Settlement Print: Book
'[Mrs Ward's average day at Stocks began] at 5.30 a.m, with the reading of Greek, or writing of letters, or much reading, for the reading of many books was still her greatest solace and delight. "For reading, I have been deep in Emile Faguet's "Dix-huitieme siecle", she wrote to Mrs Creighton in August, 1908, "comparing some of the essays in it with Sainte-Beuve, the reactionary with the Liberal; reading Raleigh's Wordsworth, and Homer and Horace as usual. If I could only give three straight months to Greek now I should be able to read most things easily, but I never get time enough - and there are breaks when one forgets what one knew before".
Greek literature meant more and more to her as the years went on, and though she could give so little time to it, the half-hour before breakfast which she devoted, with her husband, to Homer, or Euripides, or the "Agamemnon", became gradually more precious to her than any other fraction of the day'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Augusta ward Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 6-8 November 1793: 'Were men what they ought to be — Rousseau would be canonized for a greater saint than any in the calendar. Read his Julia & tell me whence may we learn the most instructive lesson from the mistress of St Preux or the temptation of St Anthony. My comparison of the Man of Nature with Richardson would have been branded with the epithets of immoral atheistical & licentious. Clodius accuset moechos! Xtianity is less understood & less practised in this country than in the desarts of Arabia! Let him who is innocent cast the first stone was the judgement of the most moral of philosophers, to use no superior title.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 22-24 December 1793: 'Monday morning. of last nights verses I have two things to say. the metre is that of Ph. Fletchers purple island. the specimens of the poem in Headleys selection & Warton are beautiful — you promised me some information relative to a late edition. the other remark is that two more letters will probably grow out of this. the last stanza has given birth to a train of thoughts which wait your next for maturity. your last letter I found on my return from Bath — I had prolonged my stay there to enjoy Lovells company. you know the no-ceremony I stand upon when I wish to make a friend — it may be singular but I am sure to me singularly fortunate. as a poet in some walks I do not know his equal — in the plaintive & soft kinds — elegy & sonnet for instance but this is not his only merit — epistles & various other species he has handled with peculiar delicacy. I do not scruple to say that for elegance & simplicity of versification I know no Author in our language that surpasses him. most probably we shall soon publish together.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, c 26 December 1793: 'I take Milton to have introduced this kind of alcaics into the English language in his translation of Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa &c. it is since used most elegantly by Collins Mrs Barbauld — in the gent. of Devon & Cornwalls poems — & by my favourite Dr Sayers — so here I have strong authority.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, c 26 December 1793: 'I take Milton to have introduced this kind of alcaics into the English language in his translation of Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa &c. it is since used most elegantly by Collins Mrs Barbauld — in the gent. of Devon & Cornwalls poems — & by my favourite Dr Sayers — so here I have strong authority.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to John Horseman, 16-20 April 1794: 'Hawkesworth argues very strongly against indulging in these fantastical pleasures — they enervate the mind & by accustoming it to the dreams of fancy render it totally unfit for serious contemplation & abstract reasoning — they have likewise a worse effect even than this — they tend to render society odious & the world contemptible, till the dreamer possesses all the austerity of a Cynic without the sublimity of his virtues.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
'I have read 100 pages of 'L. Leuwen'. [Lucien Leuwen] It is exceedingly fine, but I don’t yet class it with 'La Chartreuse'.[La Chartreuse de Parme]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'I have read 100 pages of 'L. Leuwen'. [Lucien Leuwen] It is exceedingly fine, but I don’t yet class it with 'La Chartreuse'.[La Chartreuse de Parme]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'Write your fiction in the tone of this very excellent article if you like. Place it in S. Italy if that will help.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'Mr Edminson then read a paper on Mrs Besant's autobiography. Some discussion folowed. Mr Morland gave a summary of Fairbairn's Christ in Modern Theology which also excited some remark.
Mrs W.H. Smith also commented on some of the points in F. Harrison's Meaning of History in which she was joined by other members'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick J. Edminson Print: Book
'Mr Edminson then read a paper on Mrs Besant's autobiography. Some discussion folowed. Mr Morland gave a summary of Fairbairn's Christ in Modern Theology which also excited some remark.
Mrs W.H. Smith also commented on some of the points in F. Harrison's Meaning of History in which she was joined by other members'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harold J. Morland Print: Book
'Mr Hawkins then read a summary review of Stopford Brooke's Tennyson & his Art of Modern Life which was much appreciated'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Luther Hawkins Manuscript: Unknown
John Gibson Lockhart to John Wilson Croker, 12 January 1849, on Macaulay's recently-published History of England:
'He has written some very brilliant essays [...] but he has written [italics]no history[end italics] [...] his bitter hatred of the Church of England all through is evident; it is, I think, the only very strong feeling in the book [...]
'Then his treatment of the Whig criminals Sidney and Russell, is very shabby [...]
'You will tell me by-and-bye what you think of this. I own that I read the book with breathless interest, in spite of occasional indignations, but I am now reading Grote's new volume of his "History of Greece," and, upon my word, I find the contrast of his calm, stately, tranquil narrative very soothing. In short, I doubt if Macaulay's book will go down as a standard addition to our [italics]historical[end italics] library, though it must always keep a high place among the specimens of English rhetoric.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Gibson Lockhart Print: Book
Lord Aberdeen to John Wilson Croker, 21 February 1851:
'In reading Lord Holland's book, which I did very cursorily, I was more struck by its dulness than by any other quality. A senseless hostility to all legitimate Kings and Queens, and a ludicrous exaltation of "[italics]that great Prince[end italics]," Bonaparte, might have been expected; but it is wonderful how little the volume contains which has not either been long well known, or which is not worth knowing [discusses text further]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lord Aberdeen Print: Book
John Wilson Croker to Lord Brougham, 22 February 1853:
'I fear that the Government of the country is likely to become from such a strange mixture of things [described earlier in letter, about Lord John Russell's leadership of House of Commons] at once odious and ridiculous [...] I despair, and have done so ever since I read Disraeli's Buckinghamshire speeches.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker
Lord Lyndhurst to Lord Strangford [1854]:
'I never hear Disraeli speak in any way unfriendly of [John Wilson] Croker, and was very much surprised and annoyed when I read "Coningsby," and was told that one of the characters was meant to represent him. Disraeli never spoke to me upon the subject.
'I think the biography [of Disraeli] is a very blackguard publication, and written in a very blackguard style. I don't know who Mr. Vernon-Harcourt is, though I read last year a pamphlet written by him, attacking Lord Derby somewhat in a similar manner, but with more scanty materials.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lord Lyndhurst Print: Book
17 March 1856:
'During breakfast I read some of Mme. d'Arblay's Memoirs to dear Charley [husband], who was much interested in her account of Dr. Johnson. he had not read it before, and I had not read it since it first came out.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
17 March 1856:
'During breakfast I read some of Mme. d'Arblay's Memoirs to dear Charley [husband], who was much interested in her account of Dr. Johnson. He had not read it before, and I had not read it since it first came out.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bertie Print: Book
'after I Came home Mr Hoby rede to me a sarmon of Vdale'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Hoby Print: Book
'The book arrived by the first post.[...] [it] might be described as an appalling indictment of the middle classes--[...] But in the introspective silence that came over me after I closed the volume and sat through a solitary afternoon I felt that this may be the Conscience of the Age overheard by John Galsworthy in its uneasy whisperings [...].'
Hence follow 18 lines of appreciative comment.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I found Jessie crazy with tooth ache which lasted all day, and transported--it's the only word for it--with admiration of the fifteen chapters, it appears, she has read before posting the MS to you. She cried "wonderful"--which she has never done for anything of mine. But I am not jealous, since I share, I won't say her opinion, but her feeling. Without exaggeration it's no mean achievement for an imaginative work to produce such an effect on a person in bodily suffering and mental strain.'
Hence follow several more lines about Jessie's reaction to the work.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Jessie Conrad Manuscript: Sheet
'In H. James " Little Tour of France" (which I will send to Ada [Galsworthy] to take west with her for leisurely reading) there occurs a simple sentence which came forcibly to my mind. He had been looking at some picture in a provincial gallery--and he says: All this is painted in a manner to bring tears into one's eyes. I don't quote literally--(the book is downstairs where it is dark and I feel too fagged out doing nothing to move from my chair)--but that's just it! It [Galsworthy's MS] brings tears into one's eyes literally by the way its done. After finishing my reading I sat perfectly still I don't know for how long as a pilgrim may sit after a long and breathless ascent, on a commanding summit in view of the promised land.'
Hence follow 23 lines of praise for the MS.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Sheet
'In H. James " Little Tour of France" (which I will send to Ada [Galsworthy] to take west with her for leisurely reading) there occurs a simple sentence which came forcibly to my mind. He had been looking at some picture in a provincial gallery--and he says: All this is painted in a manner to bring tears into one's eyes. I don't quote literally--(the book is downstairs where it is dark and I feel too fagged out doing nothing to move from my chair)--but that's just it!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'after I perused Iohn wass his accussinge Letter, I went to priuatt praier'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Hoby Manuscript: Letter
The Lawrence is magnificent. Pity he is falling more & more into the trick of repeating a word or a phrase. It irritates the reader & enfeebles the sturff. Also the connection between trees & human beings is not very strong. But really this article is the goods. The Tomlinson article is also magnificent. Not better stuff than this is being done. The K.M. story is excellently characteristic. Mr. Joiner is good; it halts at the beginning. . . . I think the number is simply splendid—especially for a first number. & you are to be seriously & gravely congratulated upon it.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical
'I am keeping the "Jeanne d'Arc" until you return to town, unless you want me to send it out west to you. Upon the whole I think it is disappointing. One asks oneself why on earth A[natole]F[rance] wanted to touch that subject at all, and if he had to touch why in that way precisely.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'From one point of view I've nothing but admiration for the ending of "Shadows" ["Fraternity"].Its naturalness is appalling. Of course it can be attacked but its quality comes out in the fact that the objections fade away as soon as one tries to formulate them to oneself. I will not touch on the [a]ethestic value of these last pages.That cannot be questioned.'
Hence follow four pages of constructive criticism.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Sheet
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 1 September 1795, '"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick". said Solomon. Statius says
"quâ non gravior mortalibus addita cura
Spes ubi longa venit"
Grosvenor when you have lived upon that cameleon fare so long as I have done — you will acknowledge the wisdom of Solomon & feel the poetry of Statius.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, c. 1 October 1795, 'Of Citoyenne Rolands appeal I have read the first only. at present the politics of France puzzle me — there is little ability at the head of affairs — Louvet may mean well — but the decree of 5th Fructidor is an oppressive one. Lanjuinais is almost the only man of whom I entertain a tolerable opinion. of all possible villains what think you of Barrere? have you read Helen Williams’ letters & Louvet account of his escape?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, c. 1 October 1795, 'Of Citoyenne Rolands appeal I have read the first only. at present the politics of France puzzle me — there is little ability at the head of affairs — Louvet may mean well — but the decree of 5th Fructidor is an oppressive one. Lanjuinais is almost the only man of whom I entertain a tolerable opinion. of all possible villains what think you of Barrere? have you read Helen Williams’ letters & Louvet account of his escape?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
'But "La leçon bien apprise" is really quite....And what is wrong with "Les Etrennes de Mlle. Doucine"? I don't like it most, but I think it most suitable owing to its humorous and sentimental characteristics. I recommend it strongly as perfectly fit for general reading and even seasonable [for the December issue of the "Review"]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 29 January 1796, 'We remained five days at Coruña — the only place where I met with the society I wished. Jardine is Consul there — you have probably waded thro his travels — a book that conveys much thought in a most uninteresting manner. such at least was the opinion I formed of it three years ago. he behaved to me with that degree of attention that soon produces intimacy — my time at Coruna was chiefly spent at his house & he gave much information respecting the country.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 24 February - 2 March 1796 'Take a sonnet for the Ladies imitated from the Spanish of Bartolomè Leonardo, in which I have given the author at least as many ideas as he has given me.
Nay cleanse this filthy mixture from thy hair
And give the untrickd tresses to the gale!...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
From the diary kept by George Grote for his fiancee, Harriet Lewin (1818):
'Tuesday, Sept, 22nd, 1818.
'Rose at 7. Read Say for a couple of hours.
[...]
'Rose at 8. Breakfasted, and finished Say's "Economie Politique."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From the diary kept by George Grote for his fiancee, Harriet Lewin (September 1818):
'Rose at 1/2 past 6 [...] read over again that part of Say's second volume which refers to consumption. It requires further meditation before I shall have thoroughly comprehended it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From the diary kept by George Grote for his fiancee, Harriet Lewin (autumn 1818):
'Thursday, October 8th.
'Rose soon after 6. Read the second chapter of Say's "Economie," and I wrote down on paper some remarks on production, after meditating the subject much, as some parts of it are very thorny. I had occasion to differ with some of Say's positions.
'Rose soon after 6. Read over again Say's chapter in capital, and put down some remarks on it in order to clear up my notions on the subject, as I found occasion to suspect the soundness of some I had before entertained [...]
'Rose at 1/2 past 6. Read some more Say on the Division of Labour.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From the diary kept by George Grote for his fiancee, Harriet Lewin (autumn 1818):
'Threadneedle Street, 14th October, 1818.
'Rose soon after 6. Read Say's chapter on Commercial Industry [...] After dinner read some of Schiller's "Don Carlos," then practiced on the bass from 1/2 past 7 till 9; at 9 I drank tea, then read some more of Say, on the mode in which capital operates.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From the diary kept by George Grote for his fiancee, Harriet Lewin (autumn 1818):
'Threadneedle Street, 14th October, 1818.
'Rose soon after 6. Read Say's chapter on Commercial Industry [...] After dinner read some of Schiller's "Don Carlos," then practiced on the bass from 1/2 past 7 till 9; at 9 I drank tea, then read some more of Say, on the mode in which capital operates.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From the diary kept by George Grote for his fiancee, Harriet Lewin (autumn 1818):
'Thursday, October 15th, 1818.
'Rose at 6. Read Say's chapter on the Accumulation of Capital. Wrote some remarks on the meaning which he annexes to the word unproductive, in which I think he has fallen into some confusion.
'Rose at 6. Read Say's chapter on the Circulation of Commodities, which is admirable; equally deep and accurate.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From the diary kept by George Grote for his fiancee, Harriet Lewin (autumn 1818):
'Rose at 1/2 past 6 [...] Read Say and Turgot until 12, and put down some remarks on the manner in which accumulation takes place. Neither Say nor Turgot completely satisfy my mind on this subject [...] Dined alone. Read some scenes in Schiller's "Don Carlos." Considered as complete dramas, I think both "Don Carlos" and "Marie Stuart" are very defective. There is too much mixture of paltry and unimportant intrigue in each [...] There are, however, most masterly single scenes to be found in them [...] After reading this, I practised on the bass for about an hour, then drank tea, and read Adam Smith's incomparable chapter on the Mercantile System until 11, when I went to bed.
'Rose at 6. Read some more of A. Smith on the Mercantile System [...] Dined at 1/2 past 5. Read Don Carlos, and played on the bass for the next two hours, when I went and locked up [the family banking house]; drank tea at 1/2 past 8, and began some more of Say; but I found my mind languid, so that I was obliged to change my study, and took up a dissertation of Turgot, "Sur les valeurs et monnoies," which I read with considerable attention. Went to bed soon after 11.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From the diary kept by George Grote for his fiancee, Harriet Lewin (autumn 1818):
'Rose at 1/2 past 6 [...] Read Say and Turgot until 12, and put down some remarks on the manner in which accumulation takes place. Neither Say nor Turgot completely satisfy my mind on this subject [...] Dined alone. Read some scenes in Schiller's "Don Carlos." Considered as complete dramas, I think both "Don Carlos" and "Marie Stuart" are very defective. There is too much mixture of paltry and unimportant intrigue in each [...] There are, however, most masterly single scenes to be found in them [...] After reading this, I practised on the bass for about an hour, then drank tea, and read Adam Smith's incomparable chapter on the Mercantile System until 11, when I went to bed.
'Rose at 6. Read some more of A. Smith on the Mercantile System [...] Dined at 1/2 past 5. Read Don Carlos, and played on the bass for the next two hours, when I went and locked up [the family banking house]; drank tea at 1/2 past 8, and began some more of Say; but I found my mind languid, so that I was obliged to change my study, and took up a dissertation of Turgot, "Sur les valeurs et monnoies," which I read with considerable attention. Went to bed soon after 11.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
'I have the complete text of "The Isle" in my possession.[...]. The short passage [on Giovanni de Procida, 13th century Sicilian doctor and instigator of the Sicilian Vespers massacre] interested us very much.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Sheet
'Letters were read from Mr Hawkins and Mr Burgess resigning membership in the Society'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings Manuscript: Letter
'Does the A[natole] F[rance] next book consist of the proofs you've let me see? And what on earth is one to write about it?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Sheet, Proofs
'Both Jessie and I are very much struck with "[A] Fisher of Men".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'They have arrived--the 6 of them; I have felt them all in turn and all at one time as it were, and to celebrate the event I have given myself a holiday for the morning, not to read any of them --I could not settle to that, but to commune with them all, and gloat over the promise of the prefaces. But of these last I have read one already, the preface to "The American",the first of your long novels I ever read--in '91.[...] I could not resist the temptation of reading the beautiful and touching last ten pages of the story. There is in them a perfection of tone which calmed me; and I sat for a long time with the closed volume in my hand going over the preface in my mind and thinking--that's how it began,that's how it was done!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'They have arrived--the 6 of them; I have felt them all in turn and all at one time as it were, and to celebrate the event I have given myself a holiday for the morning,not to read any of them --I could not settle to that, but to commune with them all, and gloat over the promise of the prefaces. But of these last I have read one already, the preface to "The American",the first of your long novels I ever read--in '91.[...] I could not resist the temptation of reading the beautiful and touching last ten pages of the story. There is in them a perfection of tone which calmed me; and I sat for a long time with the closed volume in my hand going over the preface in my mind and thinking--that's how it began,that's how it was done!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 26 June 1796: 'Christian went a long way to fling off his burden in the Pilgrims Progress. I doubt only my lungs. I find my breath affected when I read aloud. but exercise may strengthen these.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 29-30 August 1796: 'Somebody (a painter I believe — Tresham?) has [MS torn] a poem called the Sea Sick Minstrel lately. tis a villainous subject.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 25 September - 14 October, 1796: 'I have been reading Sidney Biddulph. Grosvenor what a mass of misery do prejudices occasion? the distress of many novels turns upon the discovery of incest — where is the crime if a brother & sister should marry unknowingly? or knowingly? — here again is a young woman must not marry the man she loves because he is a Bastard forsooth: the very reason says Mr Shandy why she should: & there was wisdom in all his systems.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 25 September - 14 October, 1796: 'Have you read St Pierre? if not, read that most delightful work & you will love the author as much as I do.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 25 September - 14 October, 1796: 'Have you read St Pierre? if not, read that most delightful work & you will love the author as much as I do.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
'The following programme of readings from Lewis Carroll's works as arranged by the committee of arrangements was then started [?] upon.
The Mad Tea Party by Mr A.L. Goadby
The Hunting of the Snark " Mrs Cass
The Mock Turtle's Story " Mr Stansfield
The Jabberwock " Mrs Edminson
The Explanation of the Jabberwock Etmyology " Mrs Goadby
41: from Sylvie and Bruno " Mrs [Miss?] Neild
A poem " A Rawlings'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lilian Goadby Print: Book
'Katherine Mansfield is a cunt, but I share a hell of a lot of common characteristics with her. I should like to read her letters again. The trouble with her seems to be that she luxuriated in emotion far too much. Admittedly the head is an evil thing & I'm a tied-up bugger, but anyone who can spew out their dearest and closest thoughts, hopes, and loves to J. M. Murry must be a bit of an anus.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin
'Although Mrs Craigie carried out her "duties" as a Roman Catholic, she took her religion lightly, and from her writings it was easy to read that she did not mind jests about the saints ... She told me that her conversion was entirely due to her reading Rabelais, which at the time I believed literally'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie Print: Book
Robert Southey to Joseph Cottle, 13 March 1797: 'But Miss Christall. have you seen her Poems? — a fine, artless sensible girl, now Cottle that word sensible must not be construed here in its dictionary acceptation. ask a Frenchman what it means & he will understand it, tho perhaps no circumlocution define its explain its French meaning. her heart is alive. she loves Poetry — she loves retirement — she loves the country. her verses are very incorrect, & the Literary Circle say she has no genius. but she has Genius, Joseph Cottle! or there is no truth in physiognomy.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
'I kept my hours conscientiously, but when I had no work to do I read continuously. I read parts of "The Times", the "Standard" and the "Morning Post" ever day. The theatrical and policitcal news interested me more than anything else. The study was lined with book shelves, and besides all the classical writers there was a large section filled with the works of French dramatists. I read several plays by Marivaux, and found, to my astonishment, that a serial I had read in the "Girls' Own Paper" had its origin in one of his plays. Encouraged by this, I wrote a play which also derived from a play by Marivaux.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Zoe Procter Print: Book
'Pearl's conversation was always full of references to the works of the French novelists of the period, so I proceeded to read books by Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Anatole France and Colette. I had to read the Italian poets in translation. All this was a great joy to me, and, as I have said, a wonderful education.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Zoe Procter Print: Book
'Pearl's conversation was always full of references to the works of the French novelists of the period, so I proceeded to read books by Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Anatole France and Colette. I had to read the Italian poets in translation. All this was a great joy to me, and, as I have said, a wonderful education.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Zoe Procter Print: Book
Robert Southey to John May, 26 June, 1797: '...the French never can have a good epic poem till they have republicanized their language; it appears to me a thing impossible in their metres; & for the prose of Fenelon Florian & Bitaubè — I find it peculiarly unpleasant. I have sometimes read the works of Florian aloud; his stories are very interesting & well conducted, but in reading them I have been felt obliged to simplify as I read & omit most of the similes & apostrophes. they disgusted me & I felt ashamed to pronounce them. Ossian is the only book bearable in this stile, there is a melancholy obscurity in the history of Ossian & of almost his heroes that must please — ninety nine readers in an hundred cannot understand Ossian & therefore they like the book. I read it always with renewed pleasure.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to John May, 26 June, 1797: '...the French never can have a good epic poem till they have republicanized their language; it appears to me a thing impossible in their metres; & for the prose of Fenelon Florian & Bitaubè — I find it peculiarly unpleasant. I have sometimes read the works of Florian aloud; his stories are very interesting & well conducted, but in reading them I have been felt obliged to simplify as I read & omit most of the similes & apostrophes. they disgusted me & I felt ashamed to pronounce them. Ossian is the only book bearable in this stile, there is a melancholy obscurity in the history of Ossian & of almost his heroes that must please — ninety nine readers in an hundred cannot understand Ossian & therefore they like the book. I read it always with renewed pleasure.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to John May, 26 June, 1797: 'Have you seen Madame Rolands Appel a l’impartiale Posteritè? it is one of those books that makes me love individuals & yet dread detest & despise mankind in a mass.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to John May, 11 July, 1797: 'I thank you for Chapelain. I read his poem with the hope of finding something & would gladly have reversed the sentence of condemnation, which I must in common honesty confirm. it is very bad indeed, & please only by its extreme absurdity. I have analyzed it, & the analysis will amuse you.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 19 July 1797: 'The old Lady Strathmore has some curious books. I hope to get from her library the Amadigi of Tassos father.if he had been a very bad poet Tasso would never have published his works — & I love every thing belonging to Amadis & Galaor.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to John May, 24 August 1797: 'Have you seen a poem addressed to me by Miss Anna Seward? if not I can much amuse you by it. she applies to my poetry what Milton says of the Pandæmonium chorists.calls me an unnatural boy, a beardless parricide, & dark of heart; says I cry like a crocodile & bids me laugh like a hyena. — & laugh I did most heartily — & so I think will you at perusing this very delectable poem.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Newspaper
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 12 September 1797: 'I doubted not that you would agree with me in thinking very highly of quaint old Quarles. you shall see his Argalus & Parthenia when we meet, it is more ridiculous than his Emblems, but often very fine & never tame.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 22 September 1797: 'I have been reading old Froissart. after Sir Walter Manny & about a dozen Knights with three hundred archers had sallied out & broken an engine than annoyed them — the Countess of Montford met them in the on their return, & she kissed them all three or four times, like a noble & valiant Lady.
I have a great love for this plain quaintness of speech — it is often ludicrous, but it as often beautiful — & one who wishes to write good poetry now should read old prose.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 22 September 1797: 'Do you know Rousseaus Levite of Ephraim? if not — you will find a poem that has not a word too much.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 22 September 1797: 'Mrs Barbauld has written some lines to Coleridge advising him to abandon metaphysics. the poem is not good. if however you are inclined to see it I will copy it for you.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Serial / periodical
'A fine book dearest boy! I've read it several times. There's a breadth, an ease in it which gives one a quite new view of John Galsworthy.The humanity of it is infinitely deeper than "[A] Man of Property" or the "C[ountry]H[ouse]". Mr. Stone is an amazing creation, a memorable figure--and the whole a great performance.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
I will strive to let you have a note about André Maurois’s 'Ariel ou la vie de Shelley'. It is a very bright thing.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 20 October 1797: 'In Chaucer I for ever find the ribible — but nothing else & no explanation of that. now tho I have used one word which nobody understands. the jazerent of double mail — I shall not take the same liberty with another. jazerina often occurs in the Guerras Civiles de Granada.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Joseph Cottle, 14 December 1797: 'Your parcel & its contents arrived safe. I found it on my return from a library belonging to the dissenters — in Redcross Street; from which, by permission of Dr Towers one of the Trustees, I brought back books of great importance for my Maid of Orleans. a hackney coach horse turned into a field of grass falls not more eagerly to a breakfast which lasts the whole day, than I attacked the old folios so respectably covered with dust. I begin to like dirty rotten binding, & whenever I get among books pass by the gilt coxcombs & yet disturb the spiders. — But you shall hear what I have got. a Latin poem in four long books upon Joan of Arc. very bad — but it gives me a quaint note or two — & Valerandus Valerius is a fine name for a quotation. a small quarto of the Life of the Maid, chiefly extracts from forgotten authors, printed at Paris. 1612. with a print of her on horseback, & another on foot in the same dress & attitude as the one I have. A sketch of her life, by Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis — bless the length of his erudite name! — this is short but the most valuable of all, inasmuch as I have his authority for her prediction of her death — & that he has given me matter for a noble speech in Book 3. (I write in the spirit of prophecy for its nobleness.) by saying that her first vision was in a ruined church, where the weather drove her to pass the night with her flock. there are more treasures in this library — & I go there again on Monday next.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Walter Scott quotes four lines from 'My Jo Janet' in Allan Ramsay's 'Tea-Table Miscellany'.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
'At 8pm, there is a very good St George's Day concert by D-Block. They read extracts from the works of Shakespeare, Rupert Brooke and Kipling, as well as Noel Coward's "Cavalcade". It is very inspiring; it ends with "God Save The King".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: prisoners of war Print: Book
'Helen Ball's letter from South Africa to James is like a breath of fresh spring air in this lousy gaol' [describes letter at length and copies extracts; Tom's son Brian under care of Helen]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Kitching Manuscript: Letter
'I am reading "Haworth Parsonage" by Isabel C. Clarke. I have never read a book on the Brontes before, although I have often passed Cowan Bridge, the notorious school, which caused the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Kitching Print: Book
From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. Transcription of lines by '"Maria Blanche - eldest daughter of Madame de Grignan. She became a Nun in the Convent of St Marie D'Aix and died there at the age of 62."' The lines read: '"Would you know a soldiers life, it is this, when the army is on the march, we work like horses, when it halts nothing can exceed our idleness. We are always in extremes. For three or four days perhaps we do not close our eyes or else for three or four days we never quit our beds; we feast, or we starve."'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon
From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. 'March 1837'. Transcription of various of Madame de Sévigné's letters.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
From George Grote's diary, kept for his fiancee Harriet Lewin (1819):
'Rose a little before 9. Breakfasted and read some more of the "Edinburgh Review," but was
little fit for anything, being so miserable at heart [over family matters relating to his and
Harriet's engagement] [...] Between 4 and 5 read some more of Schiller's "Wallenstein," [...]
locked up [banking house] about 8. Read Kant's "Anthropology" for two hours.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
'Symonds has lent me Pontanus ... You can twig the argument; he is delicious.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
From George Grote's diary, kept for his fiancee Harriet Lewin, Thursday 11 March 1819:
'Rose at 7. Breakfasted, and read Kant for a couple of hours [...] finished the evening with Kant.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From George Grote's diary, kept for his fiancee Harriet Lewin, Thursday 11 March 1819:
'Rose at 7. Breakfasted, and read Kant for a couple of hours [...] finished the evening with Kant.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. 'Of M. De Glessir, Tutor to the young Marquis Grignan (Admirable advice!), "The Chevalier is of more use to the dear boy, than can easily be imagined; he is continually striking the full chords of honour and respectability, and takes an interest in his affairs, for which you cannot sufficiently thank him, he enters into everything, attends to every thing, and wishes the Marquis to regulate his own accounts, and incur no necessary expenses..." M. de Sevigne to Mad de Grignan Letter DCCCXXII. Vol. VL.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
From George Grote's diary, kept for his fiancee Harriet Lewin, Saturday 13 March 1819:
'Rose at 1/2 past 7, after a sleepless night. Read some of Hume's Essay on the Academical
Philosophy [...] Between 4 and 5 read some more of Kant.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From George Grote's diary, kept for his fiancee Harriet Lewin, Monday 22 March 1819:
'Rose at 6 [...] Read some of Kant for 1 hour ...] between 4 and 5 read some more of Kant;
began to acquire a better idea of his doctrines than I had before [...] read Kant until 1/2
past 7, when I went to the "Crown and Anchor" to hear Coleridge's Lecture.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From George Grote's diary, kept for his fiancee Harriet Lewin, Wednesday 24 March 1819:
'Rose soon after 6. Read Kant, and breakfasted, until 9.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From George Grote's diary, kept for his fiancee Harriet Lewin, Thursday 25 March 1819:
'Between 4 and 5 I read some of Kant's Prolegomena [...] went up to Palsgrave Place; drank tea
with [Charles] Cameron; we conversed about Kant, and read some of Bentham upon Legislation.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From George Grote's diary, kept for his fiancee Harriet Lewin, Friday 26 March 1819:
'Rose at 6. Read and meditated Kant for some time [...] attempted to read some Kant in the
evening, but found my eyes so weak that I was compelled to desist, and to think without book.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From George Grote's diary, kept for his fiancee Harriet Lewin, Friday 26 March 1819:
'Rose at 6. Read and meditated Kant for some time [...] attempted to read some Kant in the
evening, but found my eyes so weak that I was compelled to desist, and to think without book.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. Several pages are transcribed from the 'Diary of an Ennuyee'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: C.M.G. [anon] Print: Book
From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. Under title 'Naples, 1826', C.M.G. describes the city and (mis)quotes a line from Dante, "Inferno," Canto 7: "Qui vid'i gente, piu che altrove troppa..."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: C.M.G. [anon] Print: Book
'The consideration of the Life & work of Wm Morris was opened by the reading of a short account of the Life by Mrs Goadby in which his many activities were passed in review. After some comments Mrs Edminson read the opening verses to the Earthly Paradise the idle singer of an empty day. Miss Goadby followed with an excellent paper entitled "Some Illustrations of Wm Morris's love of Nature" which showed a wide knowledge and keen appreciation of the author's works both in prose & verse. After some appreciative remarks Mrs Ridges read a paper on Wm Morris & Socialism in which it was pointed out that the socialism was the direct & logical outcome of his artistic attitude. [this argument is summarised] Some discussion folowed & was hardly concluded at ten o clock when the Chairman called upon A. Rawlings for some remarks on the art of Wm Morris. In two or three minutes a very incomplete statement of Morris's methods & aims was made & a very pleasant evening was brought to a close'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lilian Goadby Manuscript: Unknown
George Grote to G. C. Lewis, September 1840:
'Since you departed from London, I have been reading some of Kant's "Kritik der reinen
Vernunft," a book which always leads me into very instructive trains of metaphysical thought,
and which I value exceedingly, though I am far from agreeing in all he lays down. I have also
been looking into Plato's "Timaeus" and "Parmenides," and some of Locke, and have been
writing down some of the thoughts generated in my mind by this philosophical melange.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
'Three papers were devoted to aspects of Burns & his works. Mrs Goadby read a biographical sketch. Mrs Smith read a paper prepared conjointly with Mrs [?] on Burns as songwriter & Fred Edminson one devoted to Burns's personality. [various songs were performed] Mrs Stansfield read To a Mouse & To a Mountain Daisy Mrs Rawlings the Cotter's Saturday Night.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lilian Goadby Manuscript: Unknown
'A paper was then read by Mrs Goadby on Jane Austen followed by readings from her novels by Mrs Ridges, C.E. Stansfield, S.A. Reynolds & a duologue by Mrs Edminson & Mr Goadby'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Blanche Ridges Print: Book
'A paper was then read by Mrs Goadby on Jane Austen followed by readings from her novels by Mrs Ridges, C.E. Stansfield, S.A. Reynolds & a duologue by Mrs Edminson & Mr Goadby'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield Print: Book
'A paper was then read by Mrs Goadby on Jane Austen followed by readings from her novels by Mrs Ridges, C.E. Stansfield, S.A. Reynolds & a duologue by Mrs Edminson & Mr Goadby'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Print: Book
'A paper was then read by Mrs Goadby on Jane Austen followed by readings from her novels by Mrs Ridges, C.E. Stansfield, S.A. Reynolds & a duologue by Mrs Edminson & Mr Goadby'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Edminson and Allan Goadby Print: Book
'A paper was then read by Mrs Goadby on Jane Austen followed by readings from her novels by Mrs Ridges, C.E. Stansfield, S.A. Reynolds & a duologue by Mrs Edminson & Mr Goadby'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lilian Goadby Manuscript: Unknown
'A paper was then read by Mrs Goadby on Jane Austen followed by readings from her novels by Mrs Ridges, C.E. Stansfield, S.A. Reynolds & a duologue by Mrs Edminson & Mr Goadby'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lilian Goadby Print: Book
'Mrs Ridges read an interesting paper on The Solitary Summer fully descriptive of the charm of the book.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Blanche Ridges Print: Book
I want you to tell R.M. du Gard how highly I esteem 'Barois'. When I first bought it, ages ago, I was so impressed by it that I had it charmingly bound, and I often read in it again. . . . I am very pleased with 'Amants, heureux amants', especially that last story; Valery’s best work, I think.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
His [Norman Douglas's] intention is to offer his MS [" Siren Land"] to Mr Methuen. It is jolly good--a distinguished and interesting pice of work.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'I like immensely your verse in the last E[nglish R[eview]. The second piece for choice but as a matter of fact I like best the one I am reading at the time.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'Its really good of you to have sent "Faith". Your magic never grows less; each of your prefaces is a gem and my enthusiasm is roused always to the highest pitch by your amazing prose. I have already read (the book arrived but two hours ago) "The Idealist" and "The Saint". Admirable in conception and feeling are these two sketches.[...] This afternoon I shall sit down with the book and forget my miseries in the delight of your art so strong and human.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Finished reading "The Northern Muse", arranged by John Buchan. A fine anthology - yet one must admit that our greatest poems are ballads by unknown men. If a choice had to be made, we could not sacrifice the ballad corpus even for Burns or Dunbar. Here all the passions and pains of humanity stark clear from the shadow of individuality. Here are the poems of Everyman.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Soutar Print: Book
'Read "An Anthology of War Poems", introduced by Edmund Blunden. Owen's poetry stands well above all the others - his "Strange Meeting" is worth all the others put together - or nearly so. Branford's sonnets are conspicuous and Sassoon's work distinctive, but Owen has not only Branford's "high seriousness" and Sasoon's objectivity but also a sure craftsmanship - he is always the artist in full control of his medium. Beside his work, Sassoon's sounds almost hysterical and Blunden's slightly artificial. After laying down this book I realised for the first time that, notwithstanding the large company of our war poets, our really fine war poems are very few in number.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Soutar Print: Book
'Finished reading Murray's "Keats and Shakespeare" again. This work to me was, and still is, a critical masterpiece: I can think of no other study - of this nature - carried through so consistently and with so keen an awareness: it is a classic of imaginative sensitivity.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Soutar Print: Book
'Finished reading Amiel's "Journal Intime" today. How easy for a critic to lapse into a patronising attitude towards this most sensitive man who was so critical of himself. But it is Amiel who reveals the world's malformities in the undistorted mirror of his self-revelation'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Soutar Print: Book
'Just as this is written enter my Lord of St Albans and Lady Charlotte to beg I recommend a book of sermons to Mrs. Coutts - much obliged for her good opinion - recommended Logan's - One poet should always speak for another - '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Lady Harriet Cavendish to her sister Lady Georgiana Morpeth (February 1803):
'I have been crying my eyes out over "le Nouveau pere de famille." I wonder I did not hear more of it, as it seems to me quite beautiful; the 3rd volume heartbreaking. I believe I am going to read "Amelie de Mansfield." They are all [italics]dying[end italics] over it and it is the general opinion that as I have read "Delphine" [by Madame de Stael] I may read anything.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Harriet Cavendish Print: Book
'This ["The Eldest Son"] is extremely fine [...]. At the end of each act I got up and walked for a while in a sort of exultation over the sheer art of the thing.' After approximately 25 lines of praise and constructive criticism, Conrad adds '[...]I am writing after a second reading.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'Your paper on the drama has pleased me so much in the form and has appealed strongly to my convictions which it clarifies and expresses.I read it the evening you left [...].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Pentonville and Wandsworth Prisons, June - November 1895: St Augustine, "Confessions" and "De Civitate Dei"; Pascal, "Pensees" and "Provincial Letters"; Walter Pater, "Studies in the History of the Renaissance"; T. Mommsen, "The History of Rome" (5 vols); Cardinal Newman, "The Grammar of Ascent", "Apologia Pro Vita Sua", "Two Essays on Miracles" and "The Idea of a University".
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Pentonville and Wandsworth Prisons, June - November 1895: St Augustine, "Confessions" and "De Civitate Dei"; Pascal, "Pensees" and "Provincial Letters"; Walter Pater, "Studies in the History of the Renaissance"; T. Mommsen, "The History of Rome" (5 vols); Cardinal Newman, "The Grammar of Ascent", "Apologia Pro Vita Sua", "Two Essays on Miracles" and "The Idea of a University".
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
'Read a little more of "Amelia", which is about the worst planned story I ever read - no plan at all in fact; "Gil Blas" has always some tangled connection and momentary interest; "Don Quixote" is so intensely amusing that the want of plan is easily forgiven; but to bring on a storm merely that a hero may escape in a boat is the kind of thing I had not expected to find in what is said to be one of the first of English novels. The irony is forced, and the feeling bad; but the characters are highly and equisitely finished, and clearly conceived.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Pentonville and Wandsworth Prisons, June - November 1895: St Augustine, "Confessions" and "De Civitate Dei"; Pascal, "Pensees" and "Provincial Letters"; Walter Pater, "Studies in the History of the Renaissance"; T. Mommsen, "The History of Rome" (5 vols); Cardinal Newman, "The Grammar of Ascent", "Apologia Pro Vita Sua", "Two Essays on Miracles" and "The Idea of a University".
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Pentonville and Wandsworth Prisons, June - November 1895: St Augustine, "Confessions" and "De Civitate Dei"; Pascal, "Pensees" and "Provincial Letters"; Walter Pater, "Studies in the History of the Renaissance"; T. Mommsen, "The History of Rome" (5 vols); Cardinal Newman, "The Grammar of Ascent", "Apologia Pro Vita Sua", "Two Essays on Miracles" and "The Idea of a University".
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
'In February 1896, seven titles were added to his [Oscar Wilde's] store. These were: Dante's "Divina commedia", accompanied by an Italian grammar and dictionary to help Wilde with the poem's medieval Italian; two massive folio volumes containing the entire surviving corpus of Greek and Latin poetry and drama; the equally weighty Liddell and Scott's "Greek Lexicon", and Lewis and Short's "Latin Dictionary". More Adey, the tranlator of Henrik Ibsen...procured the volumes and dispatched them to Reading.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
'Marryat's diary on Continent gives many interesting anecdotes of animals, but I am afraid to remember them, lest they should not be true'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, July 1896-December 1896, taken from his list of books requested and then sent by his friends. Source text author notes that Wilde read and re-read everything available to him in prison. 'Greek Testament, Milman's History of the Jews; Farrar's St Paul, Tennyson's Poems (complete in one volume), Percy's Reliques (the collection of old ballads), Christopher Marlowe's Works, Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and Life of Frederick the Great, A prose translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, Keats's Poems, Chaucer's Poems, Spenser's Poems, Renan's Vie de Jesus and The Apostles, Ranke's History of the Popes, Critical and Historical Essays by Cardinal Newman, Emerson's Essays (If possible in one volume), Cheap edition of Dickens's Works.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, July 1896-December 1896, taken from his list of books requested and then sent by his friends. Source text author notes that Wilde read and re-read everything available to him in prison. 'Greek Testament, Milman's History of the Jews; Farrar's St Paul, Tennyson's Poems (complete in one volume), Percy's Reliques (the collection of old ballads), Christopher Marlowe's Works, Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and Life of Frederick the Great, A prose translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, Keats's Poems, Chaucer's Poems, Spenser's Poems, Renan's Vie de Jesus and The Apostles, Ranke's History of the Popes, Critical and Historical Essays by Cardinal Newman, Emerson's Essays (If possible in one volume), Cheap edition of Dickens's Works.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, July 1896-December 1896, taken from his list of books requested and then sent by his friends. Source text author notes that Wilde read and re-read everything available to him in prison. 'Greek Testament, Milman's History of the Jews; Farrar's St Paul, Tennyson's Poems (complete in one volume), Percy's Reliques (the collection of old ballads), Christopher Marlowe's Works, Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and Life of Frederick the Great, A prose translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, Keats's Poems, Chaucer's Poems, Spenser's Poems, Renan's Vie de Jesus and The Apostles, Ranke's History of the Popes, Critical and Historical Essays by Cardinal Newman, Emerson's Essays (If possible in one volume), Cheap edition of Dickens's Works.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, July 1896-December 1896, taken from his list of books requested and then sent by his friends. Source text author notes that Wilde read and re-read everything available to him in prison. 'Greek Testament, Milman's History of the Jews; Farrar's St Paul, Tennyson's Poems (complete in one volume), Percy's Reliques (the collection of old ballads), Christopher Marlowe's Works, Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and Life of Frederick the Great, A prose translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, Keats's Poems, Chaucer's Poems, Spenser's Poems, Renan's Vie de Jesus and The Apostles, Ranke's History of the Popes, Critical and Historical Essays by Cardinal Newman, Emerson's Essays (If possible in one volume), Cheap edition of Dickens's Works.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, July 1896-December 1896, taken from his list of books requested and then sent by his friends. Source text author notes that Wilde read and re-read everything available to him in prison. 'Greek Testament, Milman's History of the Jews; Farrar's St Paul, Tennyson's Poems (complete in one volume), Percy's Reliques (the collection of old ballads), Christopher Marlowe's Works, Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and Life of Frederick the Great, A prose translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, Keats's Poems, Chaucer's Poems, Spenser's Poems, Renan's Vie de Jesus and The Apostles, Ranke's History of the Popes, Critical and Historical Essays by Cardinal Newman, Emerson's Essays (If possible in one volume), Cheap edition of Dickens's Works.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, July 1896-December 1896, taken from his list of books requested and then sent by his friends. Source text author notes that Wilde read and re-read everything available to him in prison. 'Greek Testament, Milman's History of the Jews; Farrar's St Paul, Tennyson's Poems (complete in one volume), Percy's Reliques (the collection of old ballads), Christopher Marlowe's Works, Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and Life of Frederick the Great, A prose translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, Keats's Poems, Chaucer's Poems, Spenser's Poems, Renan's Vie de Jesus and The Apostles, Ranke's History of the Popes, Critical and Historical Essays by Cardinal Newman, Emerson's Essays (If possible in one volume), Cheap edition of Dickens's Works.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, December 1896 - March 1897, taken from his list of books requested and then sent by his friends. Source author notes that Wilde read and re-read everything available to him in prison. 'Gaston de Latour by Walter Pater, MA (Macmillan), Milman's History of Latin Christianity, Wordsworth's Complete Works in one volume with preface by John Morley (Macmillan, 7/6), Matthew Arnold's Poems. One volume complete. (Macmillan, 7/6), Dante and other Essays by Dean Church (Macmillan, 5/-), Percy's Reliques, Hallam's Middle Ages (History of), Dryden's Poems (1 vol. Macmillan. 3/6), Burns's Poems ditto, Morte D'Arthur ditto, Froissart's Chronicles ditto, Buckle's History of Civilisation, Marlowe's Plays, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (edited by A. Pollard 2 vols 10/-) Macmillan, Introduction to Dante by John Addington Symonds, Companion to Dante by A.J. Butler, Miscellaneous Essays by Walter Pater, An English translation of Goethe's Faust'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
'Curious essay of Newman's I read some pages of - about the ecclesiastical miracles; full of intellect but doubtful in tendency. I fear insidious, yet I like it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, December 1896 - March 1897, taken from his list of books requested and then sent by his friends. Source author notes that Wilde read and re-read everything available to him in prison. 'Gaston de Latour by Walter Pater, MA (Macmillan), Milman's History of Latin Christianity, Wordsworth's Complete Works in one volume with preface by John Morley (Macmillan, 7/6), Matthew Arnold's Poems. One volume complete. (Macmillan, 7/6), Dante and other Essays by Dean Church (Macmillan, 5/-), Percy's Reliques, Hallam's Middle Ages (History of), Dryden's Poems (1 vol. Macmillan. 3/6), Burns's Poems ditto, Morte D'Arthur ditto, Froissart's Chronicles ditto, Buckle's History of Civilisation, Marlowe's Plays, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (edited by A. Pollard 2 vols 10/-) Macmillan, Introduction to Dante by John Addington Symonds, Companion to Dante by A.J. Butler, Miscellaneous Essays by Walter Pater, An English translation of Goethe's Faust'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
'Read Dumas's "Essai de Statique Chimique" - clear but too short.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Much disappointed with Wilkie's life: he is a thoroughly low person and his biographer worse. I could not have imagined Cunningham could have so little knowledge of art'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Much disappointed with Wilkie's life: he is a thoroughly low person and his biographer worse. I could not have imagined Cunningham could have so little knowledge of art'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'I noticed in Dante today, the two lines, "quali dal vento &c." (Inferno, book 7th, 12) as curiously describing the moment chosen by Turner in the battle of Trafalgar.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'I was struck this morning, in comparing the poems of George Herbert with those of Henry Vaughan, by the perfect ease and power of the former, the labour and short falling of the latter'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Unknown
Lady Harriet Cavendish to her sister, Lady Georgiana Morpeth, 14 November 1807:
'Miss Trimmer [former governess and companion] went out of town yesterday morning and I therefore spent almost the whole day here [at grandmother's London residence]. My grandmother and I had a dinner after our own hearts, a little in style of Cumberland's jew, Egg shells and potatoe skins, but quite enough for people on regimes as strict as ours. We played 5 games at Chess, read above a hundred pages of Forbes' life of Beattie, and 60 of Lord Gardenstone's travelling Memorandums, not a new book but a very entertaining one. Played old songs upon the harpsichord, and before the carriage came to fetch me, were both all but fast asleep upon our chairs.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Georgiana, Countess Dowager Spencer and Lady Harriet Cavendish Print: Book
'Read "La dame aux cheveux gris" all the evening to my mother.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Wet all day. Read Andersen's tales. There is a strange mingling of false sentiment - unchildlike - with their delicate fancy and wit; too much of rosebowers and crystal palaces, prettily heaped together but without detail of parts or bearing on the story. On the whole, I am disappointed in him. The ugly duck is perfect; the "fat needle" very good. Nearly all the others, too much of opera nymph in them, or of pure ugliness and painfulness - the princess maing the nettle-shirts, and the "grand Klaus" killing his nurse, and many other such pieces, quite spoiling the tone of the book for me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Read ".'Dame aux Camelias"
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Took up Renan's "St Paul" as I was dressing, and read a little. A piece of epistle in smaller type caught my eye as I was closing the book: "Graces a Dieu pour son ineffable don."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
Now my sweet Francis I have read your book in this Alpine district. . . . There is not, really, much fault to be found with 'T.N.Y.C.' It is well-constructed; and the pace is maintained; I mean it doesn’t flag.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'At a meeting held at Grove House on Feb. 17 a discussion on the Soul of a People was opened by a paper by C. E. Stansfield. The comparison suggested by Fielding in his book of Christianity & Buddhism necessitated impartiality between the religions on the part of critic [sic]. The role of philosophic doubter assumed for the time by the writer added greatly to the interest of the paper & the discussion which followed. Mrs Ridges afterwards read from the Light of Asia & Mrs Stansfield from Dhammapada'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield Print: Book
'At a meeting held at Grove House on Feb. 17 a discussion on the Soul of a People was opened by a paper by C. E. Stansfield. The comparison suggested by Fielding in his book of Christianity & Buddhism necessitated impartiality between the religions on the part of critic [sic]. The role of philosophic doubter assumed for the time by the writer added greatly to the interest of the paper & the discussion which followed. Mrs Ridges afterwards read from the Light of Asia & Mrs Stansfield from Dhammapada'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Blanche Ridges Print: Book
'In 1809 [Anne Isabella Milbanke] wrote the Lines supposed to be spoken at the Grave of Dermody. It is one of the earliest of her compositions extant [goes on to quote 11 lines from poem, beginning with "Degraded genius! o'er the untimely grave / In which the tumults of thy breast were still'd, / The rank weeds wave...."] [...] These, with some other verses, were sent to Byron for his opinion, in 1812, by Annabella's cousin-by-marriage, Lady Caroline Lamb. He liked the Dermody lines "so much that I could wish they were in rhyme."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown
Barrès is all right sometimes. The 'Jardin de Bérénice' is his best work. You ought to read Charles Louis Philippe’s 'Bubu de Montparnasse'. And Roger Martin du Gard’s 'Jean Barois'. These books will hold you. I should suggest also Colette’s 'Chéri', only I gravely doubt if you would be able to follow its very difficult colloquialisms. . . .
Roulette is a bit of a lark, but very dangerous. See the diary of Madame Dostoevsky on the subject of Feodor’s gambling mania. It is appalling.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
I’ve read 200 pp of 'Clissold'. Formless & wordy, I agree (introductory note foolish); but so far I think the book is very good. It is full of brains, & very provocative & stimulating, & I enjoyed it. If you want to realise how positively good 'Clissold' is, read a bit of 'The Silver Spoon'. But I know you won’t. Coward!
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'Miss Blackwell's "Spiritism" horrible, like waking nightmare, read before going to bed.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Read also Cardinal Wiseman on Chartres and the Chemise - very wonderful and delightful.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Helped marvellously finding Wedderburn's entry in Vol. 3 of Saussure, and his cloud lightning on Col du Fours before Franklin! Then, helped infinitely by Alciat's four emblems'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Helped marvellously finding Wedderburn's entry in Vol. 3 of Saussure, and his cloud lightning on Col du Fours before Franklin! Then, helped infinitely by Alciat's four emblems'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'I am half enamoured of the paper that touched his hand, and the ink that did his bidding. [I have] grown fond of the sweet comeliness of his charactery'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Manuscript: Sheet
'Wilde's fellow pupils remarked on his veneration of the novels of Benjamin Disraeli, so it must have been a fairly unusual literary passion at Portora... Speranza literally passed her passion on to her youngest son by lending him several Disraeli novels. Wilde was ravished by the books...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
'Wilde's love of French culture was intensified and perhaps even prompted by his reading. Three novels, which were written at the beginning of the nineteenth century by two acknowledged masters of imaginative realism, impressed him particularly - Balzac's "Lost Illusions" and "A Harlot High and Low" (whose hero is Lucien de Rubempre), and Stendhal's "Scarlet and Black", which featured Julien Sorel. Wilde would nominate the pair as the "two favourite characters" of his boyhood.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
'Wilde's love of French culture was intensified and perhaps even prompted by his reading. Three novels, which were written at the beginning of the nineteenth century by two acknowledged masters of imaginative realism, impressed him particularly - Balzac's "Lost Illusions" and "A Harlot High and Low" (whose hero is Lucien de Rubempre), and Stendhal's "Scarlet and Black", which featured Julien Sorel. Wilde would nominate the pair as the "two favourite characters" of his boyhood.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
'Once again, Wilde assisted his mentor [Classical scholar John Pentland Mahaffy], this time by proof-reading "Rambles and Studies" before its original publication in 1876.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Manuscript: proofs
'Geo Meredith's Diana of the Crossways was the subject of the evening. H.M. Wallis read an essay on the work of Geo Meredith as a whole & also two pieces of his poetry. This gave rise to considerable discussion. W.J. Rowntree gave a resume of Diana of the Crossways illustrated by copious extracts from the book & other members also read from the book & his poems'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'Mrs Smith then read an interesting biography of Keats which was followed by a reading of "I stood tiptoe upon a little hill" by Helen Rawlings. Howard R. Smith read from Endymion & Mrs Ridges the Ode to a Nightingale. Alfred Rawlings read a paper upon the poetry of Keats & Mrs Edminson some of the sonnets & H.M. Wallis a portion of "Isabella".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Rawlings Print: Book
'Mrs Smith then read an interesting biography of Keats which was followed by a reading of "I stood tiptoe upon a little hill" by Helen Rawlings. Howard R. Smith read from Endymion & Mrs Ridges the Ode to a Nightingale. Alfred Rawlings read a paper upon the poetry of Keats & Mrs Edminson some of the sonnets & H.M. Wallis a portion of "Isabella".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'Mrs Smith then read an interesting biography of Keats which was followed by a reading of "I stood tiptoe upon a little hill" by Helen Rawlings. Howard R. Smith read from Endymion & Mrs Ridges the Ode to a Nightingale. Alfred Rawlings read a paper upon the poetry of Keats & Mrs Edminson some of the sonnets & H.M. Wallis a portion of "Isabella".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard R. Smith Print: Book
'Mrs Smith then read an interesting biography of Keats which was followed by a reading of "I stood tiptoe upon a little hill" by Helen Rawlings. Howard R. Smith read from Endymion & Mrs Ridges the Ode to a Nightingale. Alfred Rawlings read a paper upon the poetry of Keats & Mrs Edminson some of the sonnets & H.M. Wallis a portion of "Isabella".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Blanche Ridges Print: Book
'Mrs Smith then read an interesting biography of Keats which was followed by a reading of "I stood tiptoe upon a little hill" by Helen Rawlings. Howard R. Smith read from Endymion & Mrs Ridges the Ode to a Nightingale. Alfred Rawlings read a paper upon the poetry of Keats & Mrs Edminson some of the sonnets & H.M. Wallis a portion of "Isabella".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Edminson Print: Book
'Mrs Smith then read an interesting biography of Keats which was followed by a reading of "I stood tiptoe upon a little hill" by Helen Rawlings. Howard R. Smith read from Endymion & Mrs Ridges the Ode to a Nightingale. Alfred Rawlings read a paper upon the poetry of Keats & Mrs Edminson some of the sonnets & H.M. Wallis a portion of "Isabella".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings Print: Book
'Yesterday I had a letter from Murray in answer to one I had written in something of a determined stile for I had no idea of permitting him to start from the course after my son giving up his situation and profession merely because a contributor or two chose to suppose gratuitously that Lockhart was too imprudent for the situation. My physic has wrought well for it brought a letter from Murray saying all was right (Footnote: Scott enclosed Murray's letter in one written to Lockhart the previous day. Murray writes that 'There is nothing to apprehend'), that D'Israeli was sent to me not to Lockhart, and that I was only invited to write two confidential letters, and other incoherencies which intimate his fright has got into another quarter. It is interlined and franked by Barrow (Footnote: That interlineation reads 'No one has any ill will against Mr Lockhart!!!') which shows that all is well and that John's induction in to his office will be easy and pleasant.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Manuscript: Letter
'[Anne Isabella Milbanke] read a great deal [during season of 1813], among her books being one called Pride and Prejudice, "which is at present the fashionable novel. It is written by a sister of Charlotte Smith's and contains more strength of character than other productions of this kind."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella Milbanke Print: Book
'[From New Year, 1818] Annabella could read the new novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (recommended by Augusta [Leigh]), and contrast that kind of real life with the kind she had learnt to know better [as Byron's estranged wife].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella Lady Byron Print: Book
'[From New Year, 1818] Annabella could read the new novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (recommended by Augusta [Leigh]), and contrast that kind of real life with the kind she had learnt to know better [as Byron's estranged wife].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella Lady Byron Print: Book
Harriet, Countess Granville, to her sister Lady Georgiana Morpeth, 24 September 1810:
'I am in the middle of [Rousseau's] "Emile." I think parts of it excellent, and the foundation of
most of what has been since written on the subject of education. The parts I do not like seem
to me more ridiculous than immoral [...] I have, however, only read one volume [...] He has
too much of looking up to the sky with larmes dans les yeux, which, though it may be a part
and certainly is the consequence of sincere and ardent piety -- I mean that sort of grateful
emotion one feels in all the pleasures of fine weather and the works of Nature -- is but a sad
loophole or dependance for those who consider it as the whole.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Countess Granville Print: Book
'I begin to find like Joseph Surface that too good a character is inconvenient.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
'I don't know what I have done to gain so much credit for generosity but I suspect I owe it to being supposed, as Puff says, one of "those whom Heaven has blessed with afluence."'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
The whole three are sitting sewing in the most peaceful manner at my hand: our Mother has been reading the Man of Feeling and my last Paper (with great estimation) in the Edinburgh Review.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Carlyle Print: Book
'I received the volume ["A Motley"] the day before yesterday and laid it aside till this afternoon.'
Hence follow one and a half pages of almost unqualified praise for the short stories and sketches in this collection, apart from Conrad's rejection of one piece, "A Reversion To Type".
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I sent about a fortnight ago, three of your papers to Austin Harrison [...] the present editor of the E[nglish] R[eview]. [...] The "[The]Headland of Minerva" and the "Caves of [the]S[iren Land]" I just cut in half. The "Upland[s] of Sorrento" I sent whole. I did this to give your prose a better chance for they are everlastingly cramped for room in that Review. Of course I didn't touch the text.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'I didn't dare to look at your book ["The Scar"] till I finished a rather long thing which I was writing.[...] I have not been disappointed.There is power to begin with, and a great charm of style, a soberness of presentation which appeals to me extremely, [...] for as you can imagine I am not writing this after one reading only.'
Hence follow nine lines of further praise.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Without any doubt Jean [Gachet de la Fournière] has talent.[...] I wrote my immediate impression right after reading the manuscript.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'All these sketches have the quality without which neither beauty, nor I am afraid, truth, are effective, that is they are interesting in themselves. I've spent all yesterday with your pages [...].' Hence follow almost two pages of constructive criticism.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'I have read the story. It's marvellous in a way but we must talk it over.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'I send back "The Windlestraw" by return of post. In this sort of apologue you are simply incomparable.' Hence follows a page of praise.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'The appeal to my literary opinion was not fair. Suppose I had been in one of my cantankerous hours when the book came. But I daresay you were confident. And with reason. No native or acquired cantankerousness could resist the charm of style, the delicate simplicity of expression [...].'
Hence follow four more lines of praise.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The subject of the evening - 'English Ballads' - was then discussed in two papers, by F.J. Edminson & H.M. Wallis, and illustrated by readings recitations & songs. Recitations were given by Rosamund Wallis & Mrs Ridges. Readings by H.M. Wallis, Mrs Smith & Mrs Edminson'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
[Lengthy, uncomplimentary quote from H. E. Bates on D. H. Lawrence] 'Perhaps you would like to know who is writing this? H. E. Ballocks. I mean H. E. Bastard. That is, H. E. Bates: [Quotes H. E. Bates comparing Lawrence unfavourably to Rilke]... No, I can't go on. When will these sodding loudmouthed cunting shitstuffed pisswashed sons of poxed-up bitches learn that there is something greater than literature? A bastard who can bastard well write bastard shit like that bastard well ought to be bastard well stuffed with broken glass, the bastard.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin
'The programme on Thos Hardy & his works was as follows
Mr Binns read an interesting account of the author's life & H.M. Wallis one on the minor poems. F.E. Reynolds read selections from Tess & S.A. Reynolds from Under the Greenwood Tree'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The programme on parodies consisted of a paper by H.M. Wallis & C.I. Evans & readings by Miss Marriage, Mrs Evans, C.I. Evans, W. Binns, H.M. Wallis & Helen Rawlings'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: H.M. Wallis and Charles Evans Manuscript: Unknown
Monday, 5 December 1825: 'Dined at the Royal Society Club where as usual was a pleasant
meeting of from 20 to 25. It is a very good institution. We pay two guineas only for six
dinners in the year present or absent. Dine at 5 or rather 1/2 past 5 at the Royal hotel [...] till
half past seven then coffee and we go to the Society [...]
'Henry Mackenzie now in his eighty second year read part of an Essay on Dreams.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Mackenzie
Thursday, 23 February 1826:
'Read a little volume called the OMEN very well written, deep and powerfull language [...] it is
[John Gibson] Lockhart or I am strangely deceived -- it is passd for Wilson's though, but
Wilson has more of the falsetto of assumed sentiment, less of the depth of gloomy and
powerful feeling.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Tuesday, 14 March 1826:
'I have amused myself occasionally very pleasantly during the few last days by reading over
Lady Morgan's novel of O'Donnel which has some striking and beautiful passages of situation
and description and in the comic part is very rich and entertaining. I do not remember being
so much pleased with it at first -- there is a want of story always fatal to a book the first
reading and it is well if it gets the chance of a second [...]
'Also read again and for the third time at least Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride
and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and
characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with [...] What a pity
such a gifted creature died so early.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Tuesday, 14 March 1826:
'I have amused myself occasionally very pleasantly during the few last days by reading over
Lady Morgan's novel of O'Donnel which has some striking and beautiful passages of situation
and description and in the comic part is very rich and entertaining. I do not remember being
so much pleased with it at first -- there is a want of story always fatal to a book the first
reading and it is well if it gets the chance of a second [...]
'Also read again and for the third time at least Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride
and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and
characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with [...] What a pity
such a gifted creature died so early.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
'[J. G.] Lockhart says that [Scott] used to read aloud from Emma and Northanger Abbey to the
family circle.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
'[J. G.] Lockhart says that [Scott] used to read aloud from Emma and Northanger Abbey to the
family circle.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Tuesday, 17 October 1826:
'Read over Sir John Chiverton and Brambletye House, novels in what I may surely claim as
the stile [quotes from Jonathan Swift, "On the Death of Dr. Swift," lls. 57-8]
'"Which I was born to introduce
Refined it first and showd its use."
'They are both clever books, one in imitation of the days of chivalry, the other by John Smith
[...] dated in the time of the civil wars and introducing historical characters. I read both with
great interest during the journey [to London].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
'The book ["Siren Land"]'s certain to be well noticed -- maybe attacked too; but that's no harm. I've been delighted. There are mighty fine things there.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Of course it ["The Patrician"] isn't pure aesthetics (only Flaubert's "Salammbo" among novels is that) but even on that ground alone you have done a very fine thing.' Hence follow over a page of only slightly qualified praise for this work.
'I haven't told you half of what I thought about the book. While writing [the first time] I felt still a little "in the air" about it -- but after a second reading I felt so no longer.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'W.S. Rowntree read a paper on Dante & Florence [,] H.R. Smith explained the Vita Nuova from which Mrs W.H. Smith & Mrs Edminson read selections'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Smith Print: Book
'W.S. Rowntree read a paper on Dante & Florence [,] H.R. Smith explained the Vita Nuova from which Mrs W.H. Smith & Mrs Edminson read selections'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Edminson Print: Book
'W.S. Rowntree read a paper on Dante & Florence [,] H.R. Smith explained the Vita Nuova from which Mrs W.H. Smith & Mrs Edminson read selections'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard R. Smith Print: Book
'Miss Marriage explained fully with aid of diagrams, Dante's progress through the Inferno, selections from which were read by other members. Mr Edminson read a paper on the Purgatorio which was also supplemented with readings by various members. A. Rawlings gave a few selections from Plumtree's [sic] notes on Dante, concerning the Paradiso.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mebers of XII Book Club Print: Book
'Miss Marriage explained fully with aid of diagrams, Dante's progress through the Inferno, selections from which were read by other members. Mr Edminson read a paper on the Purgatorio which was also supplemented with readings by various members. A. Rawlings gave a few selections from Plumtree's [sic] notes on Dante, concerning the Paradiso.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club Print: Book
'Miss Marriage explained fully with aid of diagrams, Dante's progress through the Inferno, selections from which were read by other members. Mr Edminson read a paper on the Purgatorio which was also supplemented with readings by various members. A. Rawlings gave a few selections from Plumtree's [sic] notes on Dante, concerning the Paradiso.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Edminson Print: Book
'Miss Marriage explained fully with aid of diagrams, Dante's progress through the Inferno, selections from which were read by other members. Mr Edminson read a paper on the Purgatorio which was also supplemented with readings by various members. A. Rawlings gave a few selections from Plumtree's [sic] notes on Dante, concerning the Paradiso.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Marriage Print: Book
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of ‘"A Devonshire Lane compared to Marriage" by Mr Marriott' beginning ‘In a Devonshire lane as I trotted along…’
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: '“Friendship like love is but a name, Unless to one you stint the flame” Gay.' This is followed by lines clearly inspired by this, beginning “The British fabulist misleads the mind, / Friendship and love are better thus defined…’
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of '“Lines by the Princess Amelia” beginning 'Unthinking, idle, wild and young, I laughed, and danced, and talked and sung…'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of “Friendship” by the Revd Francis Murray.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of 'Verses by R. B. Sheridan Esq'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of “They may talk of scenes that are bright and fair by Thos Haynes Bailey Esq”
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of '“In Happiness Hours” By Thos Haynes Bailey Esq'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
'Thank you for the fine present.[...] While reading delightedly this little work which shines with so soft a brightness, I have for a moment been able to forget the passage of time.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I have read the MS. I have read it twice.' Hence follow 20 lines of quite strong but constructive criticism.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: typescript (see additional information
'The volume is very emphatically all right. In many respects better than I expected.' Hence follows a page of strong but constructive criticism.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
Sunday, 13 May 1827:
'Spent the day, which was delightful, wandering from place to place in the woods, sometimes reading the new and interesting volumes of Cyril Thornton, sometimes chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy which strangely alternated in my mind idly stirred by the succession of a thousand vague thoughts and fears'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Monday, 11 June 1827:
'The attendance on the committee and afterwards the Gnl meeting of the Oil Gas Company took up my morning and the rest dribbled away in correcting proofs and trifling, reading among the rest an odd volume of Vivian Grey -- clever but not so much so as to make [me] in this sultry weather go up stairs to the drawing room to seek the other volumes.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Tuesday, 18 September 1827:
'Whiled away the evening over one of Miss Austen's Novels; there is a truth of painting in her writings which always delights me. They do not it is true get above the middle classes of Society. But there she is inimitable.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Transcript of interview: 'The one [book] that I was given was Bernard Shaw. We went into a bookshop and my father said you can have any book you like which was very unwise because I plumped for the most expensive book in the shop which was 3 guineas, which was terrifically expensive when you think that someone got 2 pounds 3 shillings a week wage.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
Transcript of interview: 'We [Hilary and schoolfellows] used to recommend things to each other a lot, and we had crazes – Georgette Heyer, D.K. Broster, Cronin, Axel Munter, Hugh Walpole. And then there were F Brett Young and my own particular favourite Helen Waddell, Peter Abelard – I read that when I was about 15 and I read it almost every year for about 6 years afterwards. I loved it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
Transcript of interview: 'And another one that I loved was when I had mumps and was in the san which had a very small library and I read Still She Wished for Company which was a ghost story. And I had a soft spot for Harrison Ainsworth, who wrote historical novels about the plague, and the fire of London and so forth. I had a strong sense of the macabre. I loved Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights which I read when I was 15/16 and I was very interested in books on medical discoveries, medical research and so on.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
Transcript of interview: 'My father introduced me to the Forsyte Saga and I read all of that. Hunting Tower was the first John Buchan I read. John Dickson Carr – I loved his books.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
Transcript of interview: 'My father introduced me to the Forsyte Saga and I read all of that. Hunting Tower was the first John Buchan I read. John Dickson Carr – I loved his books.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
Transcript of interview: 'My father introduced me to the Forsyte Saga and I read all of that. Hunting Tower was the first John Buchan I read. John Dickson Carr – I loved his books.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
Transcript of interview: 'She [mother] introduced me to Dornford Yates, and I devoured him when I was about 16.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'The programme on G. Bernard Shaw & his work was then entered upon by C.E. Stansfield reading a paper on the man & his work. H.M. Wallis gave a reading from "The Doctor's Dilemma" & next F.J. Edminson, W.S. Rowntree & Percy Kaye a part reading from "Man & Superman" & C.I. Evans completed the programme by reading in the Introduction to Fabian Essays'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'The programme on G. Bernard Shaw & his work was then entered upon by C.E. Stansfield reading a paper on the man & his work. H.M. Wallis gave a reading from "The Doctor's Dilemma" & next F.J. Edminson, W.S. Rowntree & Percy Kaye a part reading from "Man & Superman" & C.I. Evans completed the programme by reading in the Introduction to Fabian Essays'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'The programme on G. Bernard Shaw & his work was then entered upon by C.E. Stansfield reading a paper on the man & his work. H.M. Wallis gave a reading from "The Doctor's Dilemma" & next F.J. Edminson, W.S. Rowntree & Percy Kaye a part reading from "Man & Superman" & C.I. Evans completed the programme by reading in the Introduction to Fabian Essays'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Edminson, Percy Kaye & Walter Rowntree Print: Book
'The programme on G. Bernard Shaw & his work was then entered upon by C.E. Stansfield reading a paper on the man & his work. H.M. Wallis gave a reading from "The Doctor's Dilemma" & next F.J. Edminson, W.S. Rowntree & Percy Kaye a part reading from "Man & Superman" & C.I. Evans completed the programme by reading in the Introduction to Fabian Essays'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield Print: Book
'Some months since I joined with other literary folks in subscribing a petition for a pension to Mrs. G- of L-n which we thought was a tribute merited by her works as an authoress and in my opinion much more by the firmness and elasticity of mind with which she had borne a succession of great domestic calamity.'
Footnote: Mrs Anne Grant, widow of minister of Laggan, and author of Letters from the Moutain, Superstitions of the Highlands, and Memoirs of a Highland Lady.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Saturday, 31 May 1828:
'I have finishd Napier's War in the Peninsula. It is written in the spirit of a Liberal but the narrative is distinct and clear and I should suppose accurate [comments further on specific points in text] [...] Good even to him untill next volume which I shall long to see.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
'We are greatly pleased with your sketches of 'German character'; your Oken, your pert Surgeon, your Schelli[n]g &c must surely be pictures from the Life. Becker says Oken and Wilhelmi are true portraits, as I described them from your letter. Above all I am glad to find both that you admire Schelling and know that you do not understand him.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Manuscript: Letter
'Dear Little Crow, I duly received your Munich Letter, and your Proofsheet Package, on two successive Wednesdays; and had reason to approve your activity and sagacity in managing so many new concerns. It was a deadening and a killing Letter that of the unfranked Proofs; more especially as it was totally superfluous, and must have been sent you by mistake alone.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Manuscript: Proofsheets
'Your sad Messenger is just arrived. I had again been cherishing Hopes, when the day of Hope was clean gone. Compose yourself, my beloved Wife, and try to feel that the great Father is Good, and can do nothing wrong, inscrutable, and stern as his ways often seem to us.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Manuscript: Letter
'Now hating to deal with ladies when they are in an unreasonable humour I have got the goodhumoured Man of Feeling to find out the lady's mind and I take on myself the task of making her peace with Lord M-' (Footnote: Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831) author of Man of Feeling).
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
'Browning's Sordello was introduced by some prefatory notes by H.M. Wallis read by E.E. Unwin. H.M. Wallis then read a paper describing the historical setting of the poem. Selections were read by Miss Marriage and C.I. Evans'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'Browning's Sordello was introduced by some prefatory notes by H.M. Wallis read by E.E. Unwin. H.M. Wallis then read a paper describing the historical setting of the poem. Selections were read by Miss Marriage and C.I. Evans'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ernest E. Unwin Manuscript: Unknown
'J.J. Cooper read a paper on Robert Bridges & some selections from his poetry. C.I. Evans dealt with Newbolt & E.E. Unwin with Masefield in a similar way. Alfred Rawlings gave brief readings from Beeching, Alice Maynell [sic] & Frogley's Voice from the Trees'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ernest E. Unwin Print: Book
'A series of readings from Maeterlinck were given by various members'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club Print: Book
Sunday, 19 July 1829:
'I read the Spae-wife of Galt. There is something good in it and the language is occasionally very forcible but he has made his story difficult to understand by adopting a region of history little known and having many heroes of the same name whom it is not easy to keep separate in his memory. Some of the traits of the Spaewife who conceits herself to be a Changeling or Ta'en away is very good indeed. His highland Chief is a kind of Caliban and speaks like Caliban a jargon never spoken on earth but full of effect for all that.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
'The Life & works of Anatole France were then dealt with in an interesting programme - an appreciation by H.R. Smith Readings - Careers for Women - F. Ridges, - Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard V. Wallis - Thais E.E. Unwin C.I. Evans & H.R. Smith'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: F. Ridges Print: Book
'The Life & works of Anatole France were then dealt with in an interesting programme - an appreciation by H.R. Smith Readings - Careers for Women - F. Ridges, - Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard V. Wallis - Thais E.E. Unwin C.I. Evans & H.R. Smith'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: V. Ridges Print: Book
'The Life & works of Anatole France were then dealt with in an interesting programme - an appreciation by H.R. Smith Readings - Careers for Women - F. Ridges, - Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard V. Wallis - Thais E.E. Unwin C.I. Evans & H.R. Smith'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ernest E. Unwin Print: Book
'The Life & works of Anatole France were then dealt with in an interesting programme - an appreciation by H.R. Smith Readings - Careers for Women - F. Ridges, - Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard V. Wallis - Thais E.E. Unwin C.I. Evans & H.R. Smith'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'The Life & works of Anatole France were then dealt with in an interesting programme - an appreciation by H.R. Smith Readings - Careers for Women - F. Ridges, - Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard V. Wallis - Thais E.E. Unwin C.I. Evans & H.R. Smith'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
'The Life & works of Anatole France were then dealt with in an interesting programme - an appreciation by H.R. Smith Readings - Careers for Women - F. Ridges, - Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard V. Wallis - Thais E.E. Unwin C.I. Evans & H.R. Smith'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
'The Meeting then considered the Life & Works of Alfred Russel Wallace. Walter S. Rowntree gave us an account of Wallace's life from the autobiography reading a number of well chosen extracts. This was followed by a paper from Henry M. Wallis on his scientific work and one from Mrs Smith on his psychical work.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The evening was then given to a series of readings from the works of Tagore, including Chitra by Helen, Janet & Alfred Rawlings
The Crescent Moon - Katherine I. Evans
King of the Dark Chamber - Violet Wallis
The Gardener - C.E. Stansfield
Post Office - C.I. Evans'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred, Helen and Janet Rawlings Print: Book
'The evening was then given to a series of readings from the works of Tagore, including Chitra by Helen, Janet & Alfred Rawlings
The Crescent Moon - Katherine I. Evans
King of the Dark Chamber - Violet Wallis
The Gardener - C.E. Stansfield
Post Office - C.I. Evans'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Evans Print: Book
'The evening was then given to a series of readings from the works of Tagore, including Chitra by Helen, Janet & Alfred Rawlings
The Crescent Moon - Katherine I. Evans
King of the Dark Chamber - Violet Wallis
The Gardener - C.E. Stansfield
Post Office - C.I. Evans'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Violet Wallis Print: Book
'The evening was then given to a series of readings from the works of Tagore, including Chitra by Helen, Janet & Alfred Rawlings
The Crescent Moon - Katherine I. Evans
King of the Dark Chamber - Violet Wallis
The Gardener - C.E. Stansfield
Post Office - C.I. Evans'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield Print: Book
'The evening was then given to a series of readings from the works of Tagore, including Chitra by Helen, Janet & Alfred Rawlings
The Crescent Moon - Katherine I. Evans
King of the Dark Chamber - Violet Wallis
The Gardener - C.E. Stansfield
Post Office - C.I. Evans'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
Saturday, 3 July 1830:
'I read Southey's Pilgrim's Progress and think of reviewing the same [...] Read Hone's Every day Book and with a better opinion of him than I expected from his anti-religious frenzy.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Sunday, 11 July 1830:
'I have begun Lawrie Todd which ought considering the author's indisputed talents to have been better. He might have laid [James Fenimore] Cowper aboard but he follows far behind. No wonder. Galt, poor fellow, was in the King's Bench when he wrote it; no whetter of genius is necessity though said to be the mother of invention.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Wednesday, 13 April 1831:
'My nap [same afternoon] was a very short one and was agreeably replaced by Basil Hall's Fragments of Voyages. Every thing about the i[n]side of a vessell is interesting and my friend has the great sense to know this is the case.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Harriet, Countess Granville to her sister, Lady Carlisle, 25 November 1829:
'We have a quantity of leisure here, and go on in a spirited manner with Dante. I am now reading a book that interests and enchants me, Sumner's "Records of the Creation."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Granville family Print: Book
'Thank you for your beautiful book, which I admired with my eyes and then read with great amusement.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'The evening was devoted to Meredith. H.M. Wallis read a most interesting paper upon Meredith's works. This gave rise to considerable discussion. Mrs Evans read from Richard Feverel. Mrs Robson - The Egoist. C.E. Stansfield introduced us to the poems of Meredith. The evening closed with the reading of [Jerry in another hand] the Juggler by C.I. Evans. This poem came as a pleasant surprise after the more obscure & difficult poems to which we had been introduced & should certainly encorage some of us to dig deeper into his poetical works.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The evening was then given up to the study of Galsworthy as an essayist & novelist. Ernest E. Unwin gave a brief introduction & read an article from Nov 1914 Scribners. Rosamund Wallis described & read from 'The Freelands', a recent novel
Mrs Rawlings described & read from 'Fraternity'
A Rawlings read from 'The Patrician'
There was considerable discussion upon the subject of novel writing & whether Galsworthy had chosen in novel writing the right medium for his moralising.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'The evening was then given up to the study of Galsworthy as an essayist & novelist. Ernest E. Unwin gave a brief introduction & read an article from Nov 1914 Scribners. Rosamund Wallis described & read from 'The Freelands', a recent novel
Mrs Rawlings described & read from 'Fraternity'
A Rawlings read from 'The Patrician'
There was considerable discussion upon the subject of novel writing & whether Galsworthy had chosen in novel writing the right medium for his moralising.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Rawlings Print: Book
'The evening was then given up to the study of Galsworthy as an essayist & novelist. Ernest E. Unwin gave a brief introduction & read an article from Nov 1914 Scribners. Rosamund Wallis described & read from 'The Freelands', a recent novel
Mrs Rawlings described & read from 'Fraternity'
A Rawlings read from 'The Patrician'
There was considerable discussion upon the subject of novel writing & whether Galsworthy had chosen in novel writing the right medium for his moralising.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings Print: Book
'The evening was then given up to the study of Galsworthy as an essayist & novelist. Ernest E. Unwin gave a brief introduction & read an article from Nov 1914 Scribners. Rosamund Wallis described & read from 'The Freelands', a recent novel
Mrs Rawlings described & read from 'Fraternity'
A Rawlings read from 'The Patrician'
There was considerable discussion upon the subject of novel writing & whether Galsworthy had chosen in novel writing the right medium for his moralising.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ernest E. Unwin Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to readings from the plays of Galsworthy. The plays thus dealt with were: Justice. A bit o' Love. Strife.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to readings from the plays of Galsworthy. The plays thus dealt with were: Justice. A bit o' Love. Strife.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to readings from the plays of Galsworthy. The plays thus dealt with were: Justice. A bit o' Love. Strife.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club Print: Book
'The members then considered Bret Harte & his work. The committee overwhelmed by the inability (through health & other unavoidable circumstances) of 3 members to introduce the [underlined] Man [end underlining] to the Club boldly inaugurated a new procedure & in the capable hands of C.I. Evans became a great success [this was for every member to furnish some facts about him - these are redacted]
We then had some readings from his works
'The Waif of the Plains' by Miss Wallis
'Luck of Roaring Camp' by Mrs Rawlings
This last was the short story with which he leaped into fame as a short-story writer of Western mining life.
Mr Evans read a story from the published biography - a book that seemed well worth reading, & Mrs Unwin read two of his poems. other members read poems & the discussion upon his work was continued. To many of us - the Secretary is one of these - the evening introduced us to a new novelist - we had heard of the short poems - 'Jim' & 'In the Tunnel' but The Luck of Roaring Camp & his other prose work are surely worthy to rank with the best.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Wallis Print: Book
'The members then considered Bret Harte & his work. The committee overwhelmed by the inability (through health & other unavoidable circumstances) of 3 members to introduce the [underlined] Man [end underlining] to the Club boldly inaugurated a new procedure & in the capable hands of C.I. Evans became a great success [this was for every member to furnish some facts about him - these are redacted]
We then had some readings from his works
'The Waif of the Plains' by Miss Wallis
'Luck of Roaring Camp' by Mrs Rawlings
This last was the short story with which he leaped into fame as a short-story writer of Western mining life.
Mr Evans read a story from the published biography - a book that seemed well worth reading, & Mrs Unwin read two of his poems. other members read poems & the discussion upon his work was continued. To many of us - the Secretary is one of these - the evening introduced us to a new novelist - we had heard of the short poems - 'Jim' & 'In the Tunnel' but The Luck of Roaring Camp & his other prose work are surely worthy to rank with the best.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Rawlings Print: Book
'The members then considered Bret Harte & his work. The committee overwhelmed by the inability (through health & other unavoidable circumstances) of 3 members to introduce the [underlined] Man [end underlining] to the Club boldly inaugurated a new procedure & in the capable hands of C.I. Evans became a great success [this was for every member to furnish some facts about him - these are redacted]
We then had some readings from his works
'The Waif of the Plains' by Miss Wallis
'Luck of Roaring Camp' by Mrs Rawlings
This last was the short story with which he leaped into fame as a short-story writer of Western mining life.
Mr Evans read a story from the published biography - a book that seemed well worth reading, & Mrs Unwin read two of his poems. Other members read poems & the discussion upon his work was continued. To many of us - the Secretary is one of these - the evening introduced us to a new novelist - we had heard of the short poems - 'Jim' & 'In the Tunnel' but The Luck of Roaring Camp & his other prose work are surely worthy to rank with the best.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ursula Unwin Print: Book
'The members then considered Bret Harte & his work. The committee overwhelmed by the inability (through health & other unavoidable circumstances) of 3 members to introduce the [underlined] Man [end underlining] to the Club boldly inaugurated a new procedure & in the capable hands of C.I. Evans became a great success [this was for every member to furnish some facts about him - these are redacted]
We then had some readings from his works
'The Waif of the Plains' by Miss Wallis
'Luck of Roaring Camp' by Mrs Rawlings
This last was the short story with which he leaped into fame as a short-story writer of Western mining life.
Mr Evans read a story from the published biography - a book that seemed well worth reading, & Mrs Unwin read two of his poems. Other members read poems & the discussion upon his work was continued. To many of us - the Secretary is one of these - the evening introduced us to a new novelist - we had heard of the short poems - 'Jim' & 'In the Tunnel' but The Luck of Roaring Camp & his other prose work are surely worthy to rank with the best.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club Print: Book
'The members then considered Bret Harte & his work. The committee overwhelmed by the inability (through health & other unavoidable circumstances) of 3 members to introduce the [underlined] Man [end underlining] to the Club boldly inaugurated a new procedure & in the capable hands of C.I. Evans became a great success [this was for every member to furnish some facts about him - these are redacted]
We then had some readings from his works
'The Waif of the Plains' by Miss Wallis
'Luck of Roaring Camp' by Mrs Rawlings
This last was the short story with which he leaped into fame as a short-story writer of Western mining life.
Mr Evans read a story from the published biography - a book that seemed well worth reading, & Mrs Unwin read two of his poems. Other members read poems & the discussion upon his work was continued. To many of us - the Secretary is one of these - the evening introduced us to a new novelist - we had heard of the short poems - 'Jim' & 'In the Tunnel' but The Luck of Roaring Camp & his other prose work are surely worthy to rank with the best.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ernest E. Unwin Print: Book
'Gilbert Murray & his work was the subject for the evening & a paper was read by H.M. Wallis. This afforded an interesting & useful introduction to the evening's subject & it was followed by several readings from his work. Mrs Rawlings read from 'The Rise of the Greek Epic' & H.M. Wallis later also read from the same book. Miss Marriage also read some extracts from one of his volumes of translations'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The rest of the evening was devoted to Bain's Indian Stories. It is impossible for one, not steeped in Indian mythology & with no knowledge of Indian life, to do justice to these extraordinary books. That they are beautiful with the overpowering scents & colours of the East is too obvious - that the author has a wonderful power of description hardly a word out of place or a jarring note is also obvious - that they are unique in literature is very likely - but --- perhaps I had better give the programme. [all extracts from]
Bubbles of the Foam by E.E. Unwin
Ashes of a God " Rosamund Wallis
Syrup of the Bees " Alfred Rawlings
In the Great God's Hair " Miss Marriage
Digit of the Moon " Mrs Reynolds
The club is indebted to Alfred Rawlings for introducing us to a new type of literature and if it left some of us gasping as with asthma in its rather overscented & sensuous atmosphere so that we longed for the moors & the winds of Heaven - others, whose breathing organs can cope with this Eastern air & whose palates are tickled by The Syrup of the Bees will feel that a new star has entered their literary constellation.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ernest E. Unwin Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to Bain's Indian Stories. It is impossible for one, not steeped in Indian mythology & with no knowledge of Indian life, to do justice to these extraordinary books. That they are beautiful with the overpowering scents & colours of the East is too obvious - that the author has a wonderful power of description hardly a word out of place or a jarring note is also obvious - that they are unique in literature is very likely - but --- perhaps I had better give the programme. [all extracts from]
Bubbles of the Foam by E.E. Unwin
Ashes of a God " Rosamund Wallis
Syrup of the Bees " Alfred Rawlings
In the Great God's Hair " Miss Marriage
Digit of the Moon " Mrs Reynolds
The club is indebted to Alfred Rawlings for introducing us to a new type of literature and if it left some of us gasping as with asthma in its rather overscented & sensuous atmosphere so that we longed for the moors & the winds of Heaven - others, whose breathing organs can cope with this Eastern air & whose palates are tickled by The Syrup of the Bees will feel that a new star has entered their literary constellation.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to Bain's Indian Stories. It is impossible for one, not steeped in Indian mythology & with no knowledge of Indian life, to do justice to these extraordinary books. That they are beautiful with the overpowering scents & colours of the East is too obvious - that the author has a wonderful power of description hardly a word out of place or a jarring note is also obvious - that they are unique in literature is very likely - but --- perhaps I had better give the programme. [all extracts from]
Bubbles of the Foam by E.E. Unwin
Ashes of a God " Rosamund Wallis
Syrup of the Bees " Alfred Rawlings
In the Great God's Hair " Miss Marriage
Digit of the Moon " Mrs Reynolds
The club is indebted to Alfred Rawlings for introducing us to a new type of literature and if it left some of us gasping as with asthma in its rather overscented & sensuous atmosphere so that we longed for the moors & the winds of Heaven - others, whose breathing organs can cope with this Eastern air & whose palates are tickled by The Syrup of the Bees will feel that a new star has entered their literary constellation.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to Bain's Indian Stories. It is impossible for one, not steeped in Indian mythology & with no knowledge of Indian life, to do justice to these extraordinary books. That they are beautiful with the overpowering scents & colours of the East is too obvious - that the author has a wonderful power of description hardly a word out of place or a jarring note is also obvious - that they are unique in literature is very likely - but --- perhaps I had better give the programme. [all extracts from]
Bubbles of the Foam by E.E. Unwin
Ashes of a God " Rosamund Wallis
Syrup of the Bees " Alfred Rawlings
In the Great God's Hair " Miss Marriage
Digit of the Moon " Mrs Reynolds
The club is indebted to Alfred Rawlings for introducing us to a new type of literature and if it left some of us gasping as with asthma in its rather overscented & sensuous atmosphere so that we longed for the moors & the winds of Heaven - others, whose breathing organs can cope with this Eastern air & whose palates are tickled by The Syrup of the Bees will feel that a new star has entered their literary constellation.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Marriage Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to Bain's Indian Stories. It is impossible for one, not steeped in Indian mythology & with no knowledge of Indian life, to do justice to these extraordinary books. That they are beautiful with the overpowering scents & colours of the East is too obvious - that the author has a wonderful power of description hardly a word out of place or a jarring note is also obvious - that they are unique in literature is very likely - but --- perhaps I had better give the programme. [all extracts from]
Bubbles of the Foam by E.E. Unwin
Ashes of a God " Rosamund Wallis
Syrup of the Bees " Alfred Rawlings
In the Great God's Hair " Miss Marriage
Digit of the Moon " Mrs Reynolds
The club is indebted to Alfred Rawlings for introducing us to a new type of literature and if it left some of us gasping as with asthma in its rather overscented & sensuous atmosphere so that we longed for the moors & the winds of Heaven - others, whose breathing organs can cope with this Eastern air & whose palates are tickled by The Syrup of the Bees will feel that a new star has entered their literary constellation.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Florence Reynolds Print: Book
'The meeting then considered the work of H.G. Wells. The chief item of interest was undoubtedly a paper by Henry M. Wallis upon Wells's romances but a better title would be 'A Critique of the Wells Method in Story-writing'. This was certainly one of the ablest papers which H.M.W. has contributed to the Book Club in recent years and gave rise to interesting discussion. R.H. Robson read one of the short stories to illustrate this side of Wells's literary works. Mrs Smith read a paper upon Mankind in the Making and Mary Hayward dealt with the novels, showing by extracts his views upon the English middle class, marriage, social life & religion.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
Isaac D'Israeli to John Murray (1815):
'I have just finished Miss Williams's narrative [...] I consider it a [italics]a capital work[end
italics], written with great skill, talent, and care; full of curious and new developments, and
some facts which we did not know before. There breathes through the whole a most attractive
spirit, and her feelings sometimes break out in the most beautiful effusions [...] it must be
popular, as it is the most entertaining [book] imaginable; one of those books one does not like
to quit before finishing it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Isaac D'Israeli Print: Book
Isaac D'Israeli to John Murray (1815):
'I have just finished Miss Williams's narrative [...] I consider it a [italics]a capital work[end
italics], written with great skill, talent, and care; full of curious and new developments, and
some facts which we did not know before. There breathes through the whole a most attractive
spirit, and her feelings sometimes break out in the most beautiful effusions [...] it must be
popular, as it is the most entertaining [book] imaginable; one of those books one does not like
to quit before finishing it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Isaac D'Israeli Print: Book
William Gifford to John Murray (1815):
'I have for the first time looked into "Pride and Prejudice;" and it is really a very pretty thing. No
dark passages; no secret chambers; no wind-howlings in long galleries; no drops of blood upon
a rusty dagger -- things that should now be left to ladies' maids and sentimental washerwomen.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Wiliam Gifford Print: Book
William Gifford to John Murray, 29 September 1815:
'I have read "Pride and Prejudice [italics]again[end italics] -- 'tis very good -- wretchedly
printed, and so pointed as to be almost un-intelligible. make no apology for sending me anything
to read or revise. I am always happy to do either, in the thought that I may be useful to you.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Wiliam Gifford Print: Book
William Gifford to John Murray, 29 September 1815:
'I have read "Pride and Prejudice [italics]again[end italics] -- 'tis very good -- wretchedly
printed, and so pointed as to be almost un-intelligible. Make no apology for sending me
anything to read or revise. I am always happy to do either, in the thought that I may be useful
to you [...]
'Of "Emma," I have nothing but good to say. I was sure of the writer before you mentioned
her. The MS., thought plainly written, has yet some, indeed many little omissions; and an
expression may now and then be amended in passing through the press. I will readily
undertake the revision.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Wiliam Gifford Manuscript: Unknown
'Essays were then read. The Secretary does not feel able to do more than indicate the general nature of these essays.
1. Read by R.H. Robson. An essay written by H.M.W. about the remains of an altar stone found near Carthage. Vivid & interesting, bloodstained though the stone was, with human sacrifice.
2. Mrs Smith read a very interesting paper dealing with the mind & its training. 'My mind to me a kingdom is'. Considerable discussion followed.
3. Mr Stansfield read a fantasia (written surely by a historian. R.H.R.) relating the musings of Mendax II giving expression to a cynical prophecy of European politics if events evolved or devolved along present lines. We hope that the assassination of Ld. George by a Quaker pacifist & the suppression of L.P.S. will not be fulfilled.
4. E.E. Unwin read a paper entitled 'The Humours of Man' which consisted of a number of humorous stories lightly linked together'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson Manuscript: Unknown
'Balzac
We were introduced by Henry M. Wallis to the novels of Balzac by an introduction to & readings from The Wild Asses Skin. A general discussion on the novel & the author followed and Mrs Unwin read some extracts from an article upon Balzac published some few years ago in 'Everyman'. [these extracts, summarising Balzac's career are quoted at length]
Mrs Robson read from 'Le Pere Goriot' 'Old Goriot'
Rosamund Wallis read 'Christ in Flanders' with its fine description of a ferryboat in a storm & the mysterious stranger who lead [sic] those who had faith walking over the waters to safety when the boat capsized'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'Balzac
We were introduced by Henry M. Wallis to the novels of Balzac by an introduction to & readings from The Wild Asses Skin. A general discussion on the novel & the author followed and Mrs Unwin read some extracts from an article upon Balzac published some few years ago in 'Everyman'. [these extracts, summarising Balzac's career are quoted at length]
Mrs Robson read from 'Le Pere Goriot' 'Old Goriot'
Rosamund Wallis read 'Christ in Flanders' with its fine description of a ferryboat in a storm & the mysterious stranger who lead [sic] those who had faith walking over the waters to safety when the boat capsized'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'Balzac
We were introduced by Henry M. Wallis to the novels of Balzac by an introduction to & readings from The Wild Asses Skin. A general discussion on the novel & the author followed and Mrs Unwin read some extracts from an article upon Balzac published some few years ago in 'Everyman'. [these extracts, summarising Balzac's career are quoted at length]
Mrs Robson read from 'Le Pere Goriot' 'Old Goriot'
Rosamund Wallis read 'Christ in Flanders' with its fine description of a ferryboat in a storm & the mysterious stranger who lead [sic] those who had faith walking over the waters to safety when the boat capsized'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Robson Print: Book
'Balzac
We were introduced by Henry M. Wallis to the novels of Balzac by an introduction to & readings from The Wild Asses Skin. A general discussion on the novel & the author followed and Mrs Unwin read some extracts from an article upon Balzac published some few years ago in 'Everyman'. [these extracts, summarising Balzac's career are quoted at length]
Mrs Robson read from 'Le Pere Goriot' 'Old Goriot'
Rosamund Wallis read 'Christ in Flanders' with its fine description of a ferryboat in a storm & the mysterious stranger who lead [sic] those who had faith walking over the waters to safety when the boat capsized'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'The subject of the evening's programme was John Keats. R.H. Robson read an essay dealing with his life. The main influences & friendships of his short life were well brought out. H.M. Wallis folowed with an appreciation written in the delightful style of which our Friend is so great a master & a reading of the Grecian Urn ode by Miss Marriage completed the first part of the programme. On our return from physical refreshment Charles I. Evans described the Poems of 1820 and some readings were given by Mrs Evans, Mrs Robson & C.E. Stansfield.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The subject of the evening's programme was John Keats. R.H. Robson read an essay dealing with his life. The main influences & friendships of his short life were well brought out. H.M. Wallis folowed with an appreciation written in the delightful style of which our Friend is so great a master & a reading of the Grecian Urn ode by Miss Marriage completed the first part of the programme. On our return from physical refreshment Charles I. Evans described the Poems of 1820 and some readings were given by Mrs Evans, Mrs Robson & C.E. Stansfield.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Marriage Print: Book
'The subject of the evening's programme was John Keats. R.H. Robson read an essay dealing with his life. The main influences & friendships of his short life were well brought out. H.M. Wallis folowed with an appreciation written in the delightful style of which our Friend is so great a master & a reading of the Grecian Urn ode by Miss Marriage completed the first part of the programme. On our return from physical refreshment Charles I. Evans described the Poems of 1820 and some readings were given by Mrs Evans, Mrs Robson & C.E. Stansfield.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Evans Print: Book
'The subject of the evening's programme was John Keats. R.H. Robson read an essay dealing with his life. The main influences & friendships of his short life were well brought out. H.M. Wallis folowed with an appreciation written in the delightful style of which our Friend is so great a master & a reading of the Grecian Urn ode by Miss Marriage completed the first part of the programme. On our return from physical refreshment Charles I. Evans described the Poems of 1820 and some readings were given by Mrs Evans, Mrs Robson & C.E. Stansfield.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Robson Print: Book
'The subject of the evening's programme was John Keats. R.H. Robson read an essay dealing with his life. The main influences & friendships of his short life were well brought out. H.M. Wallis folowed with an appreciation written in the delightful style of which our Friend is so great a master & a reading of the Grecian Urn ode by Miss Marriage completed the first part of the programme. On our return from physical refreshment Charles I. Evans described the Poems of 1820 and some readings were given by Mrs Evans, Mrs Robson & C.E. Stansfield.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield Print: Book
'The subject of the evening's programme was John Keats. R.H. Robson read an essay dealing with his life. The main influences & friendships of his short life were well brought out. H.M. Wallis folowed with an appreciation written in the delightful style of which our Friend is so great a master & a reading of the Grecian Urn ode by Miss Marriage completed the first part of the programme. On our return from physical refreshment Charles I. Evans described the Poems of 1820 and some readings were given by Mrs Evans, Mrs Robson & C.E. Stansfield.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'The subject of the evening's programme was John Keats. R.H. Robson read an essay dealing with his life. The main influences & friendships of his short life were well brought out. H.M. Wallis folowed with an appreciation written in the delightful style of which our Friend is so great a master & a reading of the Grecian Urn ode by Miss Marriage completed the first part of the programme. On our return from physical refreshment Charles I. Evans described the Poems of 1820 and some readings were given by Mrs Evans, Mrs Robson & C.E. Stansfield.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'The evening then became a 'Comic One'. The chief contribution was a paper by H.M. Wallis on 'the Comic' as reflected in the works of the writers of last century. Readings were given & stories told as illustrations'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The main business of the evening was then proceeded with - 5 mins essays upon some book read recently.
Mrs Evans read 'An English Lumber Camp' - from internal evidence it is probably true that this was an essay drawn from real life rather than from any book read. It was a magnificent literary effort in the author's best style. Perhaps more of 'H.M.W.' than 'Ashton Hillier'.
Mrs Smith read a paper upon 'The Garden of Survival' a book by Alg. Blackwood. The paper gave rise to much interest. The extraordinary beauty of the extracts read from the book and the insight into the spiritual meaning of 'Guidance' displayed by the author impressed us all.
Ernest E. Unwin read a paper on 'The End of a Chapter' by Shane Leslie - this paper was written by H.M. Wallis & introduced most of us to a new writer of power. The change in the world, in the balance of the classes & their future importance formed the theme of the book.
Mary Hayward described her discovery of 'The Story of my Heart' by Richard Jefferies & read some extracts from it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ernest E. Unwin Manuscript: Unknown
'The main business of the evening was then proceeded with - 5 mins essays upon some book read recently.
Mrs Evans read 'An English Lumber Camp' - from internal evidence it is probably true that this was an essay drawn from real life rather than from any book read. It was a magnificent literary effort in the author's best style. Perhaps more of 'H.M.W.' than 'Ashton Hillier'.
Mrs Smith read a paper upon 'The Garden of Survival' a book by Alg. Blackwood. The paper gave rise to much interest. The extraordinary beauty of the extracts read from the book and the insight into the spiritual meaning of 'Guidance' displayed by the author impressed us all.
Ernest E. Unwin read a paper on 'The End of a Chapter' by Shane Leslie - this paper was written by H.M. Wallis & introduced most of us to a new writer of power. The change in the world, in the balance of the classes & their future importance formed the theme of the book.
Mary Hayward described her discovery of 'The Story of my Heart' by Richard Jefferies & read some extracts from it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Ann Smith Print: Book
'Since the age of five I have been a great reader [...]. At ten years of age I had read much of Victor Hugo and other romantics. I had read in Polish and in French, history, voyages, novels; I knew "Gil Blas" and "Don Quixote" in abridged editions; I had read in early boyhood Polish poets and some French poets, but I cannot say what I read on the evening [in September 1889] before I began to write myself. I believe it was a novel, and it is quite possible that it was one of Anthony Trollope's novels. It is very likely. My acquatance with him was then very recent. He is one of the English novelists whose works I read for the first time in English. With men of European reputation, with Dickens and Walter Scott and Thackeray, it was otherwise. My first introduction to English imaginative literature was "Nicholas Nickleby". It was extraordinary how well Mrs. Nickleby could chatter disconnectedly in Polish [...] It was, I have no doubt an excellent translation. This must have been in the year 1870.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
Books read by William Lygon, seventh Earl Beauchamp (politician, 1872-1938) to his daughters Lettice (1906-73) and Sibell (1907-2005) between June 1915 and December 1916 at Madresfield Court, Worcestershire:
The Tapestry Room (Mrs Molesworth)
The Pigeon Pie (Charlotte M. Yonge)
Lilian’s Golden Hours (Eliza Meteyard)
The Christmas Child (Hesba Stretton)
Wandering Willie (from Scott’s Redgauntlet?)
The Talisman (Walter Scott)
Ivanhoe (Walter Scott)
St Ives (Robert Louis Stevenson)
Theodora Phranza (J. M. Neale)
The House of Walderne (A. D. Crake)
The Black Arrow (Robert Louis Stevenson)
The Caged Lion (Charlotte M. Yonge)
The Little Duke (Charlotte M. Yonge)
The Jungle Books (Rudyard Kipling)
The Maltese Cat (Rudyard Kipling)
Boscobel (William Harrison Ainsworth)
Puck of Pook’s Hill (Rudyard Kipling)
Rewards and Fairies (Rudyard Kipling)
The Armourer’s Apprentice (Charlotte M. Yonge)
and some poetry.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Lygon, seventh Earl Beauchamp Print: Book
'Since the age of five I have been a great reader [...]. At ten years of age I had read much of Victor Hugo and other romantics. I had read in Polish and in French, history, voyages, novels; I knew "Gil Blas" and "Don Quixote" in abridged editions; I had read in early boyhood Polish poets and some French poets, but I cannot say what I read on the evening [in September 1889] before I began to write myself. I believe it was a novel, and it is quite possible that it was one of Anthony Trollope's novels.It is very likely.My acquatance with him was then very recent. He is one of the English novelists whose works I read for the first time in English. With men of European reputation, with Dickens and Walter Scott and Thackeray, it was otherwise. My first introduction to English imaginative literature was "Nicholas Nickleby". It was extraordinary how well Mrs. Nickleby could chatter disconnectedly in Polish [...] It was, I have no doubt an excellent translation. This must have been in the year 1870.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
A rare thing this literature or love of fame or notoriety which accompanies it. Here is Mr H.M. [Henry Mackenzie] on the very brink of human dissolution as actively anxious about it as if the curtain must not soon be closed on that and every thing else...No man is less known from his writings.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 22 December 1821:
'I am happy to tell you that your Review is abominably bad -- happy for your sake, because, as you will, I dare say, sell 12,000, it only shows that you have an estate which produces wholly independent of its culture. All that ridiculous importance given to Dupin, a wretched ecrivasseur, and that affectation of naval statistics, I think very unsuitable. Your "Alchemy" is appropriate enough, great elaboration and pomp of work ending in smoke and dross. If Dalzell's "Lectures" are as obscure and dull as your commentary, they were not worth reviewing, no more than the commentary is worth reading [...] The article on Hazlitt is good, and that on the Scotch novels [italics]excellent[end italics].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Serial / periodical
The Marchioness of Abercorn to John Murray, 4 December 1817, in reponse to a gift of books:
'[The Marquess of Abercorn] returns Walpole, as he says since the age of fifteen he has read so much Grecian history and antiquity that he has these last ten years been sick of the subject. He does not like Ellis's account of "The Embassy to China," but is pleased with Macleod's narrative. He bids me tell you to say the best and what is least obnoxious of the [former] book. The composition and the narrative are so thoroughly wretched that he should be ashamed to let it stand in his library.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Marquess of Abercorn Print: Book
The Marchioness of Abercorn to John Murray, in reponse to a gift of books:
'Lord Abercorn says he thinks your conduct with respect to sending books back that he does not like is particularly liberal. He bids me tell you how very much he likes Mr. Macleod's book; we had seen some of it in manuscript before it was published.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lord and Lady Abercorn Manuscript: Unknown
The Marchioness of Abercorn to John Murray (1817-18):
'Pray send us Miss Austen's novels the moment you can. Lord Abercorn thinks them next to W. Scott's (if they [i.e. "W. Scott's" novels] are by W. Scott); it is a great pity that we shall have no more of hers.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lord Abercorn Print: Book
William Lamb to John Murray, 20 December 1822:
'The incongruity of, and objections to, the story of "Ada Reis" can only be got over by power of writing, beauty of sentiment, striking and effective situation, &c. [...] Mr. [William] Gifford [Murray's reader], I dare say, will agree with me that since the time of Lucian all the representations of the infernal regions, which have been attempted by satirical writers, such as Fielding's "Journey from this World to the Next," have been feeble and flat. The sketch in "Ada Reis" is commonplace in its observations and altogether insufficient [...] I think, if it were thought that anything could be done with the novel, and that the faults of its design and structure can be got over, that I could put her [i.e Lady Caroline Lamb] in the way of writing up this part a little, and giving it something of strength, spirit, and novelty, and making it at once more moral and more interesting. I wish you would communicate these my hasty suggestions to Mr. Gifford, and he will see the propriety of pressing Lady Caroline to take a little more time to this part of the novel. She will be guided by his authority, and her fault at present is to be too hasty and too impatient of the trouble of correcting and recasting what is faulty.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: The Hon. William Lamb Manuscript: Unknown
'The evening was then devoted to a reading of Drinkwater 'Abraham Lincoln' - most members taking part'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: members of XII Book Club Print: Book
'The meeting then considered the works of Thomas Hardy. H.M. Wallis gave a paper outlining the main features of Hardy's life and gave some idea of the succession of works and a general criticism of his writing. The announced programme for the evening then came to an abrupt end - for health kept Mr Evans away & Mr Stansfield also was unable to come, and these two members had arranged to introduce the novels & poems of Hardy & also to start a discussion upon Hardy's religious views. We were very sorry to miss our friends & their contribution & hope that we may have another evening upon Hardy at some future time. To fill this gap in our programme H.M. Wallis told in his graphic way the short story called The 3 Travellers & Rosamund Wallis read the wife auction scene from 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' & the Secretary read a critique by Lawrence Binyon on the poems of Hardy'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
Sir Alexander Burnes to John Murray, 'On the Nile,' 30 March 1835:
'The Quarterly is lying before me [...] I have been reperusing the very article which
treats of Mahommed Ali in that able essay regarding the encroachment of Russia.
The Journal from which the quotations are made regarding the state and
government of Egypt prove the writer to have been an accurate and an acute
observer, but I do think that he has been too severe on the Pasha. To be sure he
[Pasha] is a wholesale merchant and a wholesale oppressor, but compare him with
his predecessors in this land of bondsmen, and then judge [comments further].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Alexander Burnes Print: Serial / periodical
Fanny Kemble Butler to John Murray, 26 March 1836:
'Surely Captain Marryat is not a man to be trifled with; he don't write as if he were. How much I like his books, and how much I should like to know him!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Kemble Butler Print: Book
'Why the hell did you or your printers - a lousy lot whom I abominate - pass over a correction of mine and send me sprawling down to posterity as an ignoramus who thought the Ill-Favoured Ones were in the first part; when I was nine years old, I knew better than that. Christian never saw 'em; they were people who attacked women, a point really felt by Miss Bagster, God bless her old heart.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'O boy, I'm deep in Lanfry.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'His Majesty, once more disobeying the Dook's orders, had granted to some creature an Irish peerage. 'I observe' wrote Arthur (I quote from memory), that your Majesty has been misinformed. I shall reserve the patent until I have an opportunity of learning your Majesty's pleasure upon it!!' O the groans of George, who knew his man, and whimpered under the rod.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'A play-reading of Galsworthy's Skin-Game was then given. The members taking part were as follows
Hillcrest R.H. Robson
Amy, his wife Miss Marriage
Jill his daughter Miss R. Wallis
Dawker his agent R.B. Graham
Hornblower E.E. Unwin
Charles his soldier son S.A. Reynolds
Chloe wife to Charles Miss M. Hayward
Rolf his younger son R.B. Graham
Fellows & Anna Mrs Unwin
the Jackmans Mr & Mrs H.R. Smith
An auctioneer H.R. Smith
The reading was much enjoyed & gave rise to a short but interesting discussion as to Galsworthy's meaning. R.B. Graham put forward an interesting suggestion that the play was symbolic of the struggle seen in the war.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of the XII Book club Print: Book
W. J. Broderip to John Murray, submitting Captain W. Cornwallis Harris's Wild Sports in South
Africa, 8 April 1839:
'Capt. Harris's book is entertaining, and seems to be the work of an honest man devoted to
sport, and not caring what he suffers provided he gets his shot [...] There is a little expression
here and there in the Captain's book, that might be changed for the better -- such as a
rhinoceros giving up "the ghost"!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: W. J. Broderip Manuscript: Unknown
'I have your List of Writings etc: a copy of it was lent to me by Mr Bain the bookseller.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
Included in Reading Notes of Edward Pordage (c.1710):
Notes on memory from Francis Bacon's Of the proficience and advancement of learning
(1605).
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Pordage Print: Book
'The following miscellaneous programme was then gone through. This change in the subject was caused by the imposibility of getting cheap copies of The Dynasts.
1. Pianoforte solo. Selection from Debusy [sic] Miss Bowman Smith
2. Reading. Modern Froissart Chronicles Mrs W.H. Smith
3. Reading. Migrations. Anon. Contrib. from Punch by Alfred Rawlings
4. Recitation. In a Gondola (Browning) Miss Cole
5. Song. 2 French Bergerettes. Mrs Unwin
6. Essay. 'The Pious Atrocity' R.B. Graham
7. Reading. Wedding Presents (Punch) Mrs Reynolds
8. Song. My dear Soul. Mrs Robson
9. Reading 'How the Camel got his Hump' W.H. Smith
10. Song. The Camel's hump. E.E. Unwin
11. Reading. The Man of the Evening (A.A. Milne Punch) Miss R. Wallis
12. Song. Hebrides Galley Song. Miss Bowman Smith
13. Reading. Arms of Wipplecrack S.A. Reynolds
14. Reading. Joints in the Armour. E.V. Lucas. H.M. Wallis
15. Song-Chant Folk Song [ditto]
16. Essay. 'Bad morality & bad art' R.H. Robson
17. Song. Winter. Miss Bowman Smith
18. Essay 'Etaples & the air raids' H.R. Smith
19. Recitation. These new fangled ways. E.E. Unwin
20. Song. Goodnight. Mrs Robson'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Ann Smith Print: Book
'the rest of the evening was devoted to Browning's The Ring & the Book. Henry M. Wallis read a masterly paper in introduction. This enabled those who had not read the long poem to understand the story & the way in which Browning treated the story. The success of the evening was largely due to this introduction. The story from several standpoints was then dealt with by members of the club.
R.H. Robson read a description of the 1st Guido
A. Rawlings read extracts from the book Capansacchi
Mrs Evans [ditto] Pompilia
Mr Gidham [ditto] Pope
Mr Robson [ditto] Guido in prison'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The subject before the meeting was Thomas Love Peacock, novelist & poet. H.M. Wallis read an introductory paper which gave us the facts of Peacock's life & a general account of his writings. Extracts from his works were read
C.I. Evans The War Songs [sic] of Dinas Vawr
Miss Cole Love & Age
E.E. Unwin extracts from Nightmare Abbey
R.B. Graham Some of the poems from his novels
C.I. Evans Three men of Gotham'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'When not in the curiosity shops, or examining and washing her [ceramic] purchases in the hotel, Lady Charlotte read a great deal. After revelling "in that pleasant life of Macaulay" she started on Pride and Prejudice.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
1 July 1876, from Brussels:
'I have been studiously reading four of Miss Austen's novels, incited thereto by Macaulay's praise, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Mansfield Park. I like the first least of all; I think I like the last the best, but I cannot quite make up my mind to whether I am alive to their very great merit. For the epoch at which they appeared, some sixty years ago, they are very remarkable.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
1 July 1876, from Brussels:
'I have been studiously reading four of Miss Austen's novels, incited thereto by Macaulay's praise, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Mansfield Park. I like the first least of all; I think I like the last the best, but I cannot quite make up my mind to whether I am alive to their very great merit. For the epoch at which they appeared, some sixty years ago, they are very remarkable.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
1 July 1876, from Brussels:
'I have been studiously reading four of Miss Austen's novels, incited thereto by Macaulay's praise, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Mansfield Park. I like the first least of all; I think I like the last the best, but I cannot quite make up my mind to whether I am alive to their very great merit. For the epoch at which they appeared, some sixty years ago, they are very remarkable.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
1 July 1876, from Brussels:
'I have been studiously reading four of Miss Austen's novels, incited thereto by Macaulay's praise, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Mansfield Park. I like the first least of all; I think I like the last the best, but I cannot quite make up my mind to whether I am alive to their very great merit. For the epoch at which they appeared, some sixty years ago, they are very remarkable.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
2 July 1876, from Brussels:
'After I went to bed I read over that wonderful part of Macaulay's History, the death of Charles II, and was quite excited by it, when I dropped asleep about 1 a.m.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
27 May 1878:
'Up early and off by the 11.30 train [from Fulda] to Berlin. They have a curious plan at Fulda of sounding the reveille at 4 o'clock in the morning [...] I first heard it on the Sunday. I was already awake and reading Disraeli's Sybil, which has interested us [Lady Charlotte and her husband Charles, a Conservative politician] by reason of the political opinions expressed in it. I finished the book today on the way to Berlin.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
27 May 1878:
'Up early and off by the 11.30 train [from Fulda] to Berlin. They have a curious plan at Fulda of sounding the reveille at 4 o'clock in the morning [...] I first heard it on the Sunday. I was already awake and reading Disraeli's Sybil, which has interested us [Lady Charlotte and her husband Charles, a Conservative politician] by reason of the political opinions expressed in it. I finished the book today on the way to Berlin.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
19 June 1878:
'A really warm day, quite summer at last. I did not go out till after dinner. I have finished Alroy, and am reading Wilhelm Meister.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
[between journal entries for 20 October and 1 November 1879] 'Lady Charlotte had now for the moment deserted Shakespeare of an evening for Harrison Ainsworth's South Sea Bubble and John Law.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
1 November 1879:
'We left Bruges by an early train, the express, joining the steamer at Ostend, and had a beautiful passage home reading Disraeli's pamphlet, which has given me great pleasure, especially by his descriptions of the scenes [in Syria and Cyprus] that Enid [reader's daughter] had been lately visiting.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber
'I won't say anything of "The Pigeon"-- except that it reads admirably and that I have been fascinated by the theme and the handling of the personages.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad
'And now more thanks for the book [" Le Nègre aux Etats-Unis"]. You have a most attractive French style--and very French it is too and yet with something individual-- and even racial--glowing through it and adding to the fascination of the perfectly simple diction.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'[...] the volume ["Charity"] which on my first visit to London in many months I carried off home. From the first word of the wonderful preface to the last short sketch of the Pampa as it was, it has been one huge delight. Of course some of these stories--gems--I've read (The incomparable "Aurora" is a long time ago first) but the cumulative effect is magnificent in its pictorial force and emotional power.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I am delighted and honoured by your gift of an inscribed copy [presumably of "Voices of Tomorrow" but see additional comment]. It is with great pleasure that I discover in myself an intellectual (or perhaps instinctive) sympathy for what you say in your book with such force, clearness and conviction. In the article on myself what I see first is the generosity of your appreciation.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book, Serial / periodical, see additional comment
'This ["Fountains in the Sand"] is first rate. I have seldom read prose d'une si belle tonalité.' Hence follow 23 lines of praise and constructive commentary.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book, Serial / periodical
'If the novel at which he [Warrington Dawson] is working now and of which he read me the first four chapters is, as a whole, up to that sample then it is distinctly stuff that can be handled.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Warrington Dawson Manuscript: Unknown
'It's ["The Inn of Tranquillity"] wholly excellent and certainly fascinating.[...] Of course I had read many of the papers before.' Hence follow ten lines of praise for this collection of stories.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Sunday morning, as I was out getting chocolate, I found two new manifestoes on the walls. One from a private person, editor of a Radical journal, calling on the people to be calm, and rest on the weight of their majority. The other, a declaration of the President’s, which made me so mad that I could have broken his head if he had been within my reach. It was written, I firmly believe, with the intention of driving on the Republicans to extremities, and shook the cat in the air with a sort of paternal menace, that must have been maddening to the Opposition.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Poster, election posters.
'[Tristan] Bernard is very engaging. I do not know why but he is.[...] It is very good of you to have sent me that volume with the others. [Elémir] Bourges--ah, that's another matter.There are magnificent pages there. But all together more than anything else, it's surprising. You say to yourself: so that is "Le Crépuscule des Dieux"! And you continue to be struck by the poverty of the subject.[...]. You told me to start with that book. After finishing it I opened the other ["Les oiseaux s'en volent et les fleurs tombent"]. It moved me by its splendour, the colours, the movement.' Hence follow 16 lines of reserved comment.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I was thoroughly charmed by the volumes of verse. I read them with the liveliest sympathy and sincere admiration. The study of Pierre Loti is very interesting. What's more I think nothing could be fairer. As for "L'enseignement de Goethe" I am all the more inclined to accept it from your hand since I have never read a line of the Great Man. I don't know German and I quail before translations.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I was thoroughly charmed by the volumes of verse. I read them with the liveliest sympathy and sincere admiration. The study of Pierre Loti is very interesting. What's more I think nothing could be fairer. As for "L'enseignement de Goethe" I am all the more inclined to accept it from your hand since I have never read a line of the Great Man. I don't know German and I quail before translations.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I was thoroughly charmed by the volumes of verse. I read them with the liveliest sympathy and sincere admiration. The study of Pierre Loti is very interesting. What's more I think nothing could be fairer. As for "L'enseignement de Goethe" I am all the more inclined to accept it from your hand since I have never read a line of the Great Man. I don't know German and I quail before translations.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The novel --Good! Très fort!! As Pinker could not have done much with it before Easter I held it up here for a second reading.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'Just a word to tell you I have finished your Mother's book ["A Confederate Girl's Diary"]. Admirable.' Hence follow 14 lines of praise.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Proofs (see letter and fn.3 p.243 of source text)
'I am sending today the "Grand Elixir" to London.[...] That the story is clever, that the writing is in many respects admirable there can be no doubt.' Hence follow 12 lines of constructive criticism.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'It is dificult to express the joy I felt at the arrival of the "Complete Works of M. Barnabooth".[...].The first reading of the "Journal Intime" makes an unforgettable impression.' Hence follow 16 lines of unqualified praise.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'That's why [an attack of gout] I did not write to thank you for your book ["A Hatchment"] (and the Ranee's) ["My Life in Sarawak"] as soon as I ought to have done. Upon my word it's a marvellous volume [...]. The Ranee's book is delightfully ladylike but her sentiment for the land and the people is so obviously genuine that all her sins of omission shall be forgiven her.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to John Bunyan. H.R. Smith read a paper dealing with the main episodes of his life. This was a valuable introduction and gave the right historical & religious setting of Bunyan. C.E. Stansfield read an Appreciation of Pilgrim's Progress & of the writing of Bunyan. He referred to Bunyan & Milton as the two writers who expressed most completely the Puritan ideal. He expected Pilgrim's Progress to live as it expressed the universal quest of mankind. There were several readings from Bunyan's works which added greatly to the interest. Mrs Smith read from 'Grace Abounding' the book which is his spiritual autobiography.
R.H. Robson read the Fight with Apollyon
C.I. Evans [ditto] The trial scene in Vanity Fair
Mrs Unwin [ditto] The Interpreter's House.
In the general discussion some doubt was expressed of C.E. Stansfield's opinion that the Pilgrim's progress will live. It was felt by some that the story will always be attractive to children, but that the puritan flavour & crude theology would prevent it becoming anything more than an interesting historical document for older people'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mrs Smith Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to John Bunyan. H.R. Smith read a paper dealing with the main episodes of his life. This was a valuable introduction and gave the right historical & religious setting of Bunyan. C.E. Stansfield read an Appreciation of Pilgrim's Progress & of the writing of Bunyan. He referred to Bunyan & Milton as the two writers who expressed most completely the Puritan ideal. He expected Pilgrim's Progress to live as it expressed the universal quest of mankind. There were several readings from Bunyan's works which added greatly to the interest. Mrs Smith read from 'Grace Abounding' the book which is his spiritual autobiography.
R.H. Robson read the Fight with Apollyon
C.I. Evans [ditto] The trial scene in Vanity Fair
Mrs Unwin [ditto] The Interpreter's House.
In the general discussion some doubt was expressed of C.E. Stansfield's opinion that the Pilgrim's progress will live. It was felt by some that the story will always be attractive to children, but that the puritan flavour & crude theology would prevent it becoming anything more than an interesting historical document for older people'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to John Bunyan. H.R. Smith read a paper dealing with the main episodes of his life. This was a valuable introduction and gave the right historical & religious setting of Bunyan. C.E. Stansfield read an Appreciation of Pilgrim's Progress & of the writing of Bunyan. He referred to Bunyan & Milton as the two writers who expressed most completely the Puritan ideal. He expected Pilgrim's Progress to live as it expressed the universal quest of mankind. There were several readings from Bunyan's works which added greatly to the interest. Mrs Smith read from 'Grace Abounding' the book which is his spiritual autobiography.
R.H. Robson read the Fight with Apollyon
C.I. Evans [ditto] The trial scene in Vanity Fair
Mrs Unwin [ditto] The Interpreter's House.
In the general discussion some doubt was expressed of C.E. Stansfield's opinion that the Pilgrim's progress will live. It was felt by some that the story will always be attractive to children, but that the puritan flavour & crude theology would prevent it becoming anything more than an interesting historical document for older people'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to John Bunyan. H.R. Smith read a paper dealing with the main episodes of his life. This was a valuable introduction and gave the right historical & religious setting of Bunyan. C.E. Stansfield read an Appreciation of Pilgrim's Progress & of the writing of Bunyan. He referred to Bunyan & Milton as the two writers who expressed most completely the Puritan ideal. He expected Pilgrim's Progress to live as it expressed the universal quest of mankind. There were several readings from Bunyan's works which added greatly to the interest. Mrs Smith read from 'Grace Abounding' the book which is his spiritual autobiography.
R.H. Robson read the Fight with Apollyon
C.I. Evans [ditto] The trial scene in Vanity Fair
Mrs Unwin [ditto] The Interpreter's House.
In the general discussion some doubt was expressed of C.E. Stansfield's opinion that the Pilgrim's progress will live. It was felt by some that the story will always be attractive to children, but that the puritan flavour & crude theology would prevent it becoming anything more than an interesting historical document for older people'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ursula Unwin Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to John Bunyan. H.R. Smith read a paper dealing with the main episodes of his life. This was a valuable introduction and gave the right historical & religious setting of Bunyan. C.E. Stansfield read an Appreciation of Pilgrim's Progress & of the writing of Bunyan. He referred to Bunyan & Milton as the two writers who expressed most completely the Puritan ideal. He expected Pilgrim's Progress to live as it expressed the universal quest of mankind. There were several readings from Bunyan's works which added greatly to the interest. Mrs Smith read from 'Grace Abounding' the book which is his spiritual autobiography.
R.H. Robson read the Fight with Apollyon
C.I. Evans [ditto] The trial scene in Vanity Fair
Mrs Unwin [ditto] The Interpreter's House.
In the general discussion some doubt was expressed of C.E. Stansfield's opinion that the Pilgrim's progress will live. It was felt by some that the story will always be attractive to children, but that the puritan flavour & crude theology would prevent it becoming anything more than an interesting historical document for older people'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield Print: Book
'Thanks for the copy of the "E.[English] R.[Review]". You won't mind me saying that your article on international politics is first rate. It has the quality of naked truth excellently and skilfully stated--a combination rare these days.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'Thanks too for the Chinese books. I have already looked at the introduction and certain sections of the "Lute [of Jade]". Very fine. Extraordinary subtle feeling I'll write more about them after getting the full taste.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
''We are so glad to know you are both flourishing. We know of your Sicilian interlude from your letter to the "Times".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Newspaper
'I keep the two books a little longer. "Shakespeare" is good.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to a reading of Oliver Cromwell by John Drinkwater'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club Print: Book
'5. The Club now considered the subject for the evening - Berkshire - & the opening paper was by H.M. Wallis who touched upon the History of the County in his inimitable way from the Piltdown race to Archbishop Laud. Alfred & his battles. Reading & the 35 religious houses & the breweries are prominent features of the story & may be responsible for the saying Piety Spiders & Pride.
6. Rosamund Wallis read a gruesome story from Thomas of Reading about a couple of Reading inhabitants who had murdered 60 people by the simple device of a trapdoor floor to the spare bedroom & a cauldron of boiling water below.
7. 3 Berkshire folksongs were then given by Mrs Robson & E.E. Unwin.
8. S.A Reynolds read a Ballad entitled 'A Berkshire Lady', though speaking as a mere male I doubt whether her conduct would be considered quite lady-like today'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The rest of the evening concerned Prehistoric Man & Woman. H.M. Wallis read a paper entitled 'The Piltdown Woman'. This was a learned & valuable paper upon the problems of prehistoric man, problems of date, of mental capacity, of relationships & of ancestry. These were dealt with in an interesting way & the paper was assisted greatly by a number of drawings giving details of the skulls & the reconstructions of facial peculiarities.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The subject of the meeting was 'Gardens' & all members were asked to bring contributions [...] The following is a list of the contributions.
C.E. Stansfield a reading from 'Paradise Lost' followed by a short essay entitled "The Lost Art of Living - A Gardener's Life"
Mary Hayward. Song "Now sleeps the crimson petals"
C.I. Evans. Two Readings. Of an Orchard. Higson. The Apple. John Burrough.
Mrs Robson. Song. "Thank God for a Garden"
Miss Cole. Recitation. 'The Flower's Name'. Browning.
E.E. Unwin. Song. "Come into the Garden Maud"
Mrs Evans. Reading from "The Small Garden Useful" dealing with the Cooking of Vegetables.
C.I. Evans. Reading. "My Garden"
interval for supper
Miss Wallis. Reading by Request 'My Garden' - a parody
Miss Cole. Recitation. Gardens. by Kipling
Miss Hayward. Song.
R.H. Robson Violin Solo
C.I. Evans. Reading. A ballad of trees & the master
Mrs Robson. Song.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'Thanks for the book ["The Little Man"]. "Abracadabra" is immense. Indeed every page is as full as it can be right through the book.'
Hence follow five more lines of praise.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'These things [proofs of "The Little Man"] are much too exquisite and poignant to be really satire even if you prefer to call them by that name.'
Hence follow twelve lines of praise.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: galley proofs
'Thanks very much for the book and the "Spectator" page.[...] These are all delightful pieces. You must autograph the book for me.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'It ["The Freelands"] is a most beautifully done thing. [...]. I kept your book for a propitious day and finished it about midnight. Then I put out the light opened the window and listened to the noise of the Zep passing nearly overhead.[...] That was the night of the second raid on London.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
' I've just finished "B[ernal] Diaz". The terminal pages of the preface are just lovely with their irresistable reference to the tempi passati. As to the book itself no personal friend of the old Conquistador could have put it together with greater skill and more tender care.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was spent in the company of Samuel Pepys (Peeps)
The Club was much indebted to H.M. Wallis and to H.R. Smith for able essays giving an outline of Pepys' life & an estimate of his character. From H.R. Smith we were introduced to Pepys as the competent official who by keenness made himself master of his job.
Readings from the diary were given by
Rosamund Wallis on "The Great Fire"
Mrs Robson on Mrs Pepys
E.E. Unwin on "The Plague"
& R.H. Robson'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The subject of the evening, 'Ballads', now occupied attention.
From an introductory paper prepared by Mary Hayward & from readings by Rosamund Wallis we learnt what a ballad is or was & is not. [this is summarised at length] The programme was divided into six parts dealing with the six main varieties of ballads. Some of these ballads were read & others were sung.
Part 1. dealing with Magic
Song The Two Musicians Mr & Mrs Unwin
Reading The Demon Lover Mr Rawlings
[ditto] Thomas the Rhymer Miss R Wallis
Part 2. Stories of Romance
Song Lord Rendel The Book Club
Reading Edward Edward (Binnorie) R.B Graham
Instead of Binnorie we were favoured by a rendering of a Berkshire version of this story by Mr Graham. In fact he broke forth into song & was assisted in the chorus refrain by the whole Club who sang with differing emphasis "And I'll be true to my love - if my love'll be true to me".
part 3. Romance Shading into History
reading Sir Patrick Spens Mr R.H. Robson
[ditto] Bonnie house of Airly [sic] Mr H.R. Smith
Part 4. Greenwood & Robin Hood
Reading Nut Brown Maid Mr & Mrs Evans
[ditto] Death of Robin Hood Mr Rawlings
H.M. Wallis read at this stage an interesting paper upon the subject [contents summarised]
Part 5. Later History
Reading Battle of Otterburn Miss Marriage
[ditto] Helen of Kirconnel H.M. Wallis
Part 6. Showing gradual decline
Song Bailiff's Daughter of Islington Mrs Robson
Reading Undaunted Mary Mrs Rawlings
Song Mowing the Barley All
Song The Wealthy Farmer's Son Mr & Mrs Unwin'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
[between journal entries for 26 January and 29 September 1881]
'When Parliament adjourned for a recess in April Charles Schreiber [M.P.] was obliged to go to Liverpool to look after a nephew and niece there: Lady Charlotte accompanied him [...] In an entry in her journal during this visit she says that she has seen enough of it [Liverpool] and never wishes to revisit it [...] A few days laterr she records that she was reading Endymion with much interest, none the less for all the anxiety she felt about Lord Beaconsfield [Benjamin Disraeli]'s health, which was causing great anxiety at the time. He died on April 19.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
'I was delighted with Miss Glasgow's novel ["Life and Gabriella: The Story of a Woman's Courage"]; the insight, the mastery of her craft, the interest and charm of the narrative-- all this is of the very first order.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'His [Henry James] autobiographical two books are admirable; but what makes them so wonderful are the very same qualities that make his novels admirable.]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'His [Henry James] autobiographical two books are admirable; but what makes them so wonderful are the very same qualities that make his novels admirable.]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I read "[The] Advertisement" yesterday only--thrice over. très fort.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to a Play-Reading of Bernard Shaw's Candida.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII book Club Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to the works of Laurence Housman. Most of the members had seen & heard Mr Housman recently so there is no need to give any personal details & H.M. Wallis's encyclopaedic summary of Housman's artistic gifts & works put us in touch with the versatility of the man. "A charming man" says H.M.W. & so say all of us tho' I'm not sure whether someone did not say "a little effeminate". It was news perhaps to some to know that "An Englishwoman's Love Letters" published some years ago anonymously were by Housman.
The bill of fare was varied & we were introduced to a novel, a St Francis play, a Victorian play & the Child's Guide to Knowledge. The choice whether conscious or otherwise gave us a rather curious result for in the main it dealt with the struggles & characters of women.
Mrr & Mrs Evans dealt with The Sheepfold which relates the spirited history of a woman, 'Jane Sterling'.
R.B. Graham chose out of all the St Francis cycle the coming of Sister Clair into the monkish community.
Miss Marriage. E.E. Unwin & Alfred Rawlings gave a part-reading of "The Queen God Bless Her" which brought into prominence the foibles of Victoria and showed her in relation to two intimates, John Brown her favourite man-servant & Beaconsfield - her favourite minister.
There was but little time left for R.H. Robson to display the fun of "A Child's Guide to Knowledge".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The rest of the evening was devoted to the works of Laurence Housman. Most of the members had seen & heard Mr Housman recently so there is no need to give any personal details & H.M. Wallis's encyclopaedic summary of Housman's artistic gifts & works put us in touch with the versatility of the man. "A charming man" says H.M.W. & so say all of us tho' I'm not sure whether someone did not say "a little effeminate". It was news perhaps to some to know that "An Englishwoman's Love Letters" published some years ago anonymously were by Housman.
The bill of fare was varied & we were introduced to a novel, a St Francis play, a Victorian play & the Child's Guide to Knowledge. The choice whether conscious or otherwise gave us a rather curious result for in the main it dealt with the struggles & characters of women.
Mrr & Mrs Evans dealt with The Sheepfold which relates the spirited history of a woman, 'Jane Sterling'.
R.B. Graham chose out of all the St Francis cycle the coming of Sister Clair into the monkish community.
Miss Marriage. E.E. Unwin & Alfred Rawlings gave a part-reading of "The Queen God Bless Her" which brought into prominence the foibles of Victoria and showed her in relation to two intimates, John Brown her favourite man-servant & Beaconsfield - her favourite minister.
There was but little time left for R.H. Robson to display the fun of "A Child's Guide to Knowledge".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Marriage, Ernest Unwin & Alfred Rawlings Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'The rest of the evening was devoted to the works of Laurence Housman. Most of the members had seen & heard Mr Housman recently so there is no need to give any personal details & H.M. Wallis's encyclopaedic summary of Housman's artistic gifts & works put us in touch with the versatility of the man. "A charming man" says H.M.W. & so say all of us tho' I'm not sure whether someone did not say "a little effeminate". It was news perhaps to some to know that "An Englishwoman's Love Letters" published some years ago anonymously were by Housman.
The bill of fare was varied & we were introduced to a novel, a St Francis play, a Victorian play & the Child's Guide to Knowledge. The choice whether conscious or otherwise gave us a rather curious result for in the main it dealt with the struggles & characters of women.
Mrr & Mrs Evans dealt with The Sheepfold which relates the spirited history of a woman, 'Jane Sterling'.
R.B. Graham chose out of all the St Francis cycle the coming of Sister Clair into the monkish community.
Miss Marriage. E.E. Unwin & Alfred Rawlings gave a part-reading of "The Queen God Bless Her" which brought into prominence the foibles of Victoria and showed her in relation to two intimates, John Brown her favourite man-servant & Beaconsfield - her favourite minister.
There was but little time left for R.H. Robson to display the fun of "A Child's Guide to Knowledge".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'The rest of the evening was devoted to the works of Laurence Housman. Most of the members had seen & heard Mr Housman recently so there is no need to give any personal details & H.M. Wallis's encyclopaedic summary of Housman's artistic gifts & works put us in touch with the versatility of the man. "A charming man" says H.M.W. & so say all of us tho' I'm not sure whether someone did not say "a little effeminate". It was news perhaps to some to know that "An Englishwoman's Love Letters" published some years ago anonymously were by Housman.
The bill of fare was varied & we were introduced to a novel, a St Francis play, a Victorian play & the Child's Guide to Knowledge. The choice whether conscious or otherwise gave us a rather curious result for in the main it dealt with the struggles & characters of women.
Mrr & Mrs Evans dealt with The Sheepfold which relates the spirited history of a woman, 'Jane Sterling'.
R.B. Graham chose out of all the St Francis cycle the coming of Sister Clair into the monkish community.
Miss Marriage. E.E. Unwin & Alfred Rawlings gave a part-reading of "The Queen God Bless Her" which brought into prominence the foibles of Victoria and showed her in relation to two intimates, John Brown her favourite man-servant & Beaconsfield - her favourite minister.
There was but little time left for R.H. Robson to display the fun of "A Child's Guide to Knowledge".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine and Charles Evans Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'The rest of the evening was devoted to the works of Laurence Housman. Most of the members had seen & heard Mr Housman recently so there is no need to give any personal details & H.M. Wallis's encyclopaedic summary of Housman's artistic gifts & works put us in touch with the versatility of the man. "A charming man" says H.M.W. & so say all of us tho' I'm not sure whether someone did not say "a little effeminate". It was news perhaps to some to know that "An Englishwoman's Love Letters" published some years ago anonymously were by Housman.
The bill of fare was varied & we were introduced to a novel, a St Francis play, a Victorian play & the Child's Guide to Knowledge. The choice whether conscious or otherwise gave us a rather curious result for in the main it dealt with the struggles & characters of women.
Mrr & Mrs Evans dealt with The Sheepfold which relates the spirited history of a woman, 'Jane Sterling'.
R.B. Graham chose out of all the St Francis cycle the coming of Sister Clair into the monkish community.
Miss Marriage. E.E. Unwin & Alfred Rawlings gave a part-reading of "The Queen God Bless Her" which brought into prominence the foibles of Victoria and showed her in relation to two intimates, John Brown her favourite man-servant & Beaconsfield - her favourite minister.
There was but little time left for R.H. Robson to display the fun of "A Child's Guide to Knowledge".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: R.B. Graham Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'The rest of the evening was devoted to the works of Laurence Housman. Most of the members had seen & heard Mr Housman recently so there is no need to give any personal details & H.M. Wallis's encyclopaedic summary of Housman's artistic gifts & works put us in touch with the versatility of the man. "A charming man" says H.M.W. & so say all of us tho' I'm not sure whether someone did not say "a little effeminate". It was news perhaps to some to know that "An Englishwoman's Love Letters" published some years ago anonymously were by Housman.
The bill of fare was varied & we were introduced to a novel, a St Francis play, a Victorian play & the Child's Guide to Knowledge. The choice whether conscious or otherwise gave us a rather curious result for in the main it dealt with the struggles & characters of women.
Mrr & Mrs Evans dealt with The Sheepfold which relates the spirited history of a woman, 'Jane Sterling'.
R.B. Graham chose out of all the St Francis cycle the coming of Sister Clair into the monkish community.
Miss Marriage. E.E. Unwin & Alfred Rawlings gave a part-reading of "The Queen God Bless Her" which brought into prominence the foibles of Victoria and showed her in relation to two intimates, John Brown her favourite man-servant & Beaconsfield - her favourite minister.
There was but little time left for R.H. Robson to display the fun of "A Child's Guide to Knowledge".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'"We face a choice of evils," H. N. Brailsford had written in "The New Clarion" after the break-up of the Disarmament Conference.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Newspaper
21 August 1886:
'It is a great effort to me to think of moving; my feeling of desolation makes it difficult for me
to decide on any change, and yet I am always eager to be at work. A passage in Macaulay's
Essay on Atterbury struck me very much the other day. He says: "Grief, which disposes gentle
natures to retirement, to inaction and to meditation, only makes restless spirits more
restless." I am sure this is the case with me, I must be always doing something. My reading,
this past summer, has chiefly been Macaulay's History. It has been of immense interest to me,
but I forget it almost as fast as I read it. My chief time for reading is in the night if I happen
to wake, or in the early morning.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
21 August 1886:
'It is a great effort to me to think of moving; my feeling of desolation makes it difficult for me
to decide on any change, and yet I am always eager to be at work. A passage in Macaulay's
Essay on Atterbury struck me very much the other day. He says: "Grief, which disposes gentle
natures to retirement, to inaction and to meditation, only makes restless spirits more
restless." I am sure this is the case with me, I must be always doing something. My reading,
this past summer, has chiefly been Macaulay's History. It has been of immense interest to me,
but I forget it almost as fast as I read it. My chief time for reading is in the night if I happen
to wake, or in the early morning.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
1 October 1887:
'Henry [Layard, son-in-law] has given me the revises of a new book on his early travels,
which Murray is about to bring out, and I have been reading them over to make any
corrections that may strike me. I have gone through them carefully and found many errors. I
don't think Spottiswoode prints as he ought to do.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: In proofs from John Murray
'C.I. Evans read Geoffrey Young's [?] poem 'Mountain Playmates' & Mary Hayward read Leslie Stephen's account of the first ascent of the Rothorn. R.B. Graham circulated snapshots illustrating this reading & his own climb of the same mountain. After supper R.B. Graham gave a general chat on Mountaineering with views. A passage by Whymper on accidents was summarised by A. Rawlings who then read Whymper's account of an extraordinary accident he himself sustained. To conclude the Secretary read a parody of Wadsworth [Wordsworth?] 'We are Seven' composed by H.m. Wallis on climbing at Arolla'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard R. Smith Manuscript: Unknown
'Miss Marriage then gave us some notes on Anatole France [sic] Life with references to some of his work & the order of their production. F.E. Pollard read an amusing account of an unconventional dinner party from "La Reine Pedauque" & A. Rawlings gave us some extracts from "The Memoirs of Abbe Coignard". After supper R.H. Robson amused us with the story of the Baptism of the penguins by the Blessed Mael "Penguin Island" & Mrs Evans gave us a glimpse of France's more sober philosophy in a series of short essays from "The Garden of Epicures". Mrs Rawlings read a charming passage on Joan of Arc and Miss Marriage read us one of the cynical passages from a novel "The Red Lily".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Print: Book
'Miss Marriage then gave us some notes on Anatole France [sic] Life with references to some of his work & the order of their production. F.E. Pollard read an amusing account of an unconventional dinner party from "La Reine Pedauque" & A. Rawlings gave us some extracts from "The Memoirs of Abbe Coignard". After supper R.H. Robson amused us with the story of the Baptism of the penguins by the Blessed Mael "Penguin Island" & Mrs Evans gave us a glimpse of France's more sober philosophy in a series of short essays from "The Garden of Epicures". Mrs Rawlings read a charming passage on Joan of Arc and Miss Marriage read us one of the cynical passages from a novel "The Red Lily".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings Print: Book
'Miss Marriage then gave us some notes on Anatole France [sic] Life with references to some of his work & the order of their production. F.E. Pollard read an amusing account of an unconventional dinner party from "La Reine Pedauque" & A. Rawlings gave us some extracts from "The Memoirs of Abbe Coignard". After supper R.H. Robson amused us with the story of the Baptism of the penguins by the Blessed Mael "Penguin Island" & Mrs Evans gave us a glimpse of France's more sober philosophy in a series of short essays from "The Garden of Epicures". Mrs Rawlings read a charming passage on Joan of Arc and Miss Marriage read us one of the cynical passages from a novel "The Red Lily".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson Print: Book
'Miss Marriage then gave us some notes on Anatole France [sic] Life with references to some of his work & the order of their production. F.E. Pollard read an amusing account of an unconventional dinner party from "La Reine Pedauque" & A. Rawlings gave us some extracts from "The Memoirs of Abbe Coignard". After supper R.H. Robson amused us with the story of the Baptism of the penguins by the Blessed Mael "Penguin Island" & Mrs Evans gave us a glimpse of France's more sober philosophy in a series of short essays from "The Garden of Epicures". Mrs Rawlings read a charming passage on Joan of Arc and Miss Marriage read us one of the cynical passages from a novel "The Red Lily".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Evans Print: Book
'Miss Marriage then gave us some notes on Anatole France [sic] Life with references to some of his work & the order of their production. F.E. Pollard read an amusing account of an unconventional dinner party from "La Reine Pedauque" & A. Rawlings gave us some extracts from "The Memoirs of Abbe Coignard". After supper R.H. Robson amused us with the story of the Baptism of the penguins by the Blessed Mael "Penguin Island" & Mrs Evans gave us a glimpse of France's more sober philosophy in a series of short essays from "The Garden of Epicures". Mrs Rawlings read a charming passage on Joan of Arc and Miss Marriage read us one of the cynical passages from a novel "The Red Lily".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Marriage Print: Book
'Miss Marriage then gave us some notes on Anatole France [sic] Life with references to some of his work & the order of their production. F.E. Pollard read an amusing account of an unconventional dinner party from "La Reine Pedauque" & A. Rawlings gave us some extracts from "The Memoirs of Abbe Coignard". After supper R.H. Robson amused us with the story of the Baptism of the penguins by the Blessed Mael "Penguin Island" & Mrs Evans gave us a glimpse of France's more sober philosophy in a series of short essays from "The Garden of Epicures". Mrs Rawlings read a charming passage on Joan of Arc and Miss Marriage read us one of the cynical passages from a novel "The Red Lily".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Rawlings Print: Book
'Miss Marriage then gave us some notes on Anatole France [sic] Life with references to some of his work & the order of their production. F.E. Pollard read an amusing account of an unconventional dinner party from "La Reine Pedauque" & A. Rawlings gave us some extracts from "The Memoirs of Abbe Coignard". After supper R.H. Robson amused us with the story of the Baptism of the penguins by the Blessed Mael "Penguin Island" & Mrs Evans gave us a glimpse of France's more sober philosophy in a series of short essays from "The Garden of Epicures". Mrs Rawlings read a charming passage on Joan of Arc and Miss Marriage read us one of the cynical passages from a novel "The Red Lily".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Marriage Print: Book
'Mr Burrow then introduced John Masefield's work setting out the little publicly known of his life following with a short review of his work and a few hints as to the topgraphy of his poems. C.I. Evans then read three short poems "Sea Change", "Cargoes" & "Ships" which well illustrated the poet's love of Ships & the Sea. H.R. Smith read from the earlier part of "Reynard the Fox" illustrating his love of energy the open air & his vivid portraiture of very round human types. This was followed by an interesting discussion on the quality of Masefield's work. H.M. Wallis read a moving passage from Gallipoli. After supper Mrs Reynolds read several short poems of personal feeling Tewkesbury Rd, Beauty, I Went into the Fields, Laugh & be Merry & By a Bierside. To conclude the evening Mr Burrow read the latter portion of "The Everlasting Mercy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Burrow Print: Book
'Mr Burrow then introduced John Masefield's work setting out the little publicly known of his life following with a short review of his work and a few hints as to the topgraphy of his poems. C.I. Evans then read three short poems "Sea Change", "Cargoes" & "Ships" which well illustrated the poet's love of Ships & the Sea. H.R. Smith read from the earlier part of "Reynard the Fox" illustrating his love of energy the open air & his vivid portraiture of very round human types. This was followed by an interesting discussion on the quality of Masefield's work. H.M. Wallis read a moving passage from Gallipoli. After supper Mrs Reynolds read several short poems of personal feeling Tewkesbury Rd, Beauty, I Went into the Fields, Laugh & be Merry & By a Bierside. To conclude the evening Mr Burrow read the latter portion of "The Everlasting Mercy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Burrow Print: Book
'Mr Burrow then introduced John Masefield's work setting out the little publicly known of his life following with a short review of his work and a few hints as to the topgraphy of his poems. C.I. Evans then read three short poems "Sea Change", "Cargoes" & "Ships" which well illustrated the poet's love of Ships & the Sea. H.R. Smith read from the earlier part of "Reynard the Fox" illustrating his love of energy the open air & his vivid portraiture of very round human types. This was followed by an interesting discussion on the quality of Masefield's work. H.M. Wallis read a moving passage from Gallipoli. After supper Mrs Reynolds read several short poems of personal feeling Tewkesbury Rd, Beauty, I Went into the Fields, Laugh & be Merry & By a Bierside. To conclude the evening Mr Burrow read the latter portion of "The Everlasting Mercy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'Mr Burrow then introduced John Masefield's work setting out the little publicly known of his life following with a short review of his work and a few hints as to the topgraphy of his poems. C.I. Evans then read three short poems "Sea Change", "Cargoes" & "Ships" which well illustrated the poet's love of Ships & the Sea. H.R. Smith read from the earlier part of "Reynard the Fox" illustrating his love of energy the open air & his vivid portraiture of very round human types. This was followed by an interesting discussion on the quality of Masefield's work. H.M. Wallis read a moving passage from Gallipoli. After supper Mrs Reynolds read several short poems of personal feeling Tewkesbury Rd, Beauty, I Went into the Fields, Laugh & be Merry & By a Bierside. To conclude the evening Mr Burrow read the latter portion of "The Everlasting Mercy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'Mr Burrow then introduced John Masefield's work setting out the little publicly known of his life following with a short review of his work and a few hints as to the topgraphy of his poems. C.I. Evans then read three short poems "Sea Change", "Cargoes" & "Ships" which well illustrated the poet's love of Ships & the Sea. H.R. Smith read from the earlier part of "Reynard the Fox" illustrating his love of energy the open air & his vivid portraiture of very round human types. This was followed by an interesting discussion on the quality of Masefield's work. H.M. Wallis read a moving passage from Gallipoli. After supper Mrs Reynolds read several short poems of personal feeling Tewkesbury Rd, Beauty, I Went into the Fields, Laugh & be Merry & By a Bierside. To conclude the evening Mr Burrow read the latter portion of "The Everlasting Mercy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'Mr Burrow then introduced John Masefield's work setting out the little publicly known of his life following with a short review of his work and a few hints as to the topgraphy of his poems. C.I. Evans then read three short poems "Sea Change", "Cargoes" & "Ships" which well illustrated the poet's love of Ships & the Sea. H.R. Smith read from the earlier part of "Reynard the Fox" illustrating his love of energy the open air & his vivid portraiture of very round human types. This was followed by an interesting discussion on the quality of Masefield's work. H.M. Wallis read a moving passage from Gallipoli. After supper Mrs Reynolds read several short poems of personal feeling Tewkesbury Rd, Beauty, I Went into the Fields, Laugh & be Merry & By a Bierside. To conclude the evening Mr Burrow read the latter portion of "The Everlasting Mercy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard R. Smith Print: Book
'Mr Burrow then introduced John Masefield's work setting out the little publicly known of his life following with a short review of his work and a few hints as to the topgraphy of his poems. C.I. Evans then read three short poems "Sea Change", "Cargoes" & "Ships" which well illustrated the poet's love of Ships & the Sea. H.R. Smith read from the earlier part of "Reynard the Fox" illustrating his love of energy the open air & his vivid portraiture of very round human types. This was followed by an interesting discussion on the quality of Masefield's work. H.M. Wallis read a moving passage from Gallipoli. After supper Mrs Reynolds read several short poems of personal feeling Tewkesbury Rd, Beauty, I Went into the Fields, Laugh & be Merry & By a Bierside. To conclude the evening Mr Burrow read the latter portion of "The Everlasting Mercy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis
'Mr Burrow then introduced John Masefield's work setting out the little publicly known of his life following with a short review of his work and a few hints as to the topgraphy of his poems. C.I. Evans then read three short poems "Sea Change", "Cargoes" & "Ships" which well illustrated the poet's love of Ships & the Sea. H.R. Smith read from the earlier part of "Reynard the Fox" illustrating his love of energy the open air & his vivid portraiture of very round human types. This was followed by an interesting discussion on the quality of Masefield's work. H.M. Wallis read a moving passage from Gallipoli. After supper Mrs Reynolds read several short poems of personal feeling Tewkesbury Rd, Beauty, I Went into the Fields, Laugh & be Merry & By a Bierside. To conclude the evening Mr Burrow read the latter portion of "The Everlasting Mercy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Florence Reynolds Print: Book
'Mr Burrow then introduced John Masefield's work setting out the little publicly known of his life following with a short review of his work and a few hints as to the topgraphy of his poems. C.I. Evans then read three short poems "Sea Change", "Cargoes" & "Ships" which well illustrated the poet's love of Ships & the Sea. H.R. Smith read from the earlier part of "Reynard the Fox" illustrating his love of energy the open air & his vivid portraiture of very round human types. This was followed by an interesting discussion on the quality of Masefield's work. H.M. Wallis read a moving passage from Gallipoli. After supper Mrs Reynolds read several short poems of personal feeling Tewkesbury Rd, Beauty, I Went into the Fields, Laugh & be Merry & By a Bierside. To conclude the evening Mr Burrow read the latter portion of "The Everlasting Mercy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Florence Reynolds Print: Book
'Mr Burrow then introduced John Masefield's work setting out the little publicly known of his life following with a short review of his work and a few hints as to the topgraphy of his poems. C.I. Evans then read three short poems "Sea Change", "Cargoes" & "Ships" which well illustrated the poet's love of Ships & the Sea. H.R. Smith read from the earlier part of "Reynard the Fox" illustrating his love of energy the open air & his vivid portraiture of very round human types. This was followed by an interesting discussion on the quality of Masefield's work. H.M. Wallis read a moving passage from Gallipoli. After supper Mrs Reynolds read several short poems of personal feeling Tewkesbury Rd, Beauty, I Went into the Fields, Laugh & be Merry & By a Bierside. To conclude the evening Mr Burrow read the latter portion of "The Everlasting Mercy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Florence Reynolds Print: Book
'Mr Burrow then introduced John Masefield's work setting out the little publicly known of his life following with a short review of his work and a few hints as to the topgraphy of his poems. C.I. Evans then read three short poems "Sea Change", "Cargoes" & "Ships" which well illustrated the poet's love of Ships & the Sea. H.R. Smith read from the earlier part of "Reynard the Fox" illustrating his love of energy the open air & his vivid portraiture of very round human types. This was followed by an interesting discussion on the quality of Masefield's work. H.M. Wallis read a moving passage from Gallipoli. After supper Mrs Reynolds read several short poems of personal feeling Tewkesbury Rd, Beauty, I Went into the Fields, Laugh & be Merry & By a Bierside. To conclude the evening Mr Burrow read the latter portion of "The Everlasting Mercy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Florence Reynolds Print: Book
'Mr Burrow then introduced John Masefield's work setting out the little publicly known of his life following with a short review of his work and a few hints as to the topgraphy of his poems. C.I. Evans then read three short poems "Sea Change", "Cargoes" & "Ships" which well illustrated the poet's love of Ships & the Sea. H.R. Smith read from the earlier part of "Reynard the Fox" illustrating his love of energy the open air & his vivid portraiture of very round human types. This was followed by an interesting discussion on the quality of Masefield's work. H.M. Wallis read a moving passage from Gallipoli. After supper Mrs Reynolds read several short poems of personal feeling Tewkesbury Rd, Beauty, I Went into the Fields, Laugh & be Merry & By a Bierside. To conclude the evening Mr Burrow read the latter portion of "The Everlasting Mercy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Florence Reynolds Print: Book
[following journal entry for 19 February 1889]
'That evening [Lady Charlotte Schreiber's] youngest daughter, Blanche, dined and read to her the article on Lord Beaconsfield in the Quarterly Review. Lady Charlotte's comment was: "This I am sure could have been written by no one but Henry Layard." It was so.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Blanche Countess of Bessborough Print: Serial / periodical
'[Lord Lyttleton] presented me with the works of Miss Aikin (now Mrs Barbauld). I read them with rapture; I thought them the most beautiful Poems I had ever seen, and considered the woman who could invent such poetry, as the most to be envied of human creatures.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Robinson Print: Book
'H.R. Smith gave a brief outline of S. Baring Gould's Life following which H.M. Wallis read from "John Herring" a Dartmoor tale. He also gave us a short criticism of Baring Gould's work from which we learn that he wrote too fast for revision and his fiction was marred by many improbabilities. In short a maker of books rather than an artist. After supper Mrs Pollard read from The Broom Squire and E.A. Smith gave us an appreciation of our Author more favourable than H.M.W.'s perhaps because it dealt mainly with the archaeological side of his work. F.G. Pollard kindly took C.I. Evans' place (he had lost his voice) by reading from "Strange Survivals & Supersititions" & H.R. Smith read from "The Vicar of Morwenstow".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'H.R. Smith gave a brief outline of S. Baring Gould's Life following which H.M. Wallis read from "John Herring" a Dartmoor tale. He also gave us a short criticism of Baring Gould's work from which we learn that he wrote too fast for revision and his fiction was marred by many improbabilities. In short a maker of books rather than an artist. After supper Mrs Pollard read from The Broom Squire and E.A. Smith gave us an appreciation of our Author more favourable than H.M.W.'s perhaps because it dealt mainly with the archaeological side of his work. F.G. Pollard kindly took C.I. Evans' place (he had lost his voice) by reading from "Strange Survivals & Supersititions" & H.R. Smith read from "The Vicar of Morwenstow".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard Print: Book
'H.R. Smith gave a brief outline of S. Baring Gould's Life following which H.M. Wallis read from "John Herring" a Dartmoor tale. He also gave us a short criticism of Baring Gould's work from which we learn that he wrote too fast for revision and his fiction was marred by many improbabilities. In short a maker of books rather than an artist. After supper Mrs Pollard read from The Broom Squire and E.A. Smith gave us an appreciation of our Author more favourable than H.M.W.'s perhaps because it dealt mainly with the archaeological side of his work. F.G. Pollard kindly took C.I. Evans' place (he had lost his voice) by reading from "Strange Survivals & Superstitions" & H.R. Smith read from "The Vicar of Morwenstow".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Print: Book
'H.R. Smith gave a brief outline of S. Baring Gould's Life following which H.M. Wallis read from "John Herring" a Dartmoor tale. He also gave us a short criticism of Baring Gould's work from which we learn that he wrote too fast for revision and his fiction was marred by many improbabilities. In short a maker of books rather than an artist. After supper Mrs Pollard read from The Broom Squire and E.A. Smith gave us an appreciation of our Author more favourable than H.M.W.'s perhaps because it dealt mainly with the archaeological side of his work. F.G. Pollard kindly took C.I. Evans' place (he had lost his voice) by reading from "Strange Survivals & Superstitions" & H.R. Smith read from "The Vicar of Morwenstow".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard R. Smith Print: Book
'H.R. Smith gave a brief outline of S. Baring Gould's Life following which H.M. Wallis read from "John Herring" a Dartmoor tale. He also gave us a short criticism of Baring Gould's work from which we learn that he wrote too fast for revision and his fiction was marred by many improbabilities. In short a maker of books rather than an artist. After supper Mrs Pollard read from The Broom Squire and E.A. Smith gave us an appreciation of our Author more favourable than H.M.W.'s perhaps because it dealt mainly with the archaeological side of his work. F.G. Pollard kindly took C.I. Evans' place (he had lost his voice) by reading from "Strange Survivals & Superstitions" & H.R. Smith read from "The Vicar of Morwenstow".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'H.R. Smith gave a brief outline of S. Baring Gould's Life following which H.M. Wallis read from "John Herring" a Dartmoor tale. He also gave us a short criticism of Baring Gould's work from which we learn that he wrote too fast for revision and his fiction was marred by many improbabilities. In short a maker of books rather than an artist. After supper Mrs Pollard read from The Broom Squire and E.A. Smith gave us an appreciation of our Author more favourable than H.M.W.'s perhaps because it dealt mainly with the archaeological side of his work. F.G. Pollard kindly took C.I. Evans' place (he had lost his voice) by reading from "Strange Survivals & Superstitions" & H.R. Smith read from "The Vicar of Morwenstow".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Ann Smith Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to Anthony Trollope. C.E. Stansfield read an amusing passage from Dr Thorne. H.M. Wallis gave us a full & racy sketch of Trollopes life interspersed with short extracts from his works illustrative of his love of Fox hunting & his broad grasp of the social life of English upper class & clerical life. H.R. Smith read from "The Prime Minister" & F.E. Pollard gave a short appreciation of Trollopes work from which it appeared that he was not quite in the first rank of Victorian writers, he does not attempt the greatest problems but he does quite perfectly the job he sets out to do; his pictures of life are real his, [sic] characters are not mere puppets but are all alive. R.H. Robson read from the Warden & F.E. Pollard from "the three Clerks" bringing to a conclusion a delightful evening in which many renewed old acquaintances whilst others were introduced to much that was new to them.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'The rest of the evening was devoted to Anthony Trollope. C.E. Stansfield read an amusing passage from Dr Thorne. H.M. Wallis gave us a full & racy sketch of Trollopes life interspersed with short extracts from his works illustrative of his love of Fox hunting & his broad grasp of the social life of English upper class & clerical life. H.R. Smith read from "The Prime Minister" & F.E. Pollard gave a short appreciation of Trollopes work from which it appeared that he was not quite in the first rank of Victorian writers, he does not attempt the greatest problems but he does quite perfectly the job he sets out to do; his pictures of life are real his, [sic] characters are not mere puppets but are all alive. R.H. Robson read from the Warden & F.E. Pollard from "the three Clerks" bringing to a conclusion a delightful evening in which many renewed old acquaintances whilst others were introduced to much that was new to them.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'R.H. Robson opened the subject of Joan of Arc by giving a historical sketch of her life & then attempting to "Put her in her Place" which latter process involved a general & interesting discussion the substantial result being that she refused to be so put. Mrs Evans read a fervid passage from De Quincey & H.R. Smith & C.I. Evans gave some estimate of the Lives by Mark Twain & Andrew Lang & read short passages from these works. After supper Mr Graham Mr Pollard Mr Robson & Miss M.B. Smith read in parts most spiritually the first scene from Shaw's St Joan; Mr Evans read from the Epilogue, & another general discussion brought a most fascinating evening to a conclusion.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'R.H. Robson opened the subject of Joan of Arc by giving a historical sketch of her life & then attempting to "Put her in her Place" which latter process involved a general & interesting discussion the substantial result being that she refused to be so put. Mrs Evans read a fervid passage from De Quincey & H.R. Smith & C.I. Evans gave some estimate of the Lives by Mark Twain & Andrew Lang & read short passages from these works. After supper Mr Graham Mr Pollard Mr Robson & Miss M.B. Smith read in parts most spiritually the first scene from Shaw's St Joan; Mr Evans read from the Epilogue, & another general discussion brought a most fascinating evening to a conclusion.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'R.H. Robson opened the subject of Joan of Arc by giving a historical sketch of her life & then attempting to "Put her in her Place" which latter process involved a general & interesting discussion the substantial result being that she refused to be so put. Mrs Evans read a fervid passage from De Quincey & H.R. Smith & C.I. Evans gave some estimate of the Lives by Mark Twain & Andrew Lang & read short passages from these works. After supper Mr Graham Mr Pollard Mr Robson & Miss M.B. Smith read in parts most spiritually the first scene from Shaw's St Joan; Mr Evans read from the Epilogue, & another general discussion brought a most fascinating evening to a conclusion.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club Print: Book
'R.H. Robson opened the subject of Joan of Arc by giving a historical sketch of her life & then attempting to "Put her in her Place" which latter process involved a general & interesting discussion the substantial result being that she refused to be so put. Mrs Evans read a fervid passage from De Quincey & H.R. Smith & C.I. Evans gave some estimate of the Lives by Mark Twain & Andrew Lang & read short passages from these works. After supper Mr Graham Mr Pollard Mr Robson & Miss M.B. Smith read in parts most spiritually the first scene from Shaw's St Joan; Mr Evans read from the Epilogue, & another general discussion brought a most fascinating evening to a conclusion.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'The subject of Forster's "A Passage to India" was then taken Rosamund Wallis reading a notable paper on the problem of Anglo-India with citations from the book. F.E. Pollard followed giving more the Indian Attitude with a reading to explain this. After an interval for Refreshments there was an interesting discussion on these papers and on the Book and its problems. R.B. Graham read a good portion of the trial scene and Miss Marriage read a part of the last chapter bringing a most interesting evening to a conclusion leaving us more than doubtful as to how far we had fathomed the author's purpose & ideas.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The subject of Forster's "A Passage to India" was then taken Rosamund Wallis reading a notable paper on the problem of Anglo-India with citations from the book. F.E. Pollard followed giving more the Indian Attitude with a reading to explain this. After an interval for Refreshments there was an interesting discussion on these papers and on the Book and its problems. R.B. Graham read a good portion of the trial scene and Miss Marriage read a part of the last chapter bringing a most interesting evening to a conclusion leaving us more than doubtful as to how far we had fathomed the author's purpose & ideas.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Various anonymous essays by members of the Club were then read with the following titles and at the conclusion of the meeting whilst the authorship of some was quickly acclaimed others proved very difficult to locate.
Some thoughts on Racing attributed to R. Wallis
One Generation & the next or Jobson on False Freedom C.E. Stansfield
Intimations of Immortality R.H. Robson
The Lady of the Marsh Mrs R.B. Graham
If Christianity had Won R.B. Graham
The Revolt of the Innocents Geo Burrow
Thoughts on the Construction of Cathedrals H.M. Wallis
Revenge or Justice C Evans
Five minutes Thoughts upon present Condition H.M. Wallis
A Scandalous Affair [illegible symbol]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: members of XII Book Club Manuscript: Unknown
'Various anonymous essays by members of the Club were then read with the following titles and at the conclusion of the meeting whilst the authorship of some was quickly acclaimed others proved very difficult to locate.
Some thoughts on Racing attributed to R. Wallis
One Generation & the next or Jobson on False Freedom C.E. Stansfield
Intimations of Immortality R.H. Robson
The Lady of the Marsh Mrs R.B. Graham
If Christianity had Won R.B. Graham
The Revolt of the Innocents Geo Burrow
Thoughts on the Construction of Cathedrals H.M. Wallis
Revenge or Justice C Evans
Five minutes Thoughts upon present Condition H.M. Wallis
A Scandalous Affair [illegible symbol]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: members of XII Book Club Manuscript: Unknown
'Various anonymous essays by members of the Club were then read with the following titles and at the conclusion of the meeting whilst the authorship of some was quickly acclaimed others proved very difficult to locate.
Some thoughts on Racing attributed to R. Wallis
One Generation & the next or Jobson on False Freedom C.E. Stansfield
Intimations of Immortality R.H. Robson
The Lady of the Marsh Mrs R.B. Graham
If Christianity had Won R.B. Graham
The Revolt of the Innocents Geo Burrow
Thoughts on the Construction of Cathedrals H.M. Wallis
Revenge or Justice C Evans
Five minutes Thoughts upon present Condition H.M. Wallis
A Scandalous Affair [illegible symbol]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: members of XII Book Club Manuscript: Unknown
'We must not judge [Ann Radcliffe's novels], now that the taste in which they were written is
exhausted and palled, by our modern feelings. The best test of their worth is contemporary
opinion, and tales which delighted Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, must, when compared with the
novels then published, have possessed a singular amount of merit.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Burke Print: Book
'We must not judge [Ann Radcliffe's novels], now that the taste in which they were written is
exhausted and palled, by our modern feelings. The best test of their worth is contemporary
opinion, and tales which delighted Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, must, when compared with the
novels then published, have possessed a singular amount of merit.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles James Fox Print: Book
'We must not judge [Ann Radcliffe's novels], now that the taste in which they were written is
exhausted and palled, by our modern feelings. The best test of their worth is contemporary
opinion, and tales which delighted Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, must, when compared with the
novels then published, have possessed a singular amount of merit.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Richard Brinsley Sheridan Print: Book
'[Jane Austen] talked freely of her works among her friends, listened to criticism with patient
docility, and read her tales aloud with great effect, "and they were never heard to so much
advantage as from her own mouth," says Sir Egerton Brydges, who knew her.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Book
Quoted from Mrs Maxwell Scott:
'My cousin, Baroness von Appell (grand-daughter of Sir Walter [Scott]'s brother Thomas) will be one of those most interested in these letters. Her mother was the Eliza mentioned by my great-aunt Anne in one letter, and was a most clever and delightful lady, whose reading aloud of Emma is one of the remembrances of my girlhood.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Scott Print: Book
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 24 October 1751:
'I am sick of all human greatness and activity, and so would you be if you had been turning over with me five great folios of Montfaucon's French Antiquities, where warriors, tyrants, queens, and favourites, have past before my eyes in a quick succession, of whose pomp, power, and bustle, nothing now remains but quiet Gothic monuments, vile prints, and the records of still viler actions [...] [later comments, in same letter] Let me do justice to human nature and French history; my last night's reading afforded some instances of most charming generosity [...] and of real goodness.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 17 December 1752:
'Did I ever tell you I was reading Madame de Maintenon's Letters? [...] She seems to have been both a great and a good woman. [comments further]'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 10 June 1754:
'Your cousin [Richard Owen] Cambridge has writ many lively papers in the World this winter from the mere motive of charity; and some of them are very pretty.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Serial / periodical
[Whether this contains evidence of any particular reading experience is unclear]
'Presumably these writers had never read the French critic Julien Benda, who nine years earlier had prophesied in a famous book, "La Trahison des Clercs", that mankind was heading for the greatest war which the world had ever experienced.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'At a P.E.N. dinner I sat beside him, and questioned him about the "lighted door" in his novel "Guy and Pauline".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'Years afterwards, I was to discover the "Declaration of the Independence of the Mind" issued to his fellow brain-workers by the French writer, Romain Rolland, from Villeneuve in 1919.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Unknown
'After refreshment Geo Burrow told us of Meinholt's [sic] book "The Amber Witch" & of witchcraft & Howard R. Smith read a story written by H.M. Wallis who was unable to be present entitled "The Price of his Soul" dealing with sin eating in Wales'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard R. Smith Manuscript: Unknown
'C.I. Evans read a short essay on W.H. Hudsons story Green Mansions H.R. Smith followed on Rates & Taxes & Geo Burrow read a short paper of H.M. Wallis on some points in recent Geology'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Burrow Manuscript: Unknown
'Gallsworthy's [sic] play "The Escape" was then read in parts by the Club except that the Prologue was omitted. The reading was greatly enjoyed by all & it was felt that the Committtee had been singularly successful in their casting of the piece.' [the long cast list follows]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club Print: Book
'Letters & Letter writing were then proceeded with.
Mrs Burrow read three letters of William Cowper characteristically interesting & amusing.
Mrs C. Elliott read in French two amusing letters one by Madame de Sevigny & one by Victor Hugo.
C. I. Evans read two [?] Ladies Battle & K.S. Evans two by R.L. Stevenson
F.E. Pollard read letters by G.B. Shaw & J.M. Barrie to Mrs Patrick Campbell on the death of her son killed in action.
Geo Burrow read several characteristic epistles of Charles Lamb & Howard R. Smith part of a letter by Lord Chesterfield to his son.
The Club were also much interested by seeing a number of Autograph letters from famous folk shown by various members of the Club.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Print: Unknown
[Elizabeth Carter to Catherine Talbot, 16 June 1758:]
'Since I came home I have picked up [reading] at Mrs Gambieu's the Memoirs of Anne of Austria, in a vile and most unintelligible translation; yet I keep reading on, and am much inclined to love Madame Motteville a great deal better than her heroine, against whom I have just now an irreconcileable quarrel for leaving her to all the dangers and miseries of a siege.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter Print: Book
'Four one act plays were then read:
"Windows by J. Galsworthy, "the Dear Departed" by Stanley Houghton, "The Boy Comes Home" by A. A. Milne, "Fame & the Poet" by Lord Dunsany & a delightful evening was spent.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club Print: Book
'Four one act plays were then read:
"Windows by J. Galsworthy, "the Dear Departed" by Stanley Houghton, "The Boy Comes Home" by A. A. Milne, "Fame & the Poet" by Lord Dunsany & a delightful evening was spent.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club Print: Book
'The subject of the evening "Gardens" was then taken. Geo Burrow reminded us that the world began in the garden of Eden. Miss Bowman-Smith played Debussy's "Garden Under the Rain" Miss D. Brain gave us an essay on Hampton Court gardens & their history.
F.E. Pollard a song Summer Afternoon
Rosamund Wallis read from Sir Wm Temple on Gardens
Mrs F. E. Pollard read Michael Drayton's Daffodil
Alfred Rawlings charmed us by showing a series of his Water Colour drawings "Gardens I have Known"
Mrs Robson sang two songs June Rapture & Unfolding
After supper Mrs Stansfield read a paper by Mr Stansfield who was prevented by a severe cold from being present on Gardening in which he showed how Gardening is one of the fine Arts in fact the noblest of the plastic Arts
F. E. Pollard sang Andrew Marvell's "Thoughts in a Garden"
Mrs Burrow read Walter de la Mare's Sunken Garden
Mrs Stansfield read from The Story of my Ruin
and in a concluding reading Geo Burrow brought our minds back to the Garden of Eden'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Pattie Stansfield Print: Book
'The subject of the Forsyte Saga was then introduced by Charles E. Stansfield with a reading from the introduction. The remainder of an enjoyable evening was spent in listening to a series of readings from the Saga as under. The opinion being expressed that the Saga read aloud even better than to oneself.
T.C. Elliott The Man of Property
K. S. Evans Indian Summer of a Forsyte
R. B. Graham / Janet Rawlings In Chancery
R. Wallis Awakening
F. E. Pollard To Let
D. Brain The White Monkey'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield Print: Book
'The subject of the Forsyte Saga was then introduced by Charles E. Stansfield with a reading from the introduction. The remainder of an enjoyable evening was spent in listening to a series of readings from the Saga as under. The opinion being expressed that the Saga read aloud even better than to oneself.
T.C. Elliott The Man of Property
K. S. Evans Indian Summer of a Forsyte
R. B. Graham / Janet Rawlings In Chancery
R. Wallis Awakening
F. E. Pollard To Let
D. Brain The White Monkey'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine S. Evans Print: Book
'The subject of the Forsyte Saga was then introduced by Charles E. Stansfield with a reading from the introduction. The remainder of an enjoyable evening was spent in listening to a series of readings from the Saga as under. The opinion being expressed that the Saga read aloud even better than to oneself.
T.C. Elliott The Man of Property
K. S. Evans Indian Summer of a Forsyte
R. B. Graham / Janet Rawlings In Chancery
R. Wallis Awakening
F. E. Pollard To Let
D. Brain The White Monkey'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: R. B. Graham Print: Book
'The subject of the Forsyte Saga was then introduced by Charles E. Stansfield with a reading from the introduction. The remainder of an enjoyable evening was spent in listening to a series of readings from the Saga as under. The opinion being expressed that the Saga read aloud even better than to oneself.
T.C. Elliott The Man of Property
K. S. Evans Indian Summer of a Forsyte
R. B. Graham / Janet Rawlings In Chancery
R. Wallis Awakening
F. E. Pollard To Let
D. Brain The White Monkey'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Janet Rawlings Print: Book
'The subject of the Forsyte Saga was then introduced by Charles E. Stansfield with a reading from the introduction. The remainder of an enjoyable evening was spent in listening to a series of readings from the Saga as under. The opinion being expressed that the Saga read aloud even better than to oneself.
T.C. Elliott The Man of Property
K. S. Evans Indian Summer of a Forsyte
R. B. Graham / Janet Rawlings In Chancery
R. Wallis Awakening
F. E. Pollard To Let
D. Brain The White Monkey'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'The subject of the Forsyte Saga was then introduced by Charles E. Stansfield with a reading from the introduction. The remainder of an enjoyable evening was spent in listening to a series of readings from the Saga as under. The opinion being expressed that the Saga read aloud even better than to oneself.
T.C. Elliott The Man of Property
K. S. Evans Indian Summer of a Forsyte
R. B. Graham / Janet Rawlings In Chancery
R. Wallis Awakening
F. E. Pollard To Let
D. Brain The White Monkey'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Print: Book
'The subject of the Forsyte Saga was then introduced by Charles E. Stansfield with a reading from the introduction. The remainder of an enjoyable evening was spent in listening to a series of readings from the Saga as under. The opinion being expressed that the Saga read aloud even better than to oneself.
T.C. Elliott The Man of Property
K. S. Evans Indian Summer of a Forsyte
R. B. Graham / Janet Rawlings In Chancery
R. Wallis Awakening
F. E. Pollard To Let
D. Brain The White Monkey'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Brain Print: Book
'The subject of Tolstoy & his works was then taken. R. H. Robson gave a brief outline of his life. T. C. Elliott gave a reading from Faussett's "Inner Drama of Tolstoy". R. B. Graham gave an account of "Anna Karenina" with some short readings. After Refreshments Mrs Robson read a parable from "Master & Man" & Geo Burrow read from "The Cossacks". F. E. pollard read an essay of Tolstoy on the Russian Famine. Some general discussion of Tolstoy & his work but more especially of the man himself closed the evening'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: T. C. Elliott Print: Book
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 8 May 1760:]
'To-day I have been reading with due wrath and abomination "Le Philosophe Sans Souci." Some lines in that wickedest of all books are so evidently taken from the wrong reasonings of the ungodly in the Wisdom of Solomon, chap. 2, that I confess to me they are perfectly harmless, but I tremble to think what mischief they will do in the fine world. In other parts of the book there seem to be really pretty things -- but how is it possible a man should be such an ideot? How unaccountable is it that pride [...] should make a writer so very mean and grovelling as to triumph in the very thought of annihilation, rather than acknowledge any being in the universe superior to himself? But there would be more use in writing these things to [italics] him [end italics] than to you, so I will have done.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 9 June 1761:]
'My dear Mr Hanway has published two volumes at last, which you saw, and only told me you had seen them, but for which I love and honour him (and so far as spending thirty hours upon them I believe I shall also [italics] obey [end italics] him) as much as the world, and the wits, and the critics will, I suppose, despise him [...] Not that I would have licensed [italics] every [end italics] word in his book neither, but the whole delights me.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 9 June 1761:]
'My dear Mr Hanway has published two volumes at last, which you saw, and only told me you had seen them, but for which I love and honour him (and so far as spending thirty hours upon them I believe I shall also [italics] obey [end italics] him) as much as the world, and the wits, and the critics will, I suppose, despise him [...] Not that I would have licensed [italics] every [end italics] word in his book neither, but the whole delights me.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter Print: Book
[Elizabeth Carter to Catherine Talbot, 4 October 1763:]
'Is your Treatise on Gaiety a poem? If it is I believe I know it -- Pray amongst your French studies have you met with a refutation of Rousseau's Emile? It is in many parts admirably well writ, and with great strength of argument; but the effect is sometimes unhappily weakened by the mixture of popish doctrines. -- Probably you have seen Rousseau's answer to the Archbishop of Paris's mandement against Emile. There are sometimes so many right things blended with Rousseau's very dangerous errors, that I suppose there are few authors whom is it so difficult to answer in a proper way.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter Print: Unknown
[Elizabeth Carter to Catherine Talbot, 5 December 1763:]
'Have you read Mrs Macaulay's history? I have seen only some extracts from it, which seemed to be writ with strength and spirit.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter Print: Unknown
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 23 August 1766:]
'I have read Zaide, which I do not admire, as it is calculated to undo all the good impressions that may have been made by the Marquis de Rozelle.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 10 October 1767:]
'Pray, pray get on as fast as you can with your Arabic, that you may be fit to translate for us forty-four Assemblies, or ingenious conversations, by Hariri, the son of Himam; there are fifty of them, six just translated by a gentleman of Cambridge, and we are undone to know whether the whole fifty can be equally dull and unedifying. Did you ever read Noah? it seems to me even in the translation delightfully fine.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
'In a lecture at Friends' House he spoke of a new Blitzkrieg timed to start on May 1st, and designed to overthrow England in Polish fashion by the end of the summer. His series of "Daily Telegraph" articles, subsequently republished as a small book called "Inside Germany", caused a sensation by supplying chapter and verse for this prophecy.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'The story you sent me (I'm glad to have it) I remembered of course very well. It isn't the sort of thing that is ever forgotten.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad
'I have been reading through your plays again. You are "très fait" as the French say. Tell me, had E[den] P[hillpotts] much to do with the "Angel"? It seems to me to be pure Hastings.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: probably an acting edition
[Elizabeth Carter to Elizabeth Vesey, 4 May 1774:]
'I do not recall any late productions in the literary way, except a little volume of very pretty Essays by Miss Aikin, and Mr Bryant's Analysis of Ancient Mythology, of which I have read one volume in quarto. It is a work of immense learning and very great ingenuity, but has to me the fault of almost all the mythological systems I ever read, the want of sufficient proof [discusses text and author further] [...] I am told that the second volume is much more satisfactory than the first. I find it is a fashionable book, from which one would infer that this is an age of most profound literature, and from the very nature of his subject it is scarcely possible to discover what he means but by the assistance of Greek and Hebrew.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter Print: Book
'Pray, when you see [Wilson] Follett, give him a warm greeting from me. His little book is one of these things one does not forget. I saw some time ago a study of Galsworthy by him (and a lady who must be either his wife or his sister) which within the limits if a magazine article was simply admirable for insight and expression.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
[Elizabeth Carter to Elizabeth Vesey, 25 July 1779:]
'I do not wonder you were struck by Mrs Barbauld's Hymns. They are all excellent, but there are some passages amazingly sublime. Amongst these is the manner in which she introduces the Saviour, after the description of the devastations of death, as the restorer of life and immortality.'
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter
[Elizabeth Carter to Elizabeth Vesey, 9 January 1782:]
'Alas, my dear friend, it is not a reflection on the writings or conversation of a licentious profligate infidel like the Abbe R---- that can compose the astonished mind amidst the awful terrors of a midnight storm, such as you so nobly describe: you well know that from sources such as these no solid comfort can be derived, why then will you idly spend your time in reading what ought never to have been written? But you do it, you say, merely for amusement: 'tis dangerous amusement to a mind like yours, indeed to any mind.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Vesey Print: Book
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 1 March 1754:]
'Who is that Miss Nanny Williams who has published a pretty copy of verses addressed to you in the Gentleman's Magazine of January last? Whoever she be, the girl has a good heart; and writes very well [...] If you know her, I desire my service and thanks to her.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Serial / periodical
'This ["Beyond"] is a gripping piece of writing. I got as far as p.47 before it dawned on me that these were marvellous opening pages. The others are not less so. My dearest Jack they are sheer delight to read [...].'
[Hence follow 25 lines of unqualified praise.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'PS I've seen your most charming article on the French in the "Fortnightly [Review]". '
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'"It is an hard matter," wrote John Bunyan in "The Pilgrim's Progress", "to go down into the Valley of Humiliation."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book, Unknown
'Yes. I've seen "Contact's" [Alan Bott's] work. It is very good . But he's not the only one.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I am of course with you entirely both as to the matter and the expression of the Agricultural pamphlet. Thanks very much for sending me the copy.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad
'From the United States Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, inspired by the same thought, sent me an article called "Last Plea for Europe" which he had published in "The Christian Century".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: article published in a periodical
'To the "Evening Standard" Anne Matheson had contributed a later and similar description of Nuremberg.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Newspaper
[Charlotte Bronte to Ellen Nussey, 31 March 1846:]
'I received the number of the Record you sent and despatched it forwards to Mr Young &c. am I right? I read D'Aubigne's letter -- it is clever and in what he says about catholicism very good -- the evangelical alliance part is not very practicable yet certainly it is more in accordance with the spirit of the Gospel to preach unity amongst Christians than to inculcate mutual intolerance and hatred'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte Print: Unknown
'a vague subject, but treated in the refined & elevated spirit peculiar to him'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: G. W. F. Howard, Lord Morpeth Print: Book
'I could not have liked a book more; the predominant feelings has been but selfish - oh, why was I not brought up under him, or as that could not be, why could Inot have known more of him? It might perhaps have led me into too much idolatry of him… With all his immense merits, I think one may trace some fancifulness & precipitancy of judgement… I think the Editor's part has been admirable done'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: G. W. F. Howard, Lord Morpeth Print: Book
'I only hope that its appalling details of profligacy are exaggerated'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: G. W. F. Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to George Henry Lewes, 12 January 1848:
'Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. What induced you to
say that you would have rather written "Pride and Prejudice" or "Tom Jones," than any of the
Waverley Novels?
'I had not seen "Pride and Prejudice" till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book.
And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully
fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a
bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should
hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses. These
observations will probably irritate you, but I shall run the risk.
'Now I can understand admiration of George Sand; for though I never saw any of her works
which I admired throughout (even "Consuelo," which is the best, or the best that I have read,
appears to me to couple strange extravagance with wondrous excellence), yet she has a grasp
of mind which, if I cannot fully comprehend, I can very deeply respect: she is sagacious and
profound; Miss Austen is only shrewd and observant.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
'All day I read and finished Rosamond Lehmann's novel, The Ballad and the Source, which Logan P.-S. thinks the best novel since Henry James. I daresay he is right and I am immensly impressed. My only criticisms are that the story is told in dialogue, and I do not think that a child of 10 to 14 should be the channel through which a terrible drama is unfolded. Nevertheless, what a story!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lees-Milne Print: Book
'I will confess at once that I have read the book ["The Reconnaissance"] once only, and that of course is not enough;[...].The subject in itself is certainly a very difficult one because of its deep nature and its necessarily superficial aspects.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I have read your Anim. Magnetism, and think it among the best in the Number; worthy indeed of a far better place. I durst bet, the Blacks have not paid you yet: they are among the worst payers in existence.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Serial / periodical
'Do you know Doven's and Hagen's Hist. of German Poetry? I have seen it in the Edinr College Library, but read only a few pages of it.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to W. S. Williams, 16 November 1848:
'To-day I have received the "Spectator" and the "Revue des deux Mondes." The "Spectator" consistently maintains the tone it first assumed regarding the Bells [...] Blind he is as any bat, insensate as any stone, to the merits of Ellis [i.e. Emily Brontë] [...] Because Ellis's poems are short and abstract, the critics think them comparatively insignificant and dull. They are mistaken.
'The notice in the "Revue des deux Mondes" is one of the most able, the most acceptable to the author, of any that has yet appeared. Eugene Forcade understood and enjoyed "Jane Eyre." I cannot say that of all who have professed to criticise it. The censures are as well-founded as the commendations. The specimens of the translation given are on the whole good; now and then the meaning of the original has been misapprehended, but generally it is well rendered.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Serial / periodical
Charlotte Bronte to her publisher, W. S. Williams, 1 February 1849:
'The parcel [of books, from Williams] came yesterday [...] The choice of books is perfect. Papa is at this moment reading Macaulay's "History," which he had wished to see. Anne is engaged with one of Frederika Bremer's tales.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Patrick Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to her publisher, W. S. Williams, 1 February 1849:
'There are two volumes in the first parcel [sent on loan by Williams] which, having seen, I cannot bring myself to part with, and must beg Mr Smith [Williams's publishing partner] to retain: Mr Thackeray's "Journey from Cornhill, etc.", and "The Testimony to the Truth." That last is indeed a book after my own heart. I do like the mind it discloses — it is of a fine and high order. Alexander may be a clown by birth, but he is a nobleman by nature. When I could read no other book [following death of her sister Emily in December 1848], I read his and derived comfort from it. No matter whether or not I can agree in all his views, it is the principles, the feelings, the heart of the man I admire.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to W. S. Williams, 5 April 1849:
'The Cornhill books are still our welcome and congenial resource while Anne [sister, in terminal decline] is well enough to enjoy reading. Carlyle's "Miscellanies" interest me greatly. We have read "The Emigrant Family." The characters in the work are good, full of quiet truth and nature, and the local colouring is excellent; yet I can hardly call it a good novel. Reflective, truth-loving, and even elevated as is Alexander Harris's mind, I should say he scarcely possesses the creative faculty in sufficient vigour to excel as a writer of fiction. He creates nothing — he only copies. "The Testimony to the Truth [of Christianity]" is a better book than any tale he can write will ever be.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte and family Print: Book
'Some three weeks ago, a packet of Books arrived here, accompanied with a Letter addressed A l'Auteur de l'Article intitule, Caractere de notre Epoque, the whole perfectly uninjured, the Books complete according to the list sent with them. Being actually the writer of that Paper, headed Signs of the Times, in the Edinburgh Review, there referred to, I cannot but cheerfully accept this present: by what route it came hither I shall perhaps learn by and by... Pursuant to your directions, I have looked over these Writings, with such leisure and composure as I could command; well purposing to investigate the matter farther, as I have opportunity.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'Some three weeks ago, a packet of Books arrived here, accompanied with a Letter addressed A l'Auteur de l'Article intitule, Caractere de notre Epoque, the whole perfectly uninjured, the Books complete according to the list sent with them. Being actually the writer of that Paper, headed Signs of the Times, in the Edinburgh Review, there referred to, I cannot but cheerfully accept this present: by what route it came hither I shall perhaps learn by and by... Pursuant to your directions, I have looked over these Writings, with such leisure and composure as I could command; well purposing to investigate the matter farther, as I have opportunity.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to her publisher, W. S. Williams, 13 September 1849:
'Reading has, of late, been my great solace and recreation [in year following the deaths of her brother and two sisters] [...] I am beginning to read Eckermann's "Goethe" &mdash: it promises to be a most interesting work. Honest, simple, single-minded Eckermann! Great, powerful, giant-souled, but also profoundly egotistical, old Johann Wolfgang von Goethe!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to James Taylor, 1 October 1849:
'The perusal of Harriet Martineau's "Eastern Life" has afforded me great pleasure; and I have found a deep and interesting subject of study in Newman's work on the "Soul." Have you read this work? It is daring — it may be mistaken — but it is pure and elevated. Froude's "Nemesis of Faith" I did not like; I thought it morbid; yet in its pages, too, are found sprinklings of truth.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to her publisher, W. S. Williams, 12 April 1850:
'I have [...] read one of Miss Austen's works "Emma" — read it with interest and with just the degree of admiration which Miss Austen herself would have thought sensible and suitable — anything like warmth or enthusiasm; anything energetic, poignant, heartfelt, is utterly out of place in commending these works: all such demonstration the authoress would have met with a well-bred sneer, would have calmly scorned as outre and extravagant. She does her business of delineating the surface of the lives of genteel English people curiously well; there is a Chinese fidelity, a miniature delicacy in the painting: she ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound: the Passions are perfectly unknown to her [...] Her business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes, mouth, hands and feet; what sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study, but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through [...] this Miss Austen ignores; she no more, with her mind's eye, beholds the heart of her race than each man, with bodily vision sees the heart in his heaving breast. Jane Austen was a complete and most sensible lady, but a very incomplete, and rather insensible (not senseless) woman, if this is heresy — I cannot help it.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to G. H. Lewes, 17 October 1850:
'Accept my thanks for some hours of pleasant reading. Balzac was for me quite a new author,
and in making his acquaintance, through the medium of "Modeste Mignon" and "Illusions
Perdues" — you cannot doubt I have felt some interest.
At first I thought he was going to be painfully minute, and fearfully tedious; one grew
impatient of his long parade of detail [...] but by-and-by, I seemed to enter into the mystery
of his craft and to discover with delight where his force lay: is it not in the analysis of motive,
and in a subtle perception of the most obscure and secret workings of the mind? Still —
admire Balzac as we may — I think we do not like him. We rather feel towards him as
towards an uncongenial acquaintance who is for ever holding up, in strong light, our defects,
and who rarely draws forth our better qualities.
'Truly — I like George Sand better. Fantastic, fanatical, unpractical enthusiast as she often is
[...] George Sand has a better nature than M. Balzac — her brain is larger — her heart warmer
than his. The "Lettres d'un Voyageur" are full of the writer's self, and I never felt so strongly
as in the perusal of this work — that most of her very faults spring from the excess of her
good qualities [...] her mind is of that order which disastrous experience teaches without
weakening or too much disheartening'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to G. H. Lewes, 17 October 1850:
'Accept my thanks for some hours of pleasant reading. Balzac was for me quite a new author,
and in making his acquaintance, through the medium of "Modeste Mignon" and "Illusions
Perdues" — you cannot doubt I have felt some interest.
At first I thought he was going to be painfully minute, and fearfully tedious; one grew
impatient of his long parade of detail [...] but by-and-by, I seemed to enter into the mystery
of his craft and to discover with delight where his force lay: is it not in the analysis of motive,
and in a subtle perception of the most obscure and secret workings of the mind? Still —
admire Balzac as we may — I think we do not like him. We rather feel towards him as
towards an uncongenial acquaintance who is for ever holding up, in strong light, our defects,
and who rarely draws forth our better qualities.
'Truly — I like George Sand better. Fantastic, fanatical, unpractical enthusiast as she often is
[...] George Sand has a better nature than M. Balzac — her brain is larger — her heart warmer
than his. The "Lettres d'un Voyageur" are full of the writer's self, and I never felt so strongly
as in the perusal of this work — that most of her very faults spring from the excess of her
good qualities [...] her mind is of that order which disastrous experience teaches without
weakening or too much disheartening'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to James Taylor, 6 November 1850:
'I have just finished reading the Life of Dr Arnold [...] This is not a character to be dismissed
with a few laudatory words [...] pure panegyric would be inappropriate. Dr Arnold (it seems to
me) was not quite saintly; his greatness was cast in a mortal mould; he was a little severe —
almost a little hard [...] Himself the most indefatigable of workers, I know not whether he
could have understood or made allowance for a temperament that required more rest [...]
Exacting he might have been then on this point, and granting that he was so, and a little
hasty, stern, and positive, those were his sole faults [...] Where can we find justice, firmness,
independence, earnestness, sincerity, fuller and purer than in him? [comments further]'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to George Smith, 5 February 1851:
'Those papers on the London Poor are singularly interesting; to me they open a new and
strange world, very dark, very dreary, very noisome in some of its recesses, a world that is
fostering such a future as I scarcely dare to imagine [...] The fidelity and simplicity of the
letterpress details harmonise well with the daguerrotype illustrations.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Serial / periodical
Charlotte Bronte to W. S. Williams, 28 May 1853:
'I despatch to-day a box of return books [loaned by Williams]: among them will be found two or
three of those just sent, being such as I had read before — i.e. Moore's "Life and
Correspondence," 1st and 2nd Vols., Lamartine's "Restoration of the Monarchy," etc.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
From Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte:
'"I recollect [...] [Bronte's] saying how acutely she dreaded a charge of plagiarism when, after
she had written "Jane Eyre," she read the thrilling effect of the mysterious scream at midnight
in Mrs Marsh's story of "The Deformed." She also said that, when she read "The Neighbours,"
she thought every one would fancy that she must have taken her conception of Jane Eyre's
character from that of "Francesca," the narrator of Miss Bremer's story. For my own part, I
cannot see the slightest resemblance between the two characters"'.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Unknown
'Many thanks for the inscribed copy. [...]. On the 28th May I finished correcting the last pages of "Rescue" [...]. The same evening I picked up "Sri Ram" as I limped to bed, and went on reading it through the still, very still, hours of night to the end, marvelling and musing over the pages.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I ought to have thanked you before for the book ["Siri Ram"] which I read directly it reached my hands.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Ever so many thanks for copy of "[The] Sepoy". Everything you write is a matter of most sympathetic interest to me; and in the case of this book I must say I enjoyed thoroughly in every way, in the facts, in the presentation and in the spirit of the writing itself.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Also, please tell Miss Morris that the novel The Nihilist Princess is a sham, and empty of all dramatic matter. She had been afraid of it.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
'What you have given me is more golden than gold, more precious than any treasure this great country could yield me, though the land be a network of railways, and each city a harbour for the galleys of the world.
It is a sonnet I have loved always, and indeed who but the supreme and perfect artist could have got from a mere colour a motive so full of marvel: and now I am half enamoured of the paper that touched his hand, and the ink that did his bidding, grown fond of the sweet comeliness of his charactery [...] Again I thank you for this dear memory of the man I love, and thank you also for the sweet and gracious words in which you give it to me: it were strange in truth if one in whose veins flows the same blood as quickened into song that young prince of beauty, were not with me in this great renaissance of art which Keats indeed would have so much loved, and of which he, above all others, is the seed.
Let me send you my sonnet on Keats's grave, which you quote with such courteous compliments in you note, and if you would let it lie near his own papers it may keep some green of youth caught from those withered leaves in whose faded lines eternal summer dwells.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Manuscript: Sheet
'The justness of all these things said in "Another Sheaf" is what strikes one most.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I am just fresh from the second reading of your vol ["Brought Forward"]'.
Hence follow twelve lines of admiring comment.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Ever so many thanks too for the "Life and Miracles" which I have just read for the second time.There is no one but you to render so poignantly the pathetic and desperate effects of human credulity. It is a marvellous piece of sustained narrative and of intensely personal prose.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I finished your MS yesterday and am very much impressed by the ampleness of the scheme, the masterly ease in the handling [of] the subject and (in sober truth) the sheer beauty of these pages.[...]
I keep the MS for Jessie to read. In the Nursing Home she could only read "Tatterdemalion" which I have not yet seen. I didn't want to take it away from her for even an evening as she seemed unable to tackle any of the other 12 volumes she had in her room.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Sheet
'I finished your MS yesterday and am very much impressed by the ampleness of the scheme, the masterly ease in the handling [of] the subject and (in sober truth) the sheer beauty of these pages.[...]
I keep the MS for Jessie to read. In the Nursing Home she could only read "Tatterdemalion" which I have not yet seen. I didn't want to take it away from her for even an evening as she seemed unable to tackle any of the other 12 volumes she had in her room.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Jessie Conrad Print: Book
'What to me [...] seems most wonderful in the "Cartagena" book is its inextinguishable vitality, the unchanged strength of feeling, steadfastness of sympathies and force of expresssion. I turned the pages with unfailing delight [...].
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Yesterday I read the first inst[alment] of "To Let" in a spirit of philistinish curiosity.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'Rudo [R.H.Sauter] shows much charm in "Awakening", which harmonised with the charm of the text in a fascinating way.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Thank you very much for sending me the text [of John Galsworthy's play "The Family Man"] which I have looked over with considerable interest. There are several rather considerable typing mistakes in that copy [...]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: playscript
'Thank you for sending me the comedy. I found it [...] interesting and greatly entertaining, which however did not prevent me from taking your work quite seriously.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: playscript
'I must begin by thanking you for the little book of satirical pieces ["Groteski"] which I read with great enjoyment and in that sympathetic mood which your work arouses in me.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Now I have absorbed it I send you my thanks for "The Gift of Paul Clermont". It is a very charming and touching performance which one likes more the deeper one gets into it.'
[Hence follow nine lines of praise.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Many thanks for the book which has given me the greatest of pleasure. I have always had a great admiration for Sir Alfred [Lyall] whose verse and prose appeal strongly to my mind and feelings.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Thank you for the book. Reading it gave me very great pleasure.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'"Abdication" arrived four of five days ago. How short the book is and how much you have managed to put into it. As you may imagine I read it at once.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I would have written to you before about my delight in "The Conquest of Granada" if it had not been for the beastly swollen wrist which prevented me from holding the pen.'
[Hence follow eight lines of praise.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I dictate these few words to thank you most heartily for your letters and especially for your little tale which I have read with absolute delight and appreciation of every point, and greatest sympathy with the mind which conceived it and the literary gift which guided the pen. During the last few weeks I have been finishing a novel and have been too absorbed to write to anyone.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'For the last two days I have been reading "The [Forsythe] Saga" which makes a wonderful volume.[...] How fresh "The Man of Property" reads. For that book I have a special affection. I have not read it for a couple of years, or more...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I hasten therefore to tell you without a moments delay what did mean to write (or have perhaps written) that the book ["Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas"] in its human zest for impressions, in its pervading sympathy for strange mankind, its acuity of observation [...] has given me a very real pleasure [...] You will see that neither the lapse of 2 months [since receiving and reading the book?] nor the fact of re-reading, has altered my original judgement "by first impression".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I consider myself highly privileged by the possession of an inscribed copy of the limited edition of the "Preludes"; and thanking you for the beauty and music therein contained. I am especially grateful for the kind thought which prompted you to send them to me in this form.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Will you please give my warm regards to your husband and tell him I have just finished reading the "Rumak" with the greatest possible interest. I think it's simply wonderful in its sustained power and charm of expression.[...] I haven't been able as yet to find time to begin "Pustka.''
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Your Comédie du Laboratoire is perfect. Très chic — as French painters used to say of their pictures. This formula expresses the highest praise.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book, or playscript
'I liked "Engineer" very very much indeed! The idea, the execution, the style.[...] Shall I return the MS to you?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Sheet
'The vol. of your stories arrived while we were over in Havre [...]. Thanks, my dear fellow its a jolly good handful. Some of them I've seen before in Mags. but not many.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Heartfelt thanks for your letter and the pamphlet about Einstein which for me is a small masterpiece of its kind.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad
'Have you seen Gwatkin? His novel is not bad and I can see now why it had that sale. Shall I send it to you or has he given you a copy?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'My warm thanks for the inscribed copy of "Bolshevik Persecution" you have been kind enough to send me. I have read with interest this most remarkably able account of a significant episode in the long tale of religious persecution.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I feel compunctions not having written before about "The Forest" — a piece of work to which I came with the greatest interest. [...]. Anyway its a fine thing.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: playscript
'As to your verses. May I keep them? Of course now you say you will not finish the poem — and it may be true — now.[...] But its charm and music are for me. I have read it more than once.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'Even H. Norman corroborates me out of his short experience. See his "Far East".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Thanks for the copy of "Good Reading". It's a charming little book.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I simply had to tell you having been impressed by seeing for the first time in my life a work of imagination acting upon an average sensibility with the personal, mysterious and irresistable power of oratory [...]. I will keep the MS until tomorrow.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Unknown
'Many thanks for the copy of your book which I have read with the greatest of interest and pleasure.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'That's first rate stuff. I have read all but two of the stories, which'll have their turn this afternoon and I shall take up your copy on Monday myself and deliver it to Pinker with my own hands.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'It is years since I have read "Candide" of course in French. I must tell you I have been immensely pleased by the particular quality of this translation.'
[Hence follow five lines of further praise for the translation.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Throughout his career Conrad was haunted by the idea of writing a Napoleonic novel, for which he did a prodigious amount of background reading.[...] However it was not until June 1920 that he eventually started to write "Suspense", and early in 1921 he spent two months in Corsica to saturate himself in Napoleonic atmosphere, revive memories of harbours and sailors and do further background reading, as the list of books borrowed from the Ajaccio library, recorded by Jean-Aubry, indicates.' [see note 118, p.316]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Throughout his career Conrad was haunted by the idea of writing a Napoleonic novel, for which he did a prodigious amount of background reading.[...] However it was not until June 1920 that he eventually started to write "Suspense", and early in 1921 he spent two months in Corsica to saturate himself in Napoleonic atmosphere, revive memories of harbours and sailors and do further background reading, as the list of books borrowed from the Ajaccio library, recorded by Jean-Aubry, indicates.' [see note 118, p.316]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'On Monday morning Grahame came down to breakfast, read your St John Long;, and insisted on my riding up with him to Grange: we went by Waterbeck and Torbeckhill, over the wet moor; had a meek, gently pleasant afternoon; I returned about eight o'clock, and found — O wonder and terror — an Express from Dumfries with tidings that the Jeffreys had notified that they would all be at Craigenputtoch that night!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Graham Print: Serial / periodical
'The best of the present French novelists seems to me, incomparably, Daudet. Les Rois en Exil comes very near to being a masterpiece.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'... read
Fortune by Sea and Land
written by
Tho, Heywood
W. Rowley
It is so sweet'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'Printed diary[.] The ladies new and polite pocket memorandum-book, for ... 1765, completed in manuscript and containing details of expenditure on clothes and social engagements. The diary was kept by an unnamed girl under the age of 21, who appears to have lived near Rugby, Warwickshire. [...] She also mentions reading Gil Blas de Santillane by Alain-Rene LeSage (1715-1735) and the Tatler ...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group:
'At the foot of the bed was an oak "library table" [...]. There were several piles of books on it, W. W. Jacobs for light reading, de Maupassant, Flaubert, Galsworthy, Cunninghame Graham, various periodicals, and a book, which has always been a mystery to me, "Out of the Hurly Burly" by Max Ad[e]ler. In the window stood an arm chair of cherry wood, lacquered black, on which my father often sat to read for half an hour or so before "turning in".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'At the foot of the bed was an oak "library table" [...]. There were several piles of books on it, W. W. Jacobs for light reading, de Maupassant, Flaubert, Galsworthy, Cunninghame Graham, various periodicals, and a book, which has always been a mystery to me, "Out of the Hurly Burly" by Max Ad[e]ler. In the window stood an arm chair of cherry wood, lacquered black, on which my father often sat to read for half an hour or so before "turning in".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'My fears shook my weak and tender frame in reading Edwards on the Affections. A heartsearching book. A truly valuable author'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Arabella Davies Print: Book
'The writer [Ford Madox Ford] never saw Conrad read any book of memoirs except those of Maxime Ducamp and the Correspondence of Flaubert; those we read daily together over a space of years. But somewhere in the past Conrad had read every imaginable and unimaginable volume of politician's memoirs, Mme de Campan, the Duc d'Audiffret Pasquier, Benjamin Constant, Karoline Bauer, Sir Horace Rumbold, Napoleon the Great, Napoleon III, Benjamin Franklin, Assheton Smith, Pitt, Chatham, Palmerston, Parnell,The late Queen Victoria, Dilke, Morley [...] There was no memoir of all these that he had missed or forgotten—down to "Il Principe" or the letters of Thomas Cromwell. He could sugddenly produce an incident from the life of Lord Shaftesbury and work it into "Nostromo" [...].'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The writer [Ford Madox Ford] never saw Conrad read any book of memoirs except those of Maxime Ducamp and the Correspondence of Flaubert; those we read daily together over a space of years. But somewhere in the past Conrad had read every imaginable and unimaginable volume of politician's memoirs, Mme de Campan, the Duc d'Audiffret Pasquier, Benjamin Constant, Karoline Bauer, Sir Horace Rumbold, Napoleon the Great, Napoleon III, Benjamin Franklin, Assheton Smith, Pitt, Chatham, Palmerston, Parnell,The late Queen Victoria, Dilke, Morley [...] There was no memoir of all these that he had missed or forgotten—down to "Il Principe" or the letters of Thomas Cromwell. He could sugddenly produce an incident from the life of Lord Shaftesbury and work it into "Nostromo" [...].'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The writer [Ford Madox Ford] never saw Conrad read any book of memoirs except those of Maxime Ducamp and the Correspondence of Flaubert; those we read daily together over a space of years. But somewhere in the past Conrad had read every imaginable and unimaginable volume of politician's memoirs, Mme de Campan, the Duc d'Audiffret Pasquier, Benjamin Constant, Karoline Bauer, Sir Horace Rumbold, Napoleon the Great, Napoleon III, Benjamin Franklin, Assheton Smith, Pitt, Chatham, Palmerston, Parnell,The late Queen Victoria, Dilke, Morley [...] There was no memoir of all these that he had missed or forgotten—down to "Il Principe" or the letters of Thomas Cromwell. He could sugddenly produce an incident from the life of Lord Shaftesbury and work it into "Nostromo" [...].'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The writer [Ford Madox Ford] never saw Conrad read any book of memoirs except those of Maxime Ducamp and the Correspondence of Flaubert; those we read daily together over a space of years. But somewhere in the past Conrad had read every imaginable and unimaginable volume of politician's memoirs, Mme de Campan, the Duc d'Audiffret Pasquier, Benjamin Constant, Karoline Bauer, Sir Horace Rumbold, Napoleon the Great, Napoleon III, Benjamin Franklin, Assheton Smith, Pitt, Chatham, Palmerston, Parnell,The late Queen Victoria, Dilke, Morley [...] There was no memoir of all these that he had missed or forgotten—down to "Il Principe" or the letters of Thomas Cromwell. He could sugddenly produce an incident from the life of Lord Shaftesbury and work it into "Nostromo" [...].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The writer [Ford Madox Ford] never saw Conrad read any book of memoirs except those of Maxime Ducamp and the Correspondence of Flaubert; those we read daily together over a space of years. But somewhere in the past Conrad had read every imaginable and unimaginable volume of politician's memoirs, Mme de Campan, the Duc d'Audiffret Pasquier, Benjamin Constant, Karoline Bauer, Sir Horace Rumbold, Napoleon the Great, Napoleon III, Benjamin Franklin, Assheton Smith, Pitt, Chatham, Palmerston, Parnell,The late Queen Victoria, Dilke, Morley [...] There was no memoir of all these that he had missed or forgotten—down to "Il Principe" or the letters of Thomas Cromwell. He could sugddenly produce an incident from the life of Lord Shaftesbury and work it into "Nostromo" [...].'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'He was reading at the time Daudet's "Jack", which immensely fascinated him, though he found it "trop chargé" — as who should say, too harrowing.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Conrad's face would cloud over. He would snatch up a volume of Racine and read half a dozen lines.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Did I ever tell you with how great an interest I had read your reminiscences of Carlyle and Mrs C.?'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson
'Have you ever read Olympe de Cleves? If not, remember, it must be read.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'I inclose [sic] a review which Lang sent me, presumably his own and presumably from the Daily News.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Newspaper
'I have read your Ronins Fideles.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'We reached his room about eleven. To do what? Not a blessed thing but to sit before a fire and talk and read again.... On his shelf was ... Edmund Rostand's [italics] Cyrano de Bergerac [end italics] in the original French. I started to read the famous speech on his nose. My good friend went ahead with me line for line without the book. Then he in turn read the "Non merci" speech with immense gusto.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Cyril Lionel Robert James Print: Book
'I read Mrs Besant three times, and made fresh notes every time, in order to do the second part; [The Glimpse] a fearful grind; & the Theosophical Society ought now to reprint my second part as one of their official publications; it is infinitely more graphic and coherent than any of their own tracts.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'[I] read your Demonology and a Paper on St J. Long, the only thing by you in that [al]most quite despicable Magazine.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Serial / periodical
'[I] read your Demonology and a Paper on St J. Long, the only thing by you in that [al]most quite despicable Magazine.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Serial / periodical
'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
'Out training signallers and observers. The former very efficient, the latter the very reverse. We are to move on the 21st. Heard that my school (Hillhead H.S.) are sending out 10,000 cigarettes to the battalion. Very decent indeed! Finished "Micky O'Halloran" by Gene Stratton Porter.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Lindsay Mackay Print: Book
'I have taken to no deeper study than Capt. Head's gallop which I have never read before. I am
afraid it won't instruct me much.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Wedgwood Print: Book
'Disputes run very high here upon the subject of ''Violet''. Some of the party are quite convinced
it is written by a woman and have some suspicions it is Mrs Marsh ... I think it is much too
clever for the author of the two last old men [''Old Men's Tales''].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Wedgwood Print: Book
'Bn. moved into Left sector. Macleod came back to "details" for a rest, and I went in as
a/adjutant. Weather wet and cold. More "Strafes". Spent a very busy three days until night of
2nd/3rd. Nov. when we were relieved. During these three days in the line the number of letters,
telegrams and reports received or sent out by me was no less than 451! I counted them! War!
Eugh!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Lindsay Mackay Manuscript: Letter, Sheet
The evening concluded with a reading from Udalls Ralph Royster Doyster when C. E. Stansfield was Doyster H.R. Smith Merrygreek and E B Smith Custance
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield Print: Book
The evening concluded with a reading from Udalls Ralph Royster Doyster when C. E. Stansfield was Doyster H.R. Smith Merrygreek and E B Smith Custance
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas C. Elliott Print: Book
The evening concluded with a reading from Udalls Ralph Royster Doyster when C. E. Stansfield was Doyster H.R. Smith Merrygreek and E B Smith Custance
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith B. Smith Print: Book
H. M. Wallis delighted us with an account of War Time Tree fellings
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
[Letter, 22 November 1813]
'I have just been reading Anne Caldwell's play and am delighted with it.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jessie Allen
[Letter 22 November 1813]
'I want to read again Miss Baillie's ''Hope'',which I thought the prettiest of her compositions ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jessie Allen Print: Book
'A Meeting held at Whinfell 21/1/29 Alfred Rawlings in the chair
1. Minutes of last time read and approved
[...]
4. The Subject of Plato was then taken F. E. Pollard explained briefly the subject and manner
of "The Republic"
following which Alfred and Janet Rawlings read one of the earlier dialogues. H. B. Lawson then
gave us a most
fascinatingly interesting account of Plato's life and work.
After supper Chas E. Stansfield read from Book 7 of the "Republic" "The Cave" this reading
being illustrated by a
diagram kindly made and explained by F. E. Pollard. F. E. Pollard then outlined for us the main
thoughts of Platos [sic]
Philosophy Ideas the true reality[.] The evening concluded by T. C. Elliott reading the affecting
account of Socrates
death in the Phaedo. Thus came to an end a most interesting evening.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
[Letter 24 March 1814]
'''The Wanderer'' is to be out on Monday. It is the most interesting novel I have ever read.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Allen Print: Book
'A. Meeting held at Frensham 19/3/1929 H. R. Smith in the chair
Min 1 Minutes of last read and approved
Min 2 The date of the next Meeting was fixed for Friday May 3rd at Grove House by kind
invitation of Mrs Lawson[.] Mr H. B. Lawson was added to the committee
Min 3 Three short Plays of John Galsworthy were then read in parts. The first was "Hall Marked"
not a great success as it depends so much on exit. [illegible word similar to ‘cutranas’] glances &
backs. After supper Came "The Little Man" which was much enjoyed and finally Punch & Go
which also gave much pleasure.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Un-named members of the XII Book Club
'A. Meeting held at Frensham 19/3/1929 H. R. Smith in the chair
Min 1 Minutes of last read and approved
Min 2 The date of the next Meeting was fixed for Friday May 3rd at Grove House by kind
invitation of Mrs Lawson[.] Mr H. B. Lawson was added to the committee
Min 3 Three short Plays of John Galsworthy were then read in parts. The first was "Hall Marked"
not a great success as it depends so much on exit. [illegible word similar to ‘cutranas’] glances &
backs. After supper Came "The Little Man" which was much enjoyed and finally Punch & Go
which also gave much pleasure.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Un-named members of the XII Book Club
'A. Meeting held at Frensham 19/3/1929 H. R. Smith in the chair
Min 1 Minutes of last read and approved
Min 2 The date of the next Meeting was fixed for Friday May 3rd at Grove House by kind
invitation of Mrs Lawson[.] Mr H. B. Lawson was added to the committee
Min 3 Three short Plays of John Galsworthy were then read in parts. The first was "Hall Marked"
not a great success as it depends so much on exit. [illegible word similar to ‘cutranas’] glances &
backs. After supper Came "The Little Man" which was much enjoyed and finally Punch & Go
which also gave much pleasure.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Un-named members of the XII Book Club
'A Meeting held at Grove House May 3rd H. B. Lawson in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last Read and approved
[...]
[Min] 4 The Subject of the evening "Humour" was then introduced by H. B. Lawson who fascinated us by his thoughtful attempts to
define his subject[.] An interesting discussion followed in which the disputants backed their opinions by literary allusion and we
were led to wonder if Humour flowed from F E Pollards heart & wit from R H Robsons head.
After Supper the Club settled down to enjoy the following selections chosen to represent English Humour in literature down the
Ages[:]
Prologue of Chaucers Canterbury Tales The Prioress & Wife of Bath read by Howard R. Smith
Shakespeares Henry IV The Men in Buckram read by R. H Robson Fallstaff
[ditto] S. A. Reynolds Poins
[ditto] C. E. Stansfield Prince Hall [sic]
[ditto] Geo Burrow Gadshill
Jane Austin Pride & Prejudice Mr. Collins proposes
[ditto] Mrs Robson
Charles Dickens David Copperfield Mrs Micawber on her husbands career[?] Geo Burrow
Charles Lamb A Letter Alfred Rawlings
Lewis Carrols Alice in Wonderland The Lobster Quadrill Mary Reynolds
Jerome K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat Uncle Podger hangs a picture F. E. Pollard
Hilaire Belloc Cautionary Tales "George" recited by Howard R. Smith'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary E. Robson Print: Book
'A Meeting held at Broomfield June 6 1929
Geo H Burrow in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last time read and approved
[...]
5 The Subject of the evening Modern American Literature was then taken F. E. Pollard
introducing us to a number of Authors in a short general Survey. Geo Burrows then read us
several short examples in Verse[.]
Rosamund Wallis read two passages from "the Bridge of St Louis Rey" by Thornton Wilder[.]
Thos C. Elliott read an essay on "War" by George Santiana[.]
Chas E Stansfield read a poem "Renaissance by E. St Vincent Millay[.]
R. H. Robson gave us two readings from Sinclair Lewis’s Babbit'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'A Meeting held at Broomfield June 6 1929
Geo H Burrow in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last time read and approved
[...]
5 The Subject of the evening Modern American Literature was then taken F. E. Pollard
introducing us to a number of Authors in a short general Survey. Geo Burrows then read us
several short examples in Verse[.]
Rosamund Wallis read two passages from "the Bridge of St Louis Rey" by Thornton Wilder[.]
Thos C. Elliott read an essay on "War" by George Santiana[.]
Chas E Stansfield read a poem "Renaissance by E. St Vincent Millay[.]
R. H. Robson gave us two readings from Sinclair Lewis’s Babbit'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield
'I think I have never written to you since I read ''Glenarvon''. I agree with you in admiring it exceedingly in some respects [...] I almost think that as a picture of the feelings, ''Glenarvon'' is superior to any work I ever read.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Wedgwood Print: Book
'Meeting held at School House
3/12/29
T. C. Elliott in the chair
1. Minutes of last Meeting read and approved
[...]
5. The subject of the evening Ghost Stories was then taken
H. R. Smith read an account written by Clarkson Wallis of a ghost appearing in Brighton
Meeting.
Geo Burrows read a Newcastle Ghost story
Miss Brain read of the Ghost of Southcote Manor & Mrs Elliott read of Mrs S. The Morton
Ghost.
C. E. Stansfield read an essay on the subject especially with reference to the work of the
Physchical [sic]
Research Society thereafter he and H. R. Smith told a story apiece.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Manuscript: Notebook
'Meeting held at 73 Northcourt Avenue
Friday 28th March 1930
1. Minutes of last meeting were approved.
[...]
6. A warm message of sympathy to be sent to our secretary, H R Smith
7. F E Pollard opened the discussion by speaking on The Cinema and The Theatre pointing out
that the silent film could only represent incidents & visible emotions, the Talkie was a
mechanical reproduction, while the best dramatic art must be given there and then by living
Personalities[.] Each may have its place but it would be a disaster if the theatre was driven
out of existence. Geo Burrows followed dealing with the influence of films on backward Races to whom the
worst was often shown with undesirable effects; & the possibilities of using Films for
missionary work.
H R Robson thought Films were of little use in Education; he regarded them as a species of
dope, in which he indulged for the soporific effect.
C E Stansfield whilst disclaiming any familiarity of them spoke of their possible deleterious
influence on our language which he heard would before long be “Ammricanized” [sic] he
dreaded the actions of the “Smellie” & “Feelie” & the possible increase of armaments to
further
the trade.
Robert Pollard expressed unbounded enthusiasm for the Talkie & Colour films. The movies
were dead & orchestras being displaced by records of appropriate music attached to the films.
T C Elliot dealt with their effect on public life and morals which he feared was almost wholly
deleterious; he produced and commented unfavourably on some of the magazines
published.
An interesting general discussion followed but whilst it was felt that many undesirable features
were associated with the Cinema the Club did not feel equal to the task of reforming it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'On his arrival in Poland Conrad knew from our contemporary literature only "Popioly" and "Panna Mery". During his two-month stay he devoured almost all that was worth reading in fiction and drama. "Devoured" is the right word, for he read with unusual, unbelievable speed. I was constantly bringing him new books; he used to get impatient when on finishing one, there was not another at hand. In every case his judgement was correct — in respect both of the book as a whole and of the particular style of each author. Wyspianski and Zeromski made the greatest impression on him. "Oh, how I would like to translate it!" he said about "Warszawianska".[...] His favorite books by Zeromski were "Popioly" and "Syzyfowy prace". I should mention Prus. The first work of Prus I gave Conrad was "Emancypantki", one of my favorite books.[...] I warned him "Perhaps the first volume will not be up to your expectations, but don't give up [...]" (In the case of "Chlopi" I could not persuade him to read further volumes; "I know already what's coming" he said.) [...] When he had finished the entire novel ["Emancypatki"], he remarked with amazement, "Ma chère, c'est mieux que Dickens!". [...] First I gave him "Lalka " to read, then "Faraon". [...] Conrad kept asking for more books by Prus [...]. He read with passion "Palac i rudera" and "Powracajaca fala", books which I confess left me thoroughly bored.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'"This is my beloved Prus," Konrad [sic] pointed at a volume of "Emancypantski". I can read it over and over again." When I laid my hand on "Kazimierz Wielki", he said,
"Not this one, though."
"Why not?"
"It weighs me down. It's hard to pick oneself up afterwards," he added.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald H. Robson Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas C. Elliott Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith B. Smith Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Burrow Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Celia Burrow Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: E. Dorothy Brain Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: J. Rawlings Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ethel C. Stevens Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary E. Robson Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield June 3rd 1930
G. Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
7. John Galsworthys “The Roof” was then read in parts
Gustave C.E. Stanfield
Hon R Fanning R. H. Robson
Major Moultenay H. M. Wallis
Baker H. R. Smith
Brice T. C. Elliott
Mr Beeton S. A. Reynolds
Mrs Beeton E. B. Smith
H. Lennox Geo Burrow
Evelyn Lennox Celia Burrow
Diana D. Brain
Brye J. Rawlings
A Nurse R. Wallis
A Young Man F. E. Pollard
A Young Woman Mrs Pollard
Froba Mrs Robson
Two Pompiers Thomas C. Elliott
Miss Stevens read the stage directions'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Print: Book
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge July 10th 1930
H. M. Wallis in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last meeting approved
[...]
5 The subject of John Masefield was then taken
Geo Burrow gave some account of his life
Mrs Burrow read 2 poems "Beauty" & "Posted Missing"
H. M. Wallis read from the novel Sard Harker a thrilling account of an escape from a bog.
Violet Clough read from "Midsummer Night".
After refreshments "Phillip the King" was read in parts & much enjoyed the parts being taken as
opposite.
King Phillip C. B. Castle
His Daughter the Infanta Mrs Castle
Various Ghosts Mrs Pollard
The Captain H.R. Smith
De Leyva S.A. Reynolds
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Celia Burrow Manuscript: Unknown
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge July 10th 1930
H. M. Wallis in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last meeting approved
[...]
5 The subject of John Masefield was then taken
Geo Burrow gave some account of his life
Mrs Burrow read 2 poems "Beauty" & "Posted Missing"
H. M. Wallis read from the novel Sard Harker a thrilling account of an escape from a bog.
Violet Clough read from "Midsummer Night".
After refreshments "Phillip the King" was read in parts & much enjoyed the parts being taken as
opposite.
King Phillip C. B. Castle
His Daughter the Infanta Mrs Castle
Various Ghosts Mrs Pollard
The Captain H.R. Smith
De Leyva S.A. Reynolds
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Celia Burrow
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge July 10th 1930
H. M. Wallis in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last meeting approved
[...]
5 The subject of John Masefield was then taken
Geo Burrow gave some account of his life
Mrs Burrow read 2 poems "Beauty" & "Posted Missing"
H. M. Wallis read from the novel Sard Harker a thrilling account of an escape from a bog.
Violet Clough read from "Midsummer Night".
After refreshments "Phillip the King" was read in parts & much enjoyed the parts being taken as
opposite.
King Phillip C. B. Castle
His Daughter the Infanta Mrs Castle
Various Ghosts Mrs Pollard
The Captain H.R. Smith
De Leyva S.A. Reynolds
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge July 10th 1930
H. M. Wallis in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last meeting approved
[...]
5 The subject of John Masefield was then taken
Geo Burrow gave some account of his life
Mrs Burrow read 2 poems "Beauty" & "Posted Missing"
H. M. Wallis read from the novel Sard Harker a thrilling account of an escape from a bog.
Violet Clough read from "Midsummer Night".
After refreshments "Phillip the King" was read in parts & much enjoyed the parts being taken as
opposite.
King Phillip C. B. Castle
His Daughter the Infanta Mrs Castle
Various Ghosts Mrs Pollard
The Captain H.R. Smith
De Leyva S.A. Reynolds
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Violet Clough
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge July 10th 1930
H. M. Wallis in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last meeting approved
[...]
5 The subject of John Masefield was then taken
Geo Burrow gave some account of his life
Mrs Burrow read 2 poems "Beauty" & "Posted Missing"
H. M. Wallis read from the novel Sard Harker a thrilling account of an escape from a bog.
Violet Clough read from "Midsummer Night".
After refreshments "Phillip the King" was read in parts & much enjoyed the parts being taken as
opposite.
King Phillip C. B. Castle
His Daughter the Infanta Mrs Castle
Various Ghosts Mrs Pollard
The Captain H.R. Smith
De Leyva S.A. Reynolds
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edgar Castle
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge July 10th 1930
H. M. Wallis in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last meeting approved
[...]
5 The subject of John Masefield was then taken
Geo Burrow gave some account of his life
Mrs Burrow read 2 poems "Beauty" & "Posted Missing"
H. M. Wallis read from the novel Sard Harker a thrilling account of an escape from a bog.
Violet Clough read from "Midsummer Night".
After refreshments "Phillip the King" was read in parts & much enjoyed the parts being taken as
opposite.
King Phillip C. B. Castle
His Daughter the Infanta Mrs Castle
Various Ghosts Mrs Pollard
The Captain H.R. Smith
De Leyva S.A. Reynolds
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mignon Castle
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge July 10th 1930
H. M. Wallis in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last meeting approved
[...]
5 The subject of John Masefield was then taken
Geo Burrow gave some account of his life
Mrs Burrow read 2 poems "Beauty" & "Posted Missing"
H. M. Wallis read from the novel Sard Harker a thrilling account of an escape from a bog.
Violet Clough read from "Midsummer Night".
After refreshments "Phillip the King" was read in parts & much enjoyed the parts being taken as
opposite.
King Phillip C. B. Castle
His Daughter the Infanta Mrs Castle
Various Ghosts Mrs Pollard
The Captain H.R. Smith
De Leyva S.A. Reynolds
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge July 10th 1930
H. M. Wallis in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last meeting approved
[...]
5 The subject of John Masefield was then taken
Geo Burrow gave some account of his life
Mrs Burrow read 2 poems "Beauty" & "Posted Missing"
H. M. Wallis read from the novel Sard Harker a thrilling account of an escape from a bog.
Violet Clough read from "Midsummer Night".
After refreshments "Phillip the King" was read in parts & much enjoyed the parts being taken as
opposite.
King Phillip C. B. Castle
His Daughter the Infanta Mrs Castle
Various Ghosts Mrs Pollard
The Captain H.R. Smith
De Leyva S.A. Reynolds
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge July 10th 1930
H. M. Wallis in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last meeting approved
[...]
5 The subject of John Masefield was then taken
Geo Burrow gave some account of his life
Mrs Burrow read 2 poems "Beauty" & "Posted Missing"
H. M. Wallis read from the novel Sard Harker a thrilling account of an escape from a bog.
Violet Clough read from "Midsummer Night".
After refreshments "Phillip the King" was read in parts & much enjoyed the parts being taken as
opposite.
King Phillip C. B. Castle
His Daughter the Infanta Mrs Castle
Various Ghosts Mrs Pollard
The Captain H.R. Smith
De Leyva S.A. Reynolds
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds
'Meeting held at Frensham October 1st 1930
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. Minutes of last meeting read and approved.
[...]
7. The Subject of Mary Webb's work was then taken
Mrs Burrow read 4 short Poems Snowdrop Time
Hawthorn Berry
The Poplar Tree
The Neighbours Children
Mrs R. Wallis read from the House in Dormer Forest
Miss E. C. Stevens read from the Golden Arrow
After refreshments had been taken
H. M. Wallis read from the Golden Arrow
H. R. Smith read Blessed are the Meek
in conclusion H. M. Wallis gave us a slight appreciation of Mary Webbs work which was
followed by discussion in
which Mary Webb was compared with such writers as Sheila Kaye[-]Smith Geo. Elliott &
Thomas Hardy but very
especially the latter.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at Oakdene Jan 23rd 1931
S A Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
6 After supper Bernard Shaw’s “You never Can tell” was read in parts with the exception of
one
short Act for which there was no time[.] Characters as follows
Fergus Crampton G H Burrow
Bohun K.C. S. A. Reynolds
Finch McComus H. R. Smith
William the Waiter R. H. Robson
Valentine W. Fraser Mitchell
Philip Clandon Miss[?] Mary Reynolds
Parlour Maid Miss Margot Reynolds
Mrs Clandon Miss Janet Rawlings
Dolly Clandon Miss D. Brain
Gloria Clandon Mrs R. H. Robson
Considering that owing to illness many of the parts were taken at the shortest notice the
reading
was very well done'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Burrow Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene Jan 23rd 1931
S A Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
6 After supper Bernard Shaw’s “You never Can tell” was read in parts with the exception of
one
short Act for which there was no time[.] Characters as follows
Fergus Crampton G H Burrow
Bohun K.C. S. A. Reynolds
Finch McComus H. R. Smith
William the Waiter R. H. Robson
Valentine W. Fraser Mitchell
Philip Clandon Miss[?] Mary Reynolds
Parlour Maid Miss Margot Reynolds
Mrs Clandon Miss Janet Rawlings
Dolly Clandon Miss D. Brain
Gloria Clandon Mrs R. H. Robson
Considering that owing to illness many of the parts were taken at the shortest notice the
reading
was very well done'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene Jan 23rd 1931
S A Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
6 After supper Bernard Shaw’s “You never Can tell” was read in parts with the exception of
one
short Act for which there was no time[.] Characters as follows
Fergus Crampton G H Burrow
Bohun K.C. S. A. Reynolds
Finch McComus H. R. Smith
William the Waiter R. H. Robson
Valentine W. Fraser Mitchell
Philip Clandon Miss[?] Mary Reynolds
Parlour Maid Miss Margot Reynolds
Mrs Clandon Miss Janet Rawlings
Dolly Clandon Miss D. Brain
Gloria Clandon Mrs R. H. Robson
Considering that owing to illness many of the parts were taken at the shortest notice the
reading
was very well done'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene Jan 23rd 1931
S A Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
6 After supper Bernard Shaw’s “You never Can tell” was read in parts with the exception of
one
short Act for which there was no time[.] Characters as follows
Fergus Crampton G H Burrow
Bohun K.C. S. A. Reynolds
Finch McComus H. R. Smith
William the Waiter R. H. Robson
Valentine W. Fraser Mitchell
Philip Clandon Miss[?] Mary Reynolds
Parlour Maid Miss Margot Reynolds
Mrs Clandon Miss Janet Rawlings
Dolly Clandon Miss D. Brain
Gloria Clandon Mrs R. H. Robson
Considering that owing to illness many of the parts were taken at the shortest notice the
reading
was very well done'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald H. Robson Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene Jan 23rd 1931
S A Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
6 After supper Bernard Shaw’s “You never Can tell” was read in parts with the exception of
one
short Act for which there was no time[.] Characters as follows
Fergus Crampton G H Burrow
Bohun K.C. S. A. Reynolds
Finch McComus H. R. Smith
William the Waiter R. H. Robson
Valentine W. Fraser Mitchell
Philip Clandon Miss[?] Mary Reynolds
Parlour Maid Miss Margot Reynolds
Mrs Clandon Miss Janet Rawlings
Dolly Clandon Miss D. Brain
Gloria Clandon Mrs R. H. Robson
Considering that owing to illness many of the parts were taken at the shortest notice the
reading
was very well done'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Fraser Mitchell Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene Jan 23rd 1931
S A Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
6 After supper Bernard Shaw’s “You never Can tell” was read in parts with the exception of
one
short Act for which there was no time[.] Characters as follows
Fergus Crampton G H Burrow
Bohun K.C. S. A. Reynolds
Finch McComus H. R. Smith
William the Waiter R. H. Robson
Valentine W. Fraser Mitchell
Philip Clandon Miss[?] Mary Reynolds
Parlour Maid Miss Margot Reynolds
Mrs Clandon Miss Janet Rawlings
Dolly Clandon Miss D. Brain
Gloria Clandon Mrs R. H. Robson
Considering that owing to illness many of the parts were taken at the shortest notice the
reading
was very well done'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Reynolds Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene Jan 23rd 1931
S A Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
6 After supper Bernard Shaw’s “You never Can tell” was read in parts with the exception of
one
short Act for which there was no time[.] Characters as follows
Fergus Crampton G H Burrow
Bohun K.C. S. A. Reynolds
Finch McComus H. R. Smith
William the Waiter R. H. Robson
Valentine W. Fraser Mitchell
Philip Clandon Miss[?] Mary Reynolds
Parlour Maid Miss Margot Reynolds
Mrs Clandon Miss Janet Rawlings
Dolly Clandon Miss D. Brain
Gloria Clandon Mrs R. H. Robson
Considering that owing to illness many of the parts were taken at the shortest notice the
reading
was very well done'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margot Reynolds Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene Jan 23rd 1931
S A Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
6 After supper Bernard Shaw’s “You never Can tell” was read in parts with the exception of
one
short Act for which there was no time[.] Characters as follows
Fergus Crampton G H Burrow
Bohun K.C. S. A. Reynolds
Finch McComus H. R. Smith
William the Waiter R. H. Robson
Valentine W. Fraser Mitchell
Philip Clandon Miss[?] Mary Reynolds
Parlour Maid Miss Margot Reynolds
Mrs Clandon Miss Janet Rawlings
Dolly Clandon Miss D. Brain
Gloria Clandon Mrs R. H. Robson
Considering that owing to illness many of the parts were taken at the shortest notice the
reading
was very well done'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Janet Rawlings Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene Jan 23rd 1931
S A Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
6 After supper Bernard Shaw’s “You never Can tell” was read in parts with the exception of
one
short Act for which there was no time[.] Characters as follows
Fergus Crampton G H Burrow
Bohun K.C. S. A. Reynolds
Finch McComus H. R. Smith
William the Waiter R. H. Robson
Valentine W. Fraser Mitchell
Philip Clandon Miss[?] Mary Reynolds
Parlour Maid Miss Margot Reynolds
Mrs Clandon Miss Janet Rawlings
Dolly Clandon Miss D. Brain
Gloria Clandon Mrs R. H. Robson
Considering that owing to illness many of the parts were taken at the shortest notice the
reading
was very well done'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: E. Dorothy Brain Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene Jan 23rd 1931
S A Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
6 After supper Bernard Shaw’s “You never Can tell” was read in parts with the exception of
one
short Act for which there was no time[.] Characters as follows
Fergus Crampton G H Burrow
Bohun K.C. S. A. Reynolds
Finch McComus H. R. Smith
William the Waiter R. H. Robson
Valentine W. Fraser Mitchell
Philip Clandon Miss[?] Mary Reynolds
Parlour Maid Miss Margot Reynolds
Mrs Clandon Miss Janet Rawlings
Dolly Clandon Miss D. Brain
Gloria Clandon Mrs R. H. Robson
Considering that owing to illness many of the parts were taken at the shortest notice the
reading
was very well done'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary E. Robson Print: Book
'Meeting held at 9 Denmark Road 14/4/31
F. E. Pollard in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
5 The subject of Wordsworth was then taken[.]
Charles E. Stansfield gave us a sketch of his life which provoked some discussion. R H Robson
read from The Prelude both before and after supper.
H. R. Smith read “The Happy Warrior”.
Mrs Robson read “She was a Phantom of Delight”[.]
To Conclude F. E. Pollard gave a most interesting appreciation of Wordsworth’s work which
was followed by some discussion.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
[Letter]
'I am taking to some of the St Beuve ''Causeries'', and find them very pleasant, especially anything about the time of Louis XIV always amuses me...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book, Newspaper
'Meeting held at 70, Northcourt Avenue: 2. VI. 31
Charles E. Stansfield in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
7. The subject of the Sitwells was introduced by George Burrow who read spicy biographical extracts from Who's Who about the father Sir George Reresby, the sister Edith, and the brothers Osbert and Sacheverell. [...]
Relieved by this happy if unexpected dénouement we settled ourselves in renewed confidence to listen to readings from the poetry of Edith. Alfred Rawlings read us parts of Sleeping Beauty & Celia Burrow the story of Perrine.
Then for the work of Osbert and Sacheverell. H. M. Wallis gave us an amusing & tantalising paper entitled "Southern Baroque Art". This was followed by further reading from Mary Pollard, Alfred Rawlings, Charles Stansfield, & George Burrow.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
Meeting held at School House, Leighton Park: 16. IX. 31.
Victor Alexander in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved.
'Meeting held at School House, Leighton Park: 16. IX. 31.
Victor Alexander in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved.
[...]
4. John L. Hawkins then read us his paper on the Natural History of the neighbourhood
[...]
6. After the interval Henry Marriage Wallis gave a vivid account of two or three bird nesting
exploits undertaken with James Crosfield in Scotland.'
[...]
4. John L. Hawkins then read us his paper on the Natural History of the neighbourhood
[...]
6. After the interval Henry Marriage Wallis gave a vivid account of two or three bird nesting
exploits
undertaken with James Crosfield in Scotland.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John L. Hawkins Manuscript: Notebook
Meeting held at School House, Leighton Park: 16. IX. 31.
Victor Alexander in the chair
'Meeting held at School House, Leighton Park: 16. IX. 31.
Victor Alexander in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved.
[...]
4. John L. Hawkins then read us his paper on the Natural History of the neighbourhood
[...]
6. After the interval Henry Marriage Wallis gave a vivid account of two or three bird nesting
exploits undertaken with James Crosfield in Scotland.'
1. Minutes of last approved.
[...]
4. John L. Hawkins then read us his paper on the Natural History of the neighbourhood
[...]
6. After the interval Henry Marriage Wallis gave a vivid account of two or three bird nesting
exploits
undertaken with James Crosfield in Scotland.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'Read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham, Northcourt Avenue 4th.XII.31. Howard R. Smith (Chair)
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
[...]
6. Charles Stansfield then gave us an interesting account of the Northern Coastline of
Cornwall. He had paid it many visits, and knew its character well, & this helped to make it
vivid hearing.
7. Victor Alexander read some extracts from S. Baring Gould's "Vicar of Morwenstow", a life of
the Rev. J. S. Hawkin.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Alexander Print: Book
'Whinfell, Upper Redlands Rd., 30. i. 32.
Alfred Rawlings in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
[...]
3. Howard Smith spoke to us of the social and literary sides of Sheridan's life.[...]
4. Reginald H. Robson followed with an account of Sheridan as Parliamentarian, telling us of
his thirty-two years in opposition to reactionary government, his aversion from bribery in a
corrupt age, and his conduct of the Hastings Impeachment. This last brought into remarkable
combination Sheridan's dramatic and rhetorical gifts; so that we quite fell beneath the spell,
accepting him as a heroic character, and were ready to condone, if not indeed even to
acclaim, his less creditable convivialities with the Prince Regent and Mrs.[or Mr.] Robson's
ancestors!
5. Francis E. Pollard then read a passage from Sheridan's speech on the devastation of
Oudh.[...]
6. We then listend to extracts from "The School for Scandal" starring Mrs. Robson as Lady
Teazle and C. E. Stansfield as Sir Peter. As is not unusual on such occasions the humours of
the play as devised by the author had to compete with other unrehearsed attractions — actors
borrowing books, adjusting their spectacles, turning two pages instead of one, and, perhaps
best of all, the pure milk of the expurgated editions looking a little sour at the strong wine of
the original text.
Be that as it may, ancestral portraits from the brush of Vandyke or Lely, Kneller or Rawlings
changed owners with the accustomed success: Mr. Robson* as Joseph Surface mad love to his
own wife as Lady Teazle[...].
* R.H.R. states that Gio. B. was Jos. Surface [Footnote is in MS]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Print: Book
'Whinfell, Upper Redlands Rd., 30. i. 32.
Alfred Rawlings in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
[...]
3. Howard Smith spoke to us of the social and literary sides of Sheridan's life.[...]
4. Reginald H. Robson followed with an account of Sheridan as Parliamentarian, telling us of
his thirty-two years in opposition to reactionary government, his aversion from bribery in a
corrupt age, and his conduct of the Hastings Impeachment. This last brought into remarkable
combination Sheridan's dramatic and rhetorical gifts; so that we quite fell beneath the spell,
accepting him as a heroic character, and were ready to condone, if not indeed even to
acclaim, his less creditable convivialities with the Prince Regent and Mrs.[or Mr.] Robson's
ancestors!
5. Francis E. Pollard then read a passage from Sheridan's speech on the devastation of
Oudh.[...]
6. We then listend to extracts from "The School for Scandal" starring Mrs. Robson as Lady
Teazle and C. E. Stansfield as Sir Peter. As is not unusual on such occasions the humours of
the play as devised by the author had to compete with other unrehearsed attractions — actors
borrowing books, adjusting their spectacles, turning two pages instead of one, and, perhaps
best of all, the pure milk of the expurgated editions looking a little sour at the strong wine of
the original text.
Be that as it may, ancestral portraits from the brush of Vandyke or Lely, Kneller or Rawlings
changed owners with the accustomed success: Mr. Robson* as Joseph Surface mad love to his
own wife as Lady Teazle[...].
* R.H.R. states that Gio. B. was Jos. Surface [Footnote is in MS]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary E. Robson Print: Book
'Whinfell, Upper Redlands Rd., 30. i. 32.
Alfred Rawlings in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
[...]
3. Howard Smith spoke to us of the social and literary sides of Sheridan's life.[...]
4. Reginald H. Robson followed with an account of Sheridan as Parliamentarian, telling us of
his thirty-two years in opposition to reactionary government, his aversion from bribery in a
corrupt age, and his conduct of the Hastings Impeachment. This last brought into remarkable
combination Sheridan's dramatic and rhetorical gifts; so that we quite fell beneath the spell,
accepting him as a heroic character, and were ready to condone, if not indeed even to
acclaim, his less creditable convivialities with the Prince Regent and Mrs.[or Mr.] Robson's
ancestors!
5. Francis E. Pollard then read a passage from Sheridan's speech on the devastation of
Oudh.[...]
6. We then listend to extracts from "The School for Scandal" starring Mrs. Robson as Lady
Teazle and C. E. Stansfield as Sir Peter. As is not unusual on such occasions the humours of
the play as devised by the author had to compete with other unrehearsed attractions — actors
borrowing books, adjusting their spectacles, turning two pages instead of one, and, perhaps
best of all, the pure milk of the expurgated editions looking a little sour at the strong wine of
the original text.
Be that as it may, ancestral portraits from the brush of Vandyke or Lely, Kneller or Rawlings
changed owners with the accustomed success: Mr. Robson* as Joseph Surface mad love to his
own wife as Lady Teazle[...].
* R.H.R. states that Gio. B. was Jos. Surface [Footnote is in MS]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield Print: Book
'Whinfell, Upper Redlands Rd., 30. i. 32.
Alfred Rawlings in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
[...]
3. Howard Smith spoke to us of the social and literary sides of Sheridan's life.[...]
4. Reginald H. Robson followed with an account of Sheridan as Parliamentarian, telling us of
his thirty-two years in opposition to reactionary government, his aversion from bribery in a
corrupt age, and his conduct of the Hastings Impeachment. This last brought into remarkable
combination Sheridan's dramatic and rhetorical gifts; so that we quite fell beneath the spell,
accepting him as a heroic character, and were ready to condone, if not indeed even to
acclaim, his less creditable convivialities with the Prince Regent and Mrs.[or Mr.] Robson's
ancestors!
5. Francis E. Pollard then read a passage from Sheridan's speech on the devastation of
Oudh.[...]
6. We then listend to extracts from "The School for Scandal" starring Mrs. Robson as Lady
Teazle and C. E. Stansfield as Sir Peter. As is not unusual on such occasions the humours of
the play as devised by the author had to compete with other unrehearsed attractions — actors
borrowing books, adjusting their spectacles, turning two pages instead of one, and, perhaps
best of all, the pure milk of the expurgated editions looking a little sour at the strong wine of
the original text.
Be that as it may, ancestral portraits from the brush of Vandyke or Lely, Kneller or Rawlings
changed owners with the accustomed success: Mr. Robson* as Joseph Surface mad love to his
own wife as Lady Teazle[...].
* R.H.R. states that Gio. B. was Jos. Surface [Footnote is in MS]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald H. Robson Print: Book
'Whinfell, Upper Redlands Rd., 30. i. 32.
Alfred Rawlings in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
[...]
3. Howard Smith spoke to us of the social and literary sides of Sheridan's life.[...]
4. Reginald H. Robson followed with an account of Sheridan as Parliamentarian, telling us of
his thirty-two years in opposition to reactionary government, his aversion from bribery in a
corrupt age, and his conduct of the Hastings Impeachment. This last brought into remarkable
combination Sheridan's dramatic and rhetorical gifts; so that we quite fell beneath the spell,
accepting him as a heroic character, and were ready to condone, if not indeed even to
acclaim, his less creditable convivialities with the Prince Regent and Mrs.[or Mr.] Robson's
ancestors!
5. Francis E. Pollard then read a passage from Sheridan's speech on the devastation of
Oudh.[...]
6. We then listend to extracts from "The School for Scandal" starring Mrs. Robson as Lady
Teazle and C. E. Stansfield as Sir Peter. As is not unusual on such occasions the humours of
the play as devised by the author had to compete with other unrehearsed attractions — actors
borrowing books, adjusting their spectacles, turning two pages instead of one, and, perhaps
best of all, the pure milk of the expurgated editions looking a little sour at the strong wine of
the original text.
Be that as it may, ancestral portraits from the brush of Vandyke or Lely, Kneller or Rawlings
changed owners with the accustomed success: Mr. Robson* as Joseph Surface mad love to his
own wife as Lady Teazle[...].
* R.H.R. states that Gio. B. was Jos. Surface [Footnote is in MS]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Burrow Print: Book
'Whinfell, Upper Redlands Rd., 30. i. 32.
Alfred Rawlings in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
[...]
3. Howard Smith spoke to us of the social and literary sides of Sheridan's life.[...]
4. Reginald H. Robson followed with an account of Sheridan as Parliamentarian, telling us of
his thirty-two years in opposition to reactionary government, his aversion from bribery in a
corrupt age, and his conduct of the Hastings Impeachment. This last brought into remarkable
combination Sheridan's dramatic and rhetorical gifts; so that we quite fell beneath the spell,
accepting him as a heroic character, and were ready to condone, if not indeed even to
acclaim, his less creditable convivialities with the Prince Regent and Mrs.[or Mr.] Robson's
ancestors!
5. Francis E. Pollard then read a passage from Sheridan's speech on the devastation of
Oudh.[...]
6. We then listend to extracts from "The School for Scandal" starring Mrs. Robson as Lady
Teazle and C. E. Stansfield as Sir Peter. As is not unusual on such occasions the humours of
the play as devised by the author had to compete with other unrehearsed attractions — actors
borrowing books, adjusting their spectacles, turning two pages instead of one, and, perhaps
best of all, the pure milk of the expurgated editions looking a little sour at the strong wine of
the original text.
Be that as it may, ancestral portraits from the brush of Vandyke or Lely, Kneller or Rawlings
changed owners with the accustomed success: Mr. Robson* as Joseph Surface mad love to his
own wife as Lady Teazle[...].
* R.H.R. states that Gio. B. was Jos. Surface [Footnote is in MS]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Unidentified members of the XII Book Club Print: Book
'Meeting held at Broomfield: 22.3.1932
George Burrow in the chair
1. The minutes of last were read by Sylvanus Reynolds, who had kindly deputised for the
Secretary in his absence.
[...]
7. F. E. Pollard then spoke on the Victorians and their literature.[...] When the paper was
discussed there proved to be a very general measure of consent.[...]
Howard Smith disturbed us a little by accusing the Victorians of complacency[...].
Finally Reginald Robson deplored the disappearance of the Victorian countryside. As it was
foretold by Malthus the Economist, so it had come to pass. Over population had done its work.
There could be no more rural simplicity or village Hampdens, no more nurture of man by
nature any more. The Victorian age can be guaranteed unique: the mould from which it was
cast has been shattered.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at Fairlight: 9 Denmark Rd. 18th April 1932.
Francis Pollard in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
br/>[...]
4. F. E. Pollard then spoke on the spirit of Cricket, telling some good anecdotes to illustrate its
fun and its art, both for those who play & those who frequently see it.[...]
5. Readings were then given by Victor Alexander from Nyren, by Howard Smith from Francis
Thompson, & by R. H. Robson from de Delincourt's "The Cricket Match".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge, Kendrick Rd., 13.x.32.
Henry M. Wallis in the chair
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
[...]
5. Francis E. Pollard then gave us an account of the life of Scott, interspersed with racy
anecdotes. He gave us a lively picture of Scott's romantic outlook & of his keen historical
interests.
6. Alfred Rawlings, who is endeared to us among other reasons as the stormy petrel of the
Club, next launched an attack upon Scott as a poet, decrying his imperfections and
slovenliness.
7. Henry M. Wallis then entertained us with the later work of Scott. Speaking as one wizard of
another he almost succeeed in making us believe that he had been Scott's contemporary, &
under his spell we caught something of the dazzling popularity of Scott's writings throughout
the whole of Europe, and in particular of the cult for the Highlands and the Highlanders which
sprang into being from his pen.
8. Towards the end of the evening we heard three readings, the first from Ivanhoe by Charles
Stansfield who used the supper scenne in which Friar Tuch entertains the unknown knight, the
second from the Heart of Midlothian by Frank Pollard in which Jeannie Deans pleads for her
sister's life, & the third from Old Mortality by Rosamund Wallis describing the interrogation
and torture inflicted upon the Covenanters.
All three readings held us enthralled, & all three papers aroused the maximum of discussion
which a benevolent Chairman and a lenient hostess could allow. The time sped on beyond our
usual hours, and as we took our leave we were still talking Scott.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge, Kendrick Rd., 13.x.32.
Henry M. Wallis in the chair
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
[...]
5. Francis E. Pollard then gave us an account of the life of Scott, interspersed with racy
anecdotes. He gave us a lively picture of Scott's romantic outlook & of his keen historical
interests.
6. Alfred Rawlings, who is endeared to us among other reasons as the stormy petrel of the
Club, next launched an attack upon Scott as a poet, decrying his imperfections and
slovenliness.
7. Henry M. Wallis then entertained us with the later work of Scott. Speaking as one wizard of
another he almost succeeed in making us believe that he had been Scott's contemporary, &
under his spell we caught something of the dazzling popularity of Scott's writings throughout
the whole of Europe, and in particular of the cult for the Highlands and the Highlanders which
sprang into being from his pen.
8. Towards the end of the evening we heard three readings, the first from Ivanhoe by Charles
Stansfield who used the supper scenne in which Friar Tuch entertains the unknown knight, the
second from the Heart of Midlothian by Frank Pollard in which Jeannie Deans pleads for her
sister's life, & the third from Old Mortality by Rosamund Wallis describing the interrogation
and torture inflicted upon the Covenanters.
All three readings held us enthralled, & all three papers aroused the maximum of discussion
which a benevolent Chairman and a lenient hostess could allow. The time sped on beyond our
usual hours, and as we took our leave we were still talking Scott.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'We are ... to meet Moncure Conway.We have just been reading a very grand sermon of his on Darwinism.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Unknown
'I do so want to talk over Mrs Carlyle with you, and I hope you will get it soon. It is most interesting and entertaining, but what a coarse woman, though only to a husband.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'Meeting held at School House, L[eighton]. P[ark].: 18. i. 33.
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
5. Reginald Robson then spoke to us on the England of 1580 - 1590, with special reference to
the development of the Elizabethan manor house. His attractive account of Ufton Court & the
alluring photographs he passed round led several of our members to express the disre that
our picnic next July might be held there. Reginald Robson may take it therefore that he is
notified that his services as showman will be in request, and owners of motor cars are advised
to have their vehicles in repair for the occasion.
6. In the absence of George Burrow, Edgar Castle read us some notes on the literature of 1580–1590 which George Burrow had gallantly prepared on his bed of sickness.
7. Victor Alexander then spoke of the situation in France during the period in question. Some
of the Castles on the Loire were duly admired. They seem a little distant for a Book Club
picnic[...].
8. Howard Smith had hoped to speak to us of the Faerie Queen, but as he was also in the grip
of influenza Frank Pollard good naturedly discussed at short notice the versification of Spenser
illustrating his remarks very pleasingly by quotations.
9. The company then dispersed homeward through the rigours of an arctic blizzard.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
Meeting held at Fairlight, Denmark Rd.: 21.iii.33
Francis E. Pollard in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
5. Eight anonymous essays were then read. In some of these the subject treated or the style
of the author made recognition comparatively easy, but others were provocative of much
ingenious speculation. A paper on English Justice proved to be the most discussed during the
interval. Rival tipsters gave in confidence the names of Mrs. Stansfield & Robert Pollard as the
author, one of them purporting to recognize - or coming perilously close to so doing - Mrs.
Stansfield’s opinion of her fellow magistrates, while the other detected just that ingenious
combination of Fascism and Bolshevism that Robert Pollard would enjoy putting up for the
Club’s mystification. Further conflicting theories attributed the authorship to Henry Marriage
Wallis or Howard Smith, & this last proved correct[....]
Another essay which stirred debate told of a medium, a photograph, a Twentieth Century
Officer & a suit of medieval armour. It was told with that precision of detail that marks either
the experienced writer of fiction or the worshipper of truth. And as if to darken counsel there
was an open allusion to Bordighera. Suspicious though we were, & in spite of every
appearance of our being right, we adhered to the view that the author must be H. M. Wallis.
Time & space do not allow adequate record of all the papers, but it must be mentioned that
three of the eight came from the Rawlings family: a thoughtful essay by Alfred Rawlings
needed a second reading if it were to be seriously discussed, some interesting reminiscences
by Helen Rawlings made very good hearing, & Moroccan memories by Janet helped to make a
most varied programme.
Other essays were "Safety First" by Charles E. Stansfield, and "The English - are they modest?
" by Edgar Castle, both of which added some humorous touches to the evening.
A list of essayists, & their readers, follows.
Mrs Castle read a paper by Alfred Rawlings
Janet Rawlings read a paper by Helen Rawlings
Charles Stansfield read a paper by Henry M. Wallis
Reginald Robson read a paper by Howard Smith
George Burrow read a paper by Reginald Robson
Alfred Rawlings read a paper by Edgar Castle
Howard Smith read a paper by Janet Rawlings
Mrs Pollard read a paper by Charles E. Stansfield.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Janet Rawlings Manuscript: Unknown
Meeting held at Fairlight, Denmark Rd.: 21.iii.33
Francis E. Pollard in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
5. Eight anonymous essays were then read. In some of these the subject treated or the style
of the author made recognition comparatively easy, but others were provocative of much
ingenious speculation. A paper on English Justice proved to be the most discussed during the
interval. Rival tipsters gave in confidence the names of Mrs. Stansfield & Robert Pollard as the
author, one of them purporting to recognize - or coming perilously close to so doing - Mrs.
Stansfield’s opinion of her fellow magistrates, while the other detected just that ingenious
combination of Fascism and Bolshevism that Robert Pollard would enjoy putting up for the
Club’s mystification. Further conflicting theories attributed the authorship to Henry Marriage
Wallis or Howard Smith, & this last proved correct[....]
Another essay which stirred debate told of a medium, a photograph, a Twentieth Century
Officer & a suit of medieval armour. It was told with that precision of detail that marks either
the experienced writer of fiction or the worshipper of truth. And as if to darken counsel there
was an open allusion to Bordighera. Suspicious though we were, & in spite of every
appearance of our being right, we adhered to the view that the author must be H. M. Wallis.
Time & space do not allow adequate record of all the papers, but it must be mentioned that
three of the eight came from the Rawlings family: a thoughtful essay by Alfred Rawlings
needed a second reading if it were to be seriously discussed, some interesting reminiscences
by Helen Rawlings made very good hearing, & Moroccan memories by Janet helped to make a
most varied programme.
Other essays were "Safety First" by Charles E. Stansfield, and "The English - are they modest?
" by Edgar Castle, both of which added some humorous touches to the evening.
A list of essayists, & their readers, follows.
Mrs Castle read a paper by Alfred Rawlings
Janet Rawlings read a paper by Helen Rawlings
Charles Stansfield read a paper by Henry M. Wallis
Reginald Robson read a paper by Howard Smith
George Burrow read a paper by Reginald Robson
Alfred Rawlings read a paper by Edgar Castle
Howard Smith read a paper by Janet Rawlings
Mrs Pollard read a paper by Charles E. Stansfield.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield Manuscript: Unknown
Meeting held at Fairlight, Denmark Rd.: 21.iii.33
Francis E. Pollard in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
5. Eight anonymous essays were then read. In some of these the subject treated or the style
of the author made recognition comparatively easy, but others were provocative of much
ingenious speculation. A paper on English Justice proved to be the most discussed during the
interval. Rival tipsters gave in confidence the names of Mrs. Stansfield & Robert Pollard as the
author, one of them purporting to recognize - or coming perilously close to so doing - Mrs.
Stansfield’s opinion of her fellow magistrates, while the other detected just that ingenious
combination of Fascism and Bolshevism that Robert Pollard would enjoy putting up for the
Club’s mystification. Further conflicting theories attributed the authorship to Henry Marriage
Wallis or Howard Smith, & this last proved correct[....]
Another essay which stirred debate told of a medium, a photograph, a Twentieth Century
Officer & a suit of medieval armour. It was told with that precision of detail that marks either
the experienced writer of fiction or the worshipper of truth. And as if to darken counsel there
was an open allusion to Bordighera. Suspicious though we were, & in spite of every
appearance of our being right, we adhered to the view that the author must be H. M. Wallis.
Time & space do not allow adequate record of all the papers, but it must be mentioned that
three of the eight came from the Rawlings family: a thoughtful essay by Alfred Rawlings
needed a second reading if it were to be seriously discussed, some interesting reminiscences
by Helen Rawlings made very good hearing, & Moroccan memories by Janet helped to make a
most varied programme.
Other essays were "Safety First" by Charles E. Stansfield, and "The English - are they modest?
" by Edgar Castle, both of which added some humorous touches to the evening.
A list of essayists, & their readers, follows.
Mrs Castle read a paper by Alfred Rawlings
Janet Rawlings read a paper by Helen Rawlings
Charles Stansfield read a paper by Henry M. Wallis
Reginald Robson read a paper by Howard Smith
George Burrow read a paper by Reginald Robson
Alfred Rawlings read a paper by Edgar Castle
Howard Smith read a paper by Janet Rawlings
Mrs Pollard read a paper by Charles E. Stansfield.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Manuscript: Unknown
Meeting held at 70 Northcourt Avenue 28/4/1933
C. E. Stansfield in the chair
1 Minutes of last read and approved
2 For the Next Meeting's subject "The Jew in Literature" was chosen with Geo Burrow H. R. & E. B. Smith as
committee
[...]
4 The evening's subject of Berkshire in Literature was then opened up by Charles E. Stansfield reading from
Tom Browns School days a description of the Vale of the White Horse[.] He carried us into a quietude of time
& space where a great lover of the Vale tells of the great open downs & the vale to the north of them.
Dorothy Brain told us something of Old Berkshire Ballads surprising us with their number & variety & read an
amusing Ballad about a lad who died of eating custard, & the Lay of the Hunted Pig.
C. E. Stansfield read an introduction to "Summer is a Cumen In"which was then played and sung on the
Gramophone.
H. R. Smith read a description of "Reading a Hundred Years Ago" from "Some Worthies of Reading"
F. E. Pollard introduced Mary Russell Mitford to the Club giving a short account of her life and Work quoting
with approval a description of her as "A prose Crabbe in the Sun"
M. S. W. Pollard read "The Gypsy" from "Our Village"
Geo Burrows gave us a short Reading from Mathew Arnolds "Scholar Gypsy" and a longer one from
"Thyrsis"[.] During this the Stansfield "Mackie" put in a striking piece of synchronization.
E. B. Castle read an interesting account of the Bucklebury Bowl Turner from H. V. Mortons "In Search of
England".
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'I have been reading Frank's notes on F., and I am quite delighted with them. The picture is so minute and exact that it is like a written photograph, and so full of tender observation on Frank's part.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Manuscript: Preparatory notes for 'The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin', edited by Francis Darwin.
Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Av, 20.3.34.
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved, in the teeth of one dissident.
[...]
5. We then proceeded to the anonymous essays and members felt on excellent terms with
themselves at the prospect of hearing some attractive reading and of eluding or inflicting a good
hoax or two.
The first essay opened discreetly without title on the theme of “Newcomers to Reading”, going
on to a description of the neighbourhood, its beauties its quaint place names and historical
associations. […]
6. Next came a paper on “Uniforms”. The writer was considered by one or two to show the
observation of the masculine mind and the style of the feminine. […]
7. Then came a letter to "My dear Twelve" written with the unmistakeable touch of the practised
writer. […]
8. We listened, too, with equal interest to a paper called “Canaries”, telling us something of the
progress and perambulations of our latest migrant members. Moreover two or three of our
number were able to follow their doings with particular appreciation, having mad much the same
trip themselves. […]
9. All of us were a good deal non plussed by “Hors d’Oeuvres”, an essay not inappropriately
named, for it contained a perplexing mixture of fare, and certainly stimulated our appetite. […]
10. Hardly less difficult was “Glastonbury”. Many of us had visited it, and so were able to follow
closely the author’s points. But few of us knew enough of its history and legend to be sure
whether or no our one professional historian had set his wits before us. So we gave up
reasoning and just guessed. […]
11. Finally we heard “Spoonbill”. It was a noteworthy paper, combining the love of the naturalist
for the birds he watches with the craft of the writer in the language he uses. […]
12. Here is the complete list. —
“Newcomers to Reading” by H. R. Smith, read by F. E. Pollard
“Uniforms” by Janet Rawlings, read by Elizabeth Alexander
“My dear Twelve” by H. M. Wallis, read by S. A. Reynolds
“Canaries” by C. E. Stansfield, read by Dorothy Brain
“Hors d’Oeuvres” by Dorothy Brain, read by R. H. Robson
“Glastonbury” by Mrs Goadby, read by H. R. Smith
“The Spoonbill” by W. Russell Brain, read by Mrs. Robson
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth T. Alexander Manuscript: Unknown
Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Av, 20.3.34.
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved, in the teeth of one dissident.
[...]
5. We then proceeded to the anonymous essays and members felt on excellent terms with
themselves at the prospect of hearing some attractive reading and of eluding or inflicting a good
hoax or two.
The first essay opened discreetly without title on the theme of “Newcomers to Reading”, going
on to a description of the neighbourhood, its beauties its quaint place names and historical
associations. […]
6. Next came a paper on “Uniforms”. The writer was considered by one or two to show the
observation of the masculine mind and the style of the feminine. […]
7. Then came a letter to "My dear Twelve" written with the unmistakeable touch of the practised
writer. […]
8. We listened, too, with equal interest to a paper called “Canaries”, telling us something of the
progress and perambulations of our latest migrant members. Moreover two or three of our
number were able to follow their doings with particular appreciation, having mad much the same
trip themselves. […]
9. All of us were a good deal non plussed by “Hors d’Oeuvres”, an essay not inappropriately
named, for it contained a perplexing mixture of fare, and certainly stimulated our appetite. […]
10. Hardly less difficult was “Glastonbury”. Many of us had visited it, and so were able to follow
closely the author’s points. But few of us knew enough of its history and legend to be sure
whether or no our one professional historian had set his wits before us. So we gave up
reasoning and just guessed. […]
11. Finally we heard “Spoonbill”. It was a noteworthy paper, combining the love of the naturalist
for the birds he watches with the craft of the writer in the language he uses. […]
12. Here is the complete list. —
“Newcomers to Reading” by H. R. Smith, read by F. E. Pollard
“Uniforms” by Janet Rawlings, read by Elizabeth Alexander
“My dear Twelve” by H. M. Wallis, read by S. A. Reynolds
“Canaries” by C. E. Stansfield, read by Dorothy Brain
“Hors d’Oeuvres” by Dorothy Brain, read by R. H. Robson
“Glastonbury” by Mrs Goadby, read by H. R. Smith
“The Spoonbill” by W. Russell Brain, read by Mrs. Robson
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at Hillsborough, Glebe Road: 15. V. 34.
Reginald H. Robson in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
6. And so we turned, a little wistfully maybe, to Charles Stansfield reading from the “Earthy
Paradise”, & its rather pathetic refrain “The idle singer of an empty day”. The word pictures of the
Greek and Norse myths came vividly before our minds, and their beauty drew us very pleasantly.
7. Frank Pollard then gave us a general survey of Morris and his work, & Mary Pollard read a short
poem. Those who had some familiarity with Morris’s writings compared their impressions & the rest
of us caught something of Morris’s desire to present a different world from the unpleasant one he
lived in, and also of the joy we have in praising great men and how we turn their stories over. The
contribution of Morris, we gathered, was not so much the foregoing of life in order to live in some
deeper sense, but the happier if less heroic creation of a life in some considerable accordance with
his own ideals.
8. Howard Smith then talked to us of William Morris’s Prose Romances and read us extracts from
them. These romances were turned off, we were told, during his leisure evenings in a thoroughly
matter of fact manner reminding us perhaps of Trollope. But they were crammed full of the fanciful
& even the fantastic. Not only did the author draw upon his imagination for quaint names like
Utterhay, Evilshore, Bindalone: he also freely indulged his fancy for archaic expressions — hard by,
whilom, Child (with capital C), dight, gayass[?], hight (for named) are a few examples.
9. Finally we heard from Reginald Robson an extract from “News from Nowhere.” In this ideal world
of the poet’s dreaming there was no meanness and no money, no jarring jangle of train or tram
with rolling smoke or strident screech, nothing more disturbing than the quiet plash of the oar upon
the tranquil surface of the Thames. It may be that the the rowing boat was once itself anathema to
the aesthetes of an earlier age, but for Morris its very antiquity had hallowed its shapely curves. Is
it as well that he did not live to see the vermillion sports car [...]?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard
Meeting held at 70, Northcourt Avenue 30. X. 34.
Charles E. Stansfield in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
2. There followed a fairly general escape of steam over the question of sending on books. Despite
the fact that every book carries on its brown paper cover the date on which each member of the
Club is in turn entitled to receive it [...], there had been once again considerable confusion.
[...]
To the satisfaction of all it was then resolved that if only the Secretary would write out twelve
nice little lists of all the books in the order of their rotation and paste them on the backs of the
brown paper covers all would in future go well. [...]
Amid the general enthusiasm for secretarial efficiency, one member came near to being
immortalized in these minutes by suggesting that it would be found helpful if the Secretary would
type and distribute reviews of books advertised in the Autumn lists of the various publishing
firms. This suggestion, though intended doubtless as a touching tribute to an obscure official, was
negatived by the intervention of a former Secretary.
The present holder of the office was then left alone, & allowed to go home and read and reflect
upon La Fontaine’s fable — “Les animaux malades de la peste”'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Alexander Print: Book
'I do not like Grant Allen's book about your father. It is prancing and wants simplicity.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue 15. I. 35.
Sylvanus Reynolds in the Chair
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
5. It was with a great pleasure to the club to welcome back Charles and Katherine Evans, who
with the latter’s brother Samuel Bracher, came to entertain us with their programme of “Bees in
Music and Literature.”
6. Charles Evans opened with an introduction that gave us an outline of the bee’s life.[...]
7. We next listened to a record of Mendelssohn’s “Bee’s Wedding.”
8. Samuel Bracher gave a longish talk on Bees and the Poets. He classified the poems as Idyllic,
Scientific or Philosophical, and Ornamental; by quoting a great variety of works including lines
from Shakespeare, K. Tynan Hickson, Pope, Thompson, Evans, Alexander, Tennyson, & Watson,
he showed an amazing knowledge of the Poets. [...]
9. Charles Evans then spoke on Maeterlinck and Edwardes.
10. Charles Stansfield read Martin Armstrong’s Honey Harvest.
11. Another gramophone record gave us Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumble Bee”
12. Katherine Evans read from Vitoria Sackville-West’s “Bees on the Land”. Some of the lines
were of very great beauty, & much enjoyed.
13 H. M Wallis then read an extract from the Testament of Beauty, concerning Bees. But he & all
of us found Robert Bridges, at that hour in a warmish room, too difficult, and he called the
remainder of the reading off.
14. A general discussion was the permitted, and members let themselves go.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Alexander Manuscript: Notebook
'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue 15. I. 35.
Sylvanus Reynolds in the Chair
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
5. It was with a great pleasure to the club to welcome back Charles and Katherine Evans, who
with the latter’s brother Samuel Bracher, came to entertain us with their programme of “Bees in
Music and Literature.”
6. Charles Evans opened with an introduction that gave us an outline of the bee’s life.[...]
7. We next listened to a record of Mendelssohn’s “Bee’s Wedding.”
8. Samuel Bracher gave a longish talk on Bees and the Poets. He classified the poems as Idyllic,
Scientific or Philosophical, and Ornamental; by quoting a great variety of works including lines
from Shakespeare, K. Tynan Hickson, Pope, Thompson, Evans, Alexander, Tennyson, & Watson,
he showed an amazing knowledge of the Poets. [...]
9. Charles Evans then spoke on Maeterlinck and Edwardes.
10. Charles Stansfield read Martin Armstrong’s Honey Harvest.
11. Another gramophone record gave us Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumble Bee”
12. Katherine Evans read from Vitoria Sackville-West’s “Bees on the Land”. Some of the lines
were of very great beauty, & much enjoyed.
13 H. M Wallis then read an extract from the Testament of Beauty, concerning Bees. But he & all
of us found Robert Bridges, at that hour in a warmish room, too difficult, and he called the
remainder of the reading off.
14. A general discussion was the permitted, and members let themselves go.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel V. Bracher
'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue 15. I. 35.
Sylvanus Reynolds in the Chair
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
5. It was with a great pleasure to the club to welcome back Charles and Katherine Evans, who
with the latter’s brother Samuel Bracher, came to entertain us with their programme of “Bees in
Music and Literature.”
6. Charles Evans opened with an introduction that gave us an outline of the bee’s life.[...]
7. We next listened to a record of Mendelssohn’s “Bee’s Wedding.”
8. Samuel Bracher gave a longish talk on Bees and the Poets. He classified the poems as Idyllic,
Scientific or Philosophical, and Ornamental; by quoting a great variety of works including lines
from Shakespeare, K. Tynan Hickson, Pope, Thompson, Evans, Alexander, Tennyson, & Watson,
he showed an amazing knowledge of the Poets. [...]
9. Charles Evans then spoke on Maeterlinck and Edwardes.
10. Charles Stansfield read Martin Armstrong’s Honey Harvest.
11. Another gramophone record gave us Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumble Bee”
12. Katherine Evans read from Vitoria Sackville-West’s “Bees on the Land”. Some of the lines
were of very great beauty, & much enjoyed.
13 H. M Wallis then read an extract from the Testament of Beauty, concerning Bees. But he & all
of us found Robert Bridges, at that hour in a warmish room, too difficult, and he called the
remainder of the reading off.
14. A general discussion was the permitted, and members let themselves go.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel V. Bracher
‘One afternoon a sentry of ours was hit in the head and killed while he stood quite out of observation. I was in my tiny dugout reading Mr. Masefield’s “Good Friday” when I heard that shot, which at once told me that a man had gone west.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Blunden Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue 15. I. 35.
Sylvanus Reynolds in the Chair
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
5. It was with a great pleasure to the club to welcome back Charles and Katherine Evans, who
with the latter’s brother Samuel Bracher, came to entertain us with their programme of “Bees in
Music and Literature.”
6. Charles Evans opened with an introduction that gave us an outline of the bee’s life.[...]
7. We next listened to a record of Mendelssohn’s “Bee’s Wedding.”
8. Samuel Bracher gave a longish talk on Bees and the Poets. He classified the poems as Idyllic,
Scientific or Philosophical, and Ornamental; by quoting a great variety of works including lines
from Shakespeare, K. Tynan Hickson, Pope, Thompson, Evans, Alexander, Tennyson, & Watson,
he showed an amazing knowledge of the Poets. [...]
9. Charles Evans then spoke on Maeterlinck and Edwardes.
10. Charles Stansfield read Martin Armstrong’s Honey Harvest.
11. Another gramophone record gave us Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumble Bee”
12. Katherine Evans read from Victoria Sackville-West’s “Bees on the Land”. Some of the lines
were of very great beauty, & much enjoyed.
13 H. M Wallis then read an extract from the Testament of Beauty, concerning Bees. But he & all
of us found Robert Bridges, at that hour in a warmish room, too difficult, and he called the
remainder of the reading off.
14. A general discussion was the permitted, and members let themselves go.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield
'One could find books in Thiepval; I am guilty of taking my copy of Ferdinand von Freiligrath's bombastic poems from that uncatalogued library.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Blunden Print: Book
'Meeting held at 30 Northcourt Avenue
19. II. 1935
Ethel Stevens in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read (by F. E. Pollard in the regretted absence of the Secretary), heard with
wonder and admiration, & approved.
[...]
4. Edgar B. Castle, passing over the the Garden of Eden owing to a dislike of snakes, the Roman
Empire from an unwillingness to feed the lions, & other intervening ages by reason of other
prejudices, took us to Reading in 2000 A.D. Our eyes opened & our mouths watered as we heard
of the beautiful, free, sober & happy borough to be, its advent due to the efforts of Mr Lloyd
George & the Old Boys of Leighton Park. [...]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 30 Northcourt Avenue
19. II. 1935
Ethel Stevens in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read (by F. E. Pollard in the regretted absence of the Secretary), heard with
wonder and admiration, & approved.
[...]
4. Edgar B. Castle, passing over the the Garden of Eden owing to a dislike of snakes, the Roman
Empire from an unwillingness to feed the lions, & other intervening ages by reason of other
prejudices, took us to Reading in 2000 A.D. Our eyes opened & our mouths watered as we heard
of the beautiful, free, sober & happy borough to be, its advent due to the efforts of Mr Lloyd
George & the Old Boys of Leighton Park. [...]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 68 Northcourt Avenue
20th III 1935
Howard R. Smith in the chair
1. Minutes of last Meeting were read & approved
[...]
4. The Program of anonymous readings was then proceeded with[;] members reading in the
order in which they sat round the room. An interval of about 2 minutes at the end of each
piece was allowed for cogitation at the end of which the reader anounced the authors name &
the work from which he had read. Identification proved unexpectedly dificult[.] No one reading
was identified by everyone & the highest scorer only guessed eight authors & 4 & ½ works
Reader Author Work
E. B. Castle Plato Phaedo
M. S. W. Pollard R. Browning Pictures in Florence
E. Goadby Saml. Butler Notes
M. E. Robson Flecker Hassan
R. H. Robson Belloc Eyewitness
E. C. Stevens M. Arnold Self dependance
E. D. Brain B. Shaw Pre. to Back to Methuselah
M. Castle T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus
A. Rawlings R. Browning Pheidippides
J. Rawlings G. Eliot Middlemarch
E. B. Smith Lewis Carroll Phantasmagoria
F. E. Reynolds Tennyson Locksley Hall
S. A. Reynolds E. B. Browning Lady Geraldine’s Courtship
H. R. Smith Chas. Kingsley Westward Ho
F. E. Pollard Shelley Prometheus Unbound'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Brain Print: Book
'[...] and there was only time [in Damascus] to acquire a little [non-Egyptian] Arabic by wandering about rather than by book-work and to contract a sharp attack of fever, from which I was cured by Anatole France's "Ile des Pingouins".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'Madame de Polignac gave me in 1913 a little yellow volume of poems entitled "Les Vivants et les Morts", and at her house I met next year the divinely, the almost frighteningly gifted poet, Anna de Noailles.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'Rose 7.15 and seem to have spent day writing, going on with Henry James's "Ambassadors", finishing "Britling", but most of all sleeping.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'On with "Ambassadors" and some of Jane Harrison's "Ancient Art and Ritual": which makes me fear I shall never rise to the rarer heights of folklore and anthropology.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'Bed 10.30, nearing end of wonderful "Ambassadors".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'But having time to write up this, with a letter or so, to fifnish the amazing "Ambassadors", as well as "Embarrassments" (I and III especially good) the unusual "Other House" and a volume of Leslie Stephen (a little diffuse), and eaten very little with never a threat of nausea, I have suffered from nothing beyond irritation at the abnormal dalay,with faint boredom at the meals.[...] Read also five Sonnets every morning.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'But having time to write up this, with a letter or so, to finish the amazing "Ambassadors", as well as "Embarrassments" (I and III especially good) the unusual "Other House" and a volume of Leslie Stephen (a little diffuse), and eaten very little with never a threat of nausea, I have suffered from nothing beyond irritation at the abnormal delay,with faint boredom at the meals.[...] Read also five Sonnets every morning.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'In the morning a little "Inferno". James's "Washington Square" (his first, American manner) and Turgeneff's [sic] "Fumée"; but Russian books are always a slight effort to me, I suppose by reason of the leakage of style in translation.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'She [Emma Darwin] was especially devoted to Jane Austen's novels and almost knew them by heart... Scott was also a perennial favourite, especially ''The Antiquary''. Mrs Gaskell's novels she read over and over again; Dickens and Thackeray she cared for less.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'She [Emma Darwin] was especially devoted to Jane Austen's novels and almost knew them by heart... Scott was also a perennial favourite, especially ''The Antiquary''. Mrs Gaskell's novels she read over and over again; Dickens and Thackeray she cared for less.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'For my own War reading I found, as the popularity of "The Times Broadsheets" proved, that the essential was, remoteness from actuality. Henry James, by his sublime irrelevance to the general agony, provided escape, civilisation — almost intelligence. [Entry continues as diary or letter extract inserted into text]. My greatest acquisition is some realisation of his extraordinary greatness. Since Desdemona dropped her handkerchief, no one has managed to extract such thrills out of the apparently unimportant. My other refuge is William Blake — the first or the second childhood (it doesn't matter which) of William Shakespeare.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'Strong breeze and weather agreeable so far from Karachi. Green's "History", Macaulay, Ruskin, "Oxford Book [?of English Verse]" and Horace every day.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
''Finished "[The] Rose and Ring" (how satisfying) and turned over the "Assemblies of al-Hariri", which confirms my old opinion that there is but one book in Arabic and that is the "Arabian Nights". The Admiralty handbook of Mesopotamia a compilation of the first order, and invaluable to me. Bed 10, and again cold (72°).'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'Weak and tired and inclined as always when out of action and interest, to go to pieces. Read, after twenty years, Merriman's miserable "[The] Sowers", Psalms and John iii in Arabic, some Tennyson and Swinburne, and the "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham, Northcourt Avenue: 4.2.36
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
[...]
4. We then read a large part of Richard of Bordeaux. R. H. Robson had apportioned the parts and
most members present had to read more than one. The play made good reading, and some
discussion of its merits took place at the close of the programme.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of the XII Book Club Print: Book
'Meeting held at Hillsborough, 4 Glebe Road: 3.3.36
Reginald H. Robson in the Chair.
[...]
5. H. M Wallis then gave the Club the story of Kipling’s life & some appreciation of him. These
notes were made of his paper, & will I hope recall it in greater detail: Story in Baa Baa Black
Sheep. Beetle of Stalky & Co., newspaper work in India, Kim. Some of best before 26, read
Puck’s song and others, & a True Tale.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'The others slept while I wrote and read again with pleasure and admiration "Sinister Street, [Vol] II". A glorious promise if only that youth is not murdered in the Aegean.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'Read Kipling's "Diversities", Steevans "India", Wells "War [of the Worlds]" "Dynamiter" and a little Graham Wallas and Metchnikhoff, but with fatigue and unease.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'[...]the Old Testament (Psalms almost by heart] and Renan's "Histoire du Peuple d'Israel" was the sum of my knowledge of Jewry until the year 1917, an ignorance which Providence was pleased to mitigate for me in middle life.'
[In a footnote Storrs adds 'I read him [Renan] again in Jerusalem: a little out of date but very stimulating ...]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue: 25.3.36
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read + approved.
[...]
6. Charles Stansfield read us one or two extracts from Halliday Sutherland’s “Arches of the
Years”. [...]
7. Rosamund Wallis followed with Norah Warne’s [i.e Nora Waln’s] “House of Exile”, giving us
a telling description of an aristocratic Chinese household[...].
8. F. E. Pollard then gave us a picture of the personality and work of Russell Pasha from “The
last plague of Egypt” — the drug traffic.
9. R. H. Robson gave us a reading from “The Anglo Saxons”, the very recent work of R. H.
Hodgkin of Queen’s College, Oxford, a Leightonian of the first generation. [Many of the XII
Book Club members were associated with Leighton Park School.]
10. Finally Ethel Stevens read two or three picturesque passages from Duveen’s Collections
and Recollections.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'Meeting held at Ashton Lodge: 15. 5. 36
H. M. Wallis in the Chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
5. A General Knowledge then occupied us very happily for the rest of the evening. H. R. Smith
and C. E. Stansfield, the Examiners, proved too cunning for most of us. But the ladies claimed
with some show of reason that the absence of a female Examiner placed them at a
disadvantage.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of the XII Book Club Manuscript: Typescript sheets
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: 23.6.36
Francis E Pollard in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and, with the addition of No. 7, approved.
7. Frank Pollard then introduced the subject for the evening, Modern Authors. [...]
8. There followed a series of talks, in most cases acompanied by readings: these were in the
order named
Janet Rawlings, on E. H. Young’s “Miss Mole’
Dorothy Brain, on T. S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral”
R. H Robson on some Poems of W. H. Auden
V. W. Alexander on René Bazin’s “La Terre qui meurt” and “Les Oberlé”, and finally
Charles Stansfield on Winifred Holtby’s “South Riding.”'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: 23.6.36
Francis E Pollard in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and, with the addition of No. 7, approved.
7. Frank Pollard then introduced the subject for the evening, Modern Authors. [...]
8. There followed a series of talks, in most cases acompanied by readings: these were in the
order named
Janet Rawlings, on E. H. Young’s “Miss Mole’
Dorothy Brain, on T. S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral”
R. H Robson on some Poems of W. H. Auden
V. W. Alexander on René Bazin’s “La Terre qui meurt” and “Les Oberlé”, and finally
Charles Stansfield on Winifred Holtby’s “South Riding.”'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Janet Rawlings Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: 23.6.36
Francis E Pollard in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and, with the addition of No. 7, approved.
7. Frank Pollard then introduced the subject for the evening, Modern Authors. [...]
8. There followed a series of talks, in most cases acompanied by readings: these were in the
order named
Janet Rawlings, on E. H. Young’s “Miss Mole’
Dorothy Brain, on T. S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral”
R. H Robson on some Poems of W. H. Auden
V. W. Alexander on René Bazin’s “La Terre qui meurt” and “Les Oberlé”, and finally
Charles Stansfield on Winifred Holtby’s “South Riding.”'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Alexander Print: Book
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: 23.6.36
Francis E Pollard in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and, with the addition of No. 7, approved.
7. Frank Pollard then introduced the subject for the evening, Modern Authors. [...]
8. There followed a series of talks, in most cases acompanied by readings: these were in the
order named
Janet Rawlings, on E. H. Young’s “Miss Mole’
Dorothy Brain, on T. S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral”
R. H Robson on some Poems of W. H. Auden
V. W. Alexander on René Bazin’s “La Terre qui meurt” and “Les Oberlé”, and finally
Charles Stansfield on Winifred Holtby’s “South Riding.”'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Alexander Print: Book
'Meeting held at Reckitt House, LP. 21.10.36
E. B. Castle in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read + approved.
[...]
5. E. B. Castle gave us some biographical facts of G. K Chesterton’s career.
6. We then had a part of a paper written by Kenneth F. Nicholson on Chesterton. He gave us a
good picture of G.K.C. as a man, showing the essentials of the later Chesterton already there in
his earlier career. Kenneth Nicholson stressed the simplicity and genuineness of G.K.C.’s poetry,
and his great love of the English characteristics. K. F. Nicholson also read very tellingly several
extracts from his poetry
7. Elizabeth Alexander read a short paper on G.K.C. contributed by H. M. Wallis on the
corruscations[?] and back somersaults thrown by Chesterton in earlier years, and on his
association with Bernard Shaw. While anxious to credit any assertion of H.M.W.’s some
members of the Book Club, who knew of Chesterton only in the last 40 years of his life, found it
difficult to accept the suggestion that G.K.C. never carried much weight.
This paper was concluded by a reading of Chesterton’s “The Donkey.”
8. R. H. Robson then read two or three extracts from the Critical Essays, with particular
reference to Bernard Shaw and Dante.
9. V. W. Alexander read The Hammer of God, a short story from “The Innocence of Father
Brown[”].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth T. Alexander Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at Oakdene 22. II 1937
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read (by F.E.P. in regretted absence of the Secretary) & approved.
[...]
4. Howard R. Smith introduced Browning with a biographical sketch.
5. F. E. Pollard read The Italian in England.
6. S. A. Reynolds read a paper by H. M. Wallis on ‘The Bishop orders his Tomb’; & Rosamund
Wallis read the poem.
7. F. E. Pollard commented on various aspects of Browning’s works, & at intervals the following
were read:-
‘The Patriot’ by E. B. Castle.
Parts of ‘By the fireside’ & ‘Holy Cross Day’ by R. H. Robson.
Part of ‘Rabbi ben Ezra’, by C. E. Stansfield.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at Oakdene 22. II 1937
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read (by F.E.P. in regretted absence of the Secretary) & approved.
[...]
4. Howard R. Smith introduced Browning with a biographical sketch.
5. F. E. Pollard read The Italian in England.
6. S. A. Reynolds read a paper by H. M. Wallis on ‘The Bishop orders his Tomb’; & Rosamund
Wallis read the poem.
7. F. E. Pollard commented on various aspects of Browning’s works, & at intervals the following
were read:-
‘The Patriot’ by E. B. Castle.
Parts of ‘By the fireside’ & ‘Holy Cross Day’ by R. H. Robson.
Part of ‘Rabbi ben Ezra’, by C. E. Stansfield.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue 24. III 37
F. E. Pollard in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
3. Disraeli: Dorothy Brain read extracts from letters to his sister.
4. S. A. Reynolds sketched Disraeli’s political life as far as the 60’s. with passages from
McCarthy’s History of our Own Times.
5. Celia Burrow read from [André] Maurois of D’s domestic and married life.
6. After a brief statement from F. E. Pollard of D’s Chief works, H. R. Smith read from Tancred.
7. F. E. P. read a paper kindly contributed by H. M. Wallis, dealing with D’s relations with
Gladstone, Salisbury & Queen Victoria, & telling of the contrasted Gartering of Disraeli &
Salisbury after their return from Berlin in 1878.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Notebook
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue 24. III 37
F. E. Pollard in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
3. Disraeli: Dorothy Brain read extracts from letters to his sister.
4. S. A. Reynolds sketched Disraeli’s political life as far as the 60’s. with passages from
McCarthy’s History of our Own Times.
5. Celia Burrow read from [André] Maurois of D’s domestic and married life.
6. After a brief statement from F. E. Pollard of D’s Chief works, H. R. Smith read from Tancred.
7. F. E. P. read a paper kindly contributed by H. M. Wallis, dealing with D’s relations with
Gladstone, Salisbury & Queen Victoria, & telling of the contrasted Gartering of Disraeli &
Salisbury after their return from Berlin in 1878.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Brain Print: Book
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue 24. III 37
F. E. Pollard in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
3. Disraeli: Dorothy Brain read extracts from letters to his sister.
4. S. A. Reynolds sketched Disraeli’s political life as far as the 60’s. with passages from
McCarthy’s History of our Own Times.
5. Celia Burrow read from [André] Maurois of D’s domestic and married life.
6. After a brief statement from F. E. Pollard of D’s Chief works, H. R. Smith read from Tancred.
7. F. E. P. read a paper kindly contributed by H. M. Wallis, dealing with D’s relations with
Gladstone, Salisbury & Queen Victoria, & telling of the contrasted Gartering of Disraeli &
Salisbury after their return from Berlin in 1878.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue 24. III 37
F. E. Pollard in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
3. Disraeli: Dorothy Brain read extracts from letters to his sister.
4. S. A. Reynolds sketched Disraeli’s political life as far as the 60’s. with passages from
McCarthy’s History of our Own Times.
5. Celia Burrow read from [André] Maurois of D’s domestic and married life.
6. After a brief statement from F. E. Pollard of D’s Chief works, H. R. Smith read from Tancred.
7. F. E. P. read a paper kindly contributed by H. M. Wallis, dealing with D’s relations with
Gladstone, Salisbury & Queen Victoria, & telling of the contrasted Gartering of Disraeli &
Salisbury after their return from Berlin in 1878.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Print: Book
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue 24. III 37
F. E. Pollard in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
3. Disraeli: Dorothy Brain read extracts from letters to his sister.
4. S. A. Reynolds sketched Disraeli’s political life as far as the 60’s. with passages from
McCarthy’s History of our Own Times.
5. Celia Burrow read from [André] Maurois of D’s domestic and married life.
6. After a brief statement from F. E. Pollard of D’s Chief works, H. R. Smith read from Tancred.
7. F. E. P. read a paper kindly contributed by H. M. Wallis, dealing with D’s relations with
Gladstone, Salisbury & Queen Victoria, & telling of the contrasted Gartering of Disraeli &
Salisbury after their return from Berlin in 1878.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Celia Burrow Print: Book
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue 24. III 37
F. E. Pollard in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
3. Disraeli: Dorothy Brain read extracts from letters to his sister.
4. S. A. Reynolds sketched Disraeli’s political life as far as the 60’s. with passages from
McCarthy’s History of our Own Times.
5. Celia Burrow read from [André] Maurois of D’s domestic and married life.
6. After a brief statement from F. E. Pollard of D’s Chief works, H. R. Smith read from Tancred.
7. F. E. P. read a paper kindly contributed by H. M. Wallis, dealing with D’s relations with
Gladstone, Salisbury & Queen Victoria, & telling of the contrasted Gartering of Disraeli &
Salisbury after their return from Berlin in 1878.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue 24. III 37
F. E. Pollard in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
3. Disraeli: Dorothy Brain read extracts from letters to his sister.
4. S. A. Reynolds sketched Disraeli’s political life as far as the 60’s. with passages from
McCarthy’s History of our Own Times.
5. Celia Burrow read from [André] Maurois of D’s domestic and married life.
6. After a brief statement from F. E. Pollard of D’s Chief works, H. R. Smith read from Tancred.
7. F. E. P. read a paper kindly contributed by H. M. Wallis, dealing with D’s relations with
Gladstone, Salisbury & Queen Victoria, & telling of the contrasted Gartering of Disraeli &
Salisbury after their return from Berlin in 1878.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
Meeting held at 30 Northcourt Avenue: 21.4.37.
Ethel C. Stevens in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
6. V. W. Alexander read a paper on Jane Austen, half biographical sketch & half an appreciation
of her style.
7. F. E. Pollard quoted from Lucy Harrison’s Literary Papers some telling and illuminating
remarks, particularly about Fanny Price in Mansfield Park
8. Readings were then given
from Northanger Abbey by Celia Burrows
from Persuasion by Rosamund Wallis
from Sense and Sensibility by Francis & Mary Pollard
from Love and Friendship by Elizabeth Alexander
from Pride and Prejudice by Victor Alexander
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Alexander Manuscript: Notebook
Meeting held at 30 Northcourt Avenue: 21.4.37.
Ethel C. Stevens in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
6. V. W. Alexander read a paper on Jane Austen, half biographical sketch & half an appreciation
of her style.
7. F. E. Pollard quoted from Lucy Harrison’s Literary Papers some telling and illuminating
remarks, particularly about Fanny Price in Mansfield Park
8. Readings were then given
from Northanger Abbey by Celia Burrows
from Persuasion by Rosamund Wallis
from Sense and Sensibility by Francis & Mary Pollard
from Love and Friendship by Elizabeth Alexander
from Pride and Prejudice by Victor Alexander
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Alexander Print: Book
Meeting held at 30 Northcourt Avenue: 21.4.37.
Ethel C. Stevens in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
6. V. W. Alexander read a paper on Jane Austen, half biographical sketch & half an appreciation
of her style.
7. F. E. Pollard quoted from Lucy Harrison’s Literary Papers some telling and illuminating
remarks, particularly about Fanny Price in Mansfield Park
8. Readings were then given
from Northanger Abbey by Celia Burrows
from Persuasion by Rosamund Wallis
from Sense and Sensibility by Francis & Mary Pollard
from Love and Friendship by Elizabeth Alexander
from Pride and Prejudice by Victor Alexander
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard Print: Book
Meeting held at 30 Northcourt Avenue: 21.4.37.
Ethel C. Stevens in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
6. V. W. Alexander read a paper on Jane Austen, half biographical sketch & half an appreciation
of her style.
7. F. E. Pollard quoted from Lucy Harrison’s Literary Papers some telling and illuminating
remarks, particularly about Fanny Price in Mansfield Park
8. Readings were then given
from Northanger Abbey by Celia Burrows
from Persuasion by Rosamund Wallis
from Sense and Sensibility by Francis & Mary Pollard
from Love and Friendship by Elizabeth Alexander
from Pride and Prejudice by Victor Alexander
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Print: Book
Meeting held at 30 Northcourt Avenue: 21.4.37.
Ethel C. Stevens in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
6. V. W. Alexander read a paper on Jane Austen, half biographical sketch & half an appreciation
of her style.
7. F. E. Pollard quoted from Lucy Harrison’s Literary Papers some telling and illuminating
remarks, particularly about Fanny Price in Mansfield Park
8. Readings were then given
from Northanger Abbey by Celia Burrows
from Persuasion by Rosamund Wallis
from Sense and Sensibility by Francis & Mary Pollard
from Love and Friendship by Elizabeth Alexander
from Pride and Prejudice by Victor Alexander
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Celia Burrow Print: Book
Meeting held at 30 Northcourt Avenue: 21.4.37.
Ethel C. Stevens in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
6. V. W. Alexander read a paper on Jane Austen, half biographical sketch & half an appreciation
of her style.
7. F. E. Pollard quoted from Lucy Harrison’s Literary Papers some telling and illuminating
remarks, particularly about Fanny Price in Mansfield Park
8. Readings were then given
from Northanger Abbey by Celia Burrows
from Persuasion by Rosamund Wallis
from Sense and Sensibility by Francis & Mary Pollard
from Love and Friendship by Elizabeth Alexander
from Pride and Prejudice by Victor Alexander
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth T. Alexander Print: Book
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge :- 3. 7. 37.
Henry Marriage Wallis in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
7. The Meeting then gave its attention to Witches.
H. M Wallis led off with a paper on Witchcraft and readings were given from the following
books:- MacBeth – The Witch Scene[?] by Janet Rawlings, Dorothy Brain, & Dorothea Taylor
with F. E. Pollard & V. W. Alexander as Banquo & MacBeth
Samuel – The Witch of Endor scene by Mary Robson
Westward Ho (Lucy), by Dorothy Brain
Trials for Witchcraft, by Howard Smith
Precious Bane, by Rosamund Wallis
Between all these items there was considerable discussion. Members were able to vie with
one another in tale of mystery and eerie happenings, and if all the conversation was not
strictly relevant at least the interest did not flag.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'Do you read Blatchford in the Weekly Despatch? He is very good this week on "The Danger of the Submarine" and warns us again.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Newspaper
'Tell Father the Huns haven't started to run yet. If he reads the September "National Review"
he will be surprised at the warning of the writer against the Cabinet. It is well worth reading.
It says that in the Black Week, Haldane didn't want any interference of England; Asquith didn't
want any Expeditionary Force and Churchill saved the situation in ordering Fleet Mobilization
"on his own" before the war. Also the Territorials at the event of war are untrained: we have
no army really: all are practically recruits now in England.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Serial / periodical
'Send an English newpaper (not the Daily Mail as we have it here) occasionally. We are forbidden
to send picture postcards now. I am in a hurry to catch the mail, so I must close.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Newspaper
'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
'Please send me April magazines. Have seen the March ones. The mud is awful — 3 mules
drowned in shell craters last night, it is terrible.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Serial / periodical
'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
'Thanks for books & pyjamas & toffee ... Please send Motor Cycling & Motor Cycle & an
occasional Daily Mail — we get none here — we're miles from civilization.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Serial / periodical
'Thanks for books & pyjamas & toffee ... Please send Motor Cycling & Motor Cycle & an
occasional Daily Mail — we get none here — we're miles from civilization.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Serial / periodical
'Thanks for books & pyjamas & toffee ... Please send Motor Cycling & Motor Cycle & an
occasional Daily Mail — we get none here — we're miles from civilization.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Newspaper
'Don't forget a cake & send Daily Mail every other day and Motor Cycle & Motor Cycling and the
mags.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Newspaper
'Don't forget a cake & send Daily Mail every other day and Motor Cycle & Motor Cycling and the
mags.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Serial / periodical
'Don't forget a cake & send Daily Mail every other day and Motor Cycle & Motor Cycling and the
mags.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Serial / periodical
'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
'Meeting held at Whinfell, Upper Redlands Rd. 23.10.’37
Alfred Rawlings in the Chair
1. The Secretary asked permission to reserve the reading of some of the minutes until after the literary part of the
programme had been taken, as these minutes would bear directly upon the discussion which would necessarily follow
as to the future of the Club. This permission was given and the other minutes were then read and approved.
2. Victor Alexander then gave a brief account of the career of William Fryer Harvey, followed by an appreciation and
review of “We were Seven” which he had previously written for the Bootham Magazine.
3. Helen Rawlings read several of Harvey’s poems from the volume “Laughter and Ghosts[”].
4. Elizabeth T. Alexander read a chapter from “Caprimulgus”.
5. Frank Pollard read “August Heat” from Midnight House.
6. Janet Rawlings read “Patience” from Quaker Byways.
7. Charles E. Stansfield read two more poems from “Laughter and Ghosts”
8. Howard R. Smith read “The Tortoise” from Midnight House.
9. The Secretary then read the minutes referring to last time’s discussion on the Club’s future, and also two letters of
resignation. These were from Edgar and Mignon Castle and from Dorothy Brain.
10. Discussion then followed.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Alexander Manuscript: Letter
'Meeting held at Whinfell, Upper Redlands Rd. 23.10.’37
Alfred Rawlings in the Chair
1. The Secretary asked permission to reserve the reading of some of the minutes until after the literary part of the
programme had been taken, as these minutes would bear directly upon the discussion which would necessarily follow
as to the future of the Club. This permission was given and the other minutes were then read and approved.
2. Victor Alexander then gave a brief account of the career of William Fryer Harvey, followed by an appreciation and
review of “We were Seven” which he had previously written for the Bootham Magazine.
3. Helen Rawlings read several of Harvey’s poems from the volume “Laughter and Ghosts[”].
4. Elizabeth T. Alexander read a chapter from “Caprimulgus”.
5. Frank Pollard read “August Heat” from Midnight House.
6. Janet Rawlings read “Patience” from Quaker Byways.
7. Charles E. Stansfield read two more poems from “Laughter and Ghosts”
8. Howard R. Smith read “The Tortoise” from Midnight House.
9. The Secretary then read the minutes referring to last time’s discussion on the Club’s future, and also two letters of
resignation. These were from Edgar and Mignon Castle and from Dorothy Brain.
10. Discussion then followed.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Alexander Manuscript: Letter
'Meeting held 219 King’s Road: 27. 11. 37.
L. Dorothea Taylor in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
2. A number of scenes from Victoria Regina were then read. The young Queen’s part was read
by Rosamund Wallis who abdicated later in favour of Celia Burrow. The Duchess of Kent was
read by Ethel Stevens, and Francis Pollard was Prince Albert. Other members took subsidiary
parts.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'Meeting held 219 King’s Road: 27. 11. 37.
L. Dorothea Taylor in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
2. A number of scenes from Victoria Regina were then read. The young Queen’s part was read
by Rosamund Wallis who abdicated later in favour of Celia Burrow. The Duchess of Kent was
read by Ethel Stevens, and Francis Pollard was Prince Albert. Other members took subsidiary
parts.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Celia Burrow Print: Book
'Meeting held 219 King’s Road: 27. 11. 37.
L. Dorothea Taylor in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
2. A number of scenes from Victoria Regina were then read. The young Queen’s part was read
by Rosamund Wallis who abdicated later in favour of Celia Burrow. The Duchess of Kent was
read by Ethel Stevens, and Francis Pollard was Prince Albert. Other members took subsidiary
parts.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Print: Book
'Meeting held 219 King’s Road: 27. 11. 37.
L. Dorothea Taylor in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
2. A number of scenes from Victoria Regina were then read. The young Queen’s part was read
by Rosamund Wallis who abdicated later in favour of Celia Burrow. The Duchess of Kent was
read by Ethel Stevens, and Francis Pollard was Prince Albert. Other members took subsidiary
parts.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ethel C. Stevens Print: Book
'Meeting held 219 King’s Road: 27. 11. 37.
L. Dorothea Taylor in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
2. A number of scenes from Victoria Regina were then read. The young Queen’s part was read
by Rosamund Wallis who abdicated later in favour of Celia Burrow. The Duchess of Kent was
read by Ethel Stevens, and Francis Pollard was Prince Albert. Other members took subsidiary
parts.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Un-named members of the XI Book Club Print: Book
Meeting held at 70 Northcourt Avenue: 14. 12. 37
[...]
6. The evening was completed by the reading of extracts from the works of various authors who
had recently been awarded the Nobel prize for Literature. In the interests of truth it should
perhaps be mentioned that the reading from French and Russian authors were given from English
translations.
R. H. Robson read from Dodsworth by Sinclair S. Lewis
Mary S. W. Pollard [read from] The Village [by] Ivan Bunin
L. Dorothea Taylor [read from] All God’s Chillun Got Wings [by] Eugene E. O'Neill
H. R. Smith [read from] Les Thibault by Roger M. du Gard
S. A Reynolds [read from] White Monkey [by] J. Galsworthy
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Print: Book
February 15th was the date chosen for the next time and the subject “Books that people have
been reading”
Meeting held at Oakdene: Northcourt Av.–15.2.38
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
4. The first reading came from Reginald Robson who gave us an amusing extract from “Beasts
& Superbeasts” by H. H. Munro
5. Mary S. Stansfield read from “Lawrence by his Friends” some interesting impressions
contributed by some of these friends to a book edited by Lawrence’s brother. One passage by
a man who knew Lawrence as a fellow aircraftman gave us a picture of him as a thoroughly
likeable and popular hero, admired for his prowess as a motorcyclist.
6. Howard L. Sikes then read from Africa View by Julian Huxley. The passage concerned the
respective advantages of Indirect and Direct Rule[...].
This reading produced considerable discussion on the same questions, and spread over on to
the attitude of the French and the British toward their African dependant peoples, and
members found something to ask or to say about almost every corner of Africa[...].
7. Elizabeth T. Alexander followed with an entertaining reading from Halliday Sutherland’s “A
time to keep”. We shall carry in our minds for some time the dramatic appearance of Red
William in his nightshirt urging the ladies in evening dress to run for their lives.
8. Roger Moore gave us some excellent fun in his reading from Benjamin Robert Haydon’s
Autobiography, and we made some discoveries about Charles Lamb and Wordsworth too.
9. F. E. Pollard, greatly daring, then read from the “Comments of Bagshott” [sic] some shrewd
remarks about the male and female of the human species[...].
10. H. R. Smith completed the programme with some well chosen paragraphs from “Those
English” by Carl [i.e. Curt] von Stutterheim.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret L. LLoyd Print: Book
February 15th was the date chosen for the next time and the subject “Books that people have
been reading”
Meeting held at Oakdene: Northcourt Av.–15.2.38
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
4. The first reading came from Reginald Robson who gave us an amusing extract from “Beasts
& Superbeasts” by H. H. Munro
5. Mary S. Stansfield read from “Lawrence by his Friends” some interesting impressions
contributed by some of these friends to a book edited by Lawrence’s brother. One passage by
a man who knew Lawrence as a fellow aircraftman gave us a picture of him as a thoroughly
likeable and popular hero, admired for his prowess as a motorcyclist.
6. Howard L. Sikes then read from Africa View by Julian Huxley. The passage concerned the
respective advantages of Indirect and Direct Rule[...].
This reading produced considerable discussion on the same questions, and spread over on to
the attitude of the French and the British toward their African dependant peoples, and
members found something to ask or to say about almost every corner of Africa[...].
7. Elizabeth T. Alexander followed with an entertaining reading from Halliday Sutherland’s “A
time to keep”. We shall carry in our minds for some time the dramatic appearance of Red
William in his nightshirt urging the ladies in evening dress to run for their lives.
8. Roger Moore gave us some excellent fun in his reading from Benjamin Robert Haydon’s
Autobiography, and we made some discoveries about Charles Lamb and Wordsworth too.
9. F. E. Pollard, greatly daring, then read from the “Comments of Bagshott” [sic] some shrewd
remarks about the male and female of the human species[...].
10. H. R. Smith completed the programme with some well chosen paragraphs from “Those
English” by Carl [i.e. Curt] von Stutterheim.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore Print: Book
February 15th was the date chosen for the next time and the subject “Books that people have
been reading”
Meeting held at Oakdene: Northcourt Av.–15.2.38
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
4. The first reading came from Reginald Robson who gave us an amusing extract from “Beasts
& Superbeasts” by H. H. Munro
5. Mary S. Stansfield read from “Lawrence by his Friends” some interesting impressions
contributed by some of these friends to a book edited by Lawrence’s brother. One passage by
a man who knew Lawrence as a fellow aircraftman gave us a picture of him as a thoroughly
likeable and popular hero, admired for his prowess as a motorcyclist.
6. Howard L. Sikes then read from Africa View by Julian Huxley. The passage concerned the
respective advantages of Indirect and Direct Rule[...].
This reading produced considerable discussion on the same questions, and spread over on to
the attitude of the French and the British toward their African dependant peoples, and
members found something to ask or to say about almost every corner of Africa[...].
7. Elizabeth T. Alexander followed with an entertaining reading from Halliday Sutherland’s “A
time to keep”. We shall carry in our minds for some time the dramatic appearance of Red
William in his nightshirt urging the ladies in evening dress to run for their lives.
8. Roger Moore gave us some excellent fun in his reading from Benjamin Robert Haydon’s
Autobiography, and we made some discoveries about Charles Lamb and Wordsworth too.
9. F. E. Pollard, greatly daring, then read from the “Comments of Bagshott” [sic] some shrewd
remarks about the male and female of the human species[...].
10. H. R. Smith completed the programme with some well chosen paragraphs from “Those
English” by Carl [i.e. Curt] von Stutterheim.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore Print: Book
February 15th was the date chosen for the next time and the subject “Books that people have
been reading”
Meeting held at Oakdene: Northcourt Av.–15.2.38
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved
[...]
4. The first reading came from Reginald Robson who gave us an amusing extract from “Beasts
& Superbeasts” by H. H. Munro
5. Mary S. Stansfield read from “Lawrence by his Friends” some interesting impressions
contributed by some of these friends to a book edited by Lawrence’s brother. One passage by
a man who knew Lawrence as a fellow aircraftman gave us a picture of him as a thoroughly
likeable and popular hero, admired for his prowess as a motorcyclist.
6. Howard L. Sikes then read from Africa View by Julian Huxley. The passage concerned the
respective advantages of Indirect and Direct Rule[...].
This reading produced considerable discussion on the same questions, and spread over on to
the attitude of the French and the British toward their African dependant peoples, and
members found something to ask or to say about almost every corner of Africa[...].
7. Elizabeth T. Alexander followed with an entertaining reading from Halliday Sutherland’s “A
time to keep”. We shall carry in our minds for some time the dramatic appearance of Red
William in his nightshirt urging the ladies in evening dress to run for their lives.
8. Roger Moore gave us some excellent fun in his reading from Benjamin Robert Haydon’s
Autobiography, and we made some discoveries about Charles Lamb and Wordsworth too.
9. F. E. Pollard, greatly daring, then read from the “Comments of Bagshott” [sic] some shrewd
remarks about the male and female of the human species[...].
10. H. R. Smith completed the programme with some well chosen paragraphs from “Those
English” by Carl [i.e. Curt] von Stutterheim.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore Print: Book
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge: 14.3.38.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
[...]
4. Readings from Irish Literature were then given as follows:-
C. E. Stansfield from G. A. Birmingham’s “Spanish Gold”;
H. R. Smith from a story about an illicit still;
Mary Robson from the preface of Bernard Shaw’s “John Bull’s Other Island;”
Rosamund Wallis[;]
Victor Alexander from Ross and Somerville’s “An Irish R.M.”[;]
Elsie Sikes from ? some Irish Bulls
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary E. Robson Print: Book
'Meeting held at Cintra Avenue
22.IV.1938
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
[...]
The following essays were read:-
authors
Mrs Stevens His Good Turn – read by Elizabeth Alexander
Miss Stevens Anne Thackeray’s Chapter from Memory read by Muriel Stevens
Mrs Dilks The Gardener [read by] H. R. Smith
H. M. Wallis Some New Thing [read by] F. E. Pollard
H. R. Smith The Cotswolds [read by] A. B. Dilks
R. H. Robson Rupert Brooke [read by] Mary S. W. Pollard
A. B. Dilks The Spacious Firmament [read by] Mary E. Robson
The essays were then successfully identified'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'I have finished ... St Beuve's review of ''Mme d'Epinay's Memoirs'', in which he entirely ignores the horrible indecencies, which I call very immoral.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Newspaper
'I am reading ''Paradise Regained'' (sandwiched with Rousseau's ''Confessions'') out of compliment to Mr Bright, who used to read it through every Sunday.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'Thank goodness I have nearly finished [Stanley's] ''Darkest Africa'' and it must be the most tiresome book in the world, so confused and diffuse, with immense long conversations verbatim that end in nothing.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'I am reading Lowell's Essay on Wordsworth after Shairp and he suits me much better. He is rather caustic and amusing, and his writing is as neat as if it was French,also he does not soar higher than I can reach.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'Our ''stiff'' book is H. James' stories and our ''light'' one Leslie Stephen's ''Hours in a Library'' 3rd series. He is so pleasant after all that subtlety.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'Crabb Robinson's Diary is a blessing and I can talk with him for a few minutes any time and feel refreshed. I almost think he will set me reading ''The Excursion''!...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'Were you to re-read some Balzac, as I have been doing, it would greatly help to clear your eyes.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'During these days he was reading two books with enjoyment: Lionel Trilling's Matthew Arnold and Werner Jaeger's Paideia, The Ideals of Greek Culture, which had just arrived from Blackwell's, a stiff book, but to Alastair [Buchan's son] it seemed that his father was becoming more intellectual in his interests, less concerned with current affairs.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan Print: Book
'In one letter, written in June 1893, he logs Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, Lorna Doone ("seventh or eighth time"), Saintsbury's Essays on French Novelists, Dumas's Tulipe Noire, Maupassant, and some poems of Hugo and Gautier. A month later he is reporting on Andrew Lang's Lectures on Literature ("very good"), P. G. Hamerton's Intellectual Life ("excellent"), the poems of Robert Bridges ("very good") Henry James's Madonna of the Future ("peculiar"), R. L. Stevenson's Kidnapped and Master of Ballantrae ("fourth or fifth time"), Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris, and Ibsen's Doll House, League of Youth and Pillars of Society. "I am beginning to like Ibsen more than I did. I understand him better."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan Print: Book
'In one letter, written in June 1893, he logs Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, Lorna Doone ("seventh or eighth time"), Saintsbury's Essays on French Novelists, Dumas's Tulipe Noire, Maupassant, and some poems of Hugo and Gautier. A month later he is reporting on Andrew Lang's Lectures on Literature ("very good"), P. G. Hamerton's Intellectual Life ("excellent"), the poems of Robert Bridges ("very good") Henry James's Madonna of the Future ("peculiar"), R. L. Stevenson's Kidnapped and Master of Ballantrae ("fourth or fifth time"), Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris, and Ibsen's Doll House, League of Youth and Pillars of Society. "I am beginning to like Ibsen more than I did. I understand him better."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan Print: Book
'In one letter, written in June 1893, he logs Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, Lorna Doone ("seventh or eighth time"), Saintsbury's Essays on French Novelists, Dumas's Tulipe Noire, Maupassant, and some poems of Hugo and Gautier. A month later he is reporting on Andrew Lang's Lectures on Literature ("very good"), P. G. Hamerton's Intellectual Life ("excellent"), the poems of Robert Bridges ("very good") Henry James's Madonna of the Future ("peculiar"), R. L. Stevenson's Kidnapped and Master of Ballantrae ("fourth or fifth time"), Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris, and Ibsen's Doll House, League of Youth and Pillars of Society. "I am beginning to like Ibsen more than I did. I understand him better."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan Print: Book
'Read "Barbe of Grand Bayon". Wound dressed. Head finished. Bath, read, cut dressings. Read "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Frederick William Dunn Print: Book
'Read ... "Barlash [sic] of the Guard". Dressed & sat by the fire. Dominoes.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Frederick William Dunn Print: Book
'Read. Wounds dressed ... Visit from Miss Davies and a friend (Miss Stevenson). She brought 8 books & chocs. Talked for 1/2 hour. Also a book of Camp Songs by Dr Walford Davies. Writing & read "Count Antonio". Made several trips around the ward on crutches.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Frederick William Dunn Print: Book
'I believe you would like Mrs Craven if you could skip all the religion. In the year '86 she has exactly our feelings about Ireland and [the] G.O.M.'s mad folly.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'My reader is a great success. It is ''Cranford'', and ''D-n Dr Johnson'' comes in. She stopped dead and said ''a slang expression''. I can't perceive she is ever amused.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'Read - book "Gallipoli" from Rev. Robt. Overton by post. Parcel cake from Mrs Scales. Wrote Reg ... Crib[bage] & read "Tales of Two People".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Frederick William Dunn Print: Book
'Read - book "Gallipoli" from Rev. Robt. Overton by post. Parcel cake from Mrs Scales. Wrote Reg ... Crib[bage] & read "Tales of Two People".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Frederick William Dunn Print: Book
'Read "Gallipoli" (John Masefield).'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Frederick William Dunn Print: Book
'Wrote to Reg. Read "The Right Stuff". Up on the mat for being late last night. Pass stopped!? Visit from Miss Barnsley and her aunt - Mrs Frank Wright. Sweets & 5 books.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Frederick William Dunn Print: Book
'I like Capt. Younghusband's travels, though one might skip pages much like each other.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'I am reading Tait and Stewart’s new book. As far as I have gone, a little disappointed. Is my father reading it?'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Oakdene”, Northcourt Avenue. 14.2.44
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
5. After an interval for refreshment we turned our thoughts to the Study of the Life and Works of André Maurois, which proved to be a subject of absorbing
interest. Rosamund Wallis was his Biographer up to the time of the outbreak of this war — her chief source of information being Maurois’ autobiography “Call no
man happy” from which she read several extracts. She revealed to us the child Emil Hertzog, born an Alsatian Jew & brought up in the sheltered atmosphere of
French family life. Brilliantly successful at school, in business, as a soldier and under the name of André Maurois as a writer. Success was his easily and
immediately for allied to his native genius was an infinite capacity for hard work.
6. Readings from Maurois’s works were given as follows:-
Howard Smith from ‘The Silence of Colonel Bramble’
Isabel Taylor [from] Ariel
F. E. Pollard [from] Disraeli
Frank Knight [from] Byron
Knox Taylor [from] History of England
Maurois has been very fortunate in his translators and all the readings were much enjoyed. Colonel Bramble was his first book & remains the most widely read &
generally acclaimed of them all. ‘Ariel’ his life of Shelley gained him a reputation for writing ‘Romanticized Biography’ which he resented and tried to counteract
in his lives of Byron and Disraeli. The general opinion of the Book Club was that he writes always with more charm and wit than accuracy & Knox Taylor’s
criticism of the ‘History of England[’] was that in trying to give a general impression without much detail, Maurois has picked out the wrong details and therefore
gives the wrong impression.
7. Kenneth Nicholson then continued the story of Maurois’ life up to the present day, when he is living in America with his wife, while their children remain in
France.
[signed as a true record by] J. Knox Taylor 13/3/44.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at “Oakdene”, Northcourt Avenue. 14.2.44
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
5. After an interval for refreshment we turned our thoughts to the Study of the Life and Works of André Maurois, which proved to be a subject of absorbing
interest. Rosamund Wallis was his Biographer up to the time of the outbreak of this war — her chief source of information being Maurois’ autobiography “Call no
man happy” from which she read several extracts. She revealed to us the child Emil Hertzog, born an Alsatian Jew & brought up in the sheltered atmosphere of
French family life. Brilliantly successful at school, in business, as a soldier and under the name of André Maurois as a writer. Success was his easily and
immediately for allied to his native genius was an infinite capacity for hard work.
6. Readings from Maurois’s works were given as follows:-
Howard Smith from ‘The Silence of Colonel Bramble’
Isabel Taylor [from] Ariel
F. E. Pollard [from] Disraeli
Frank Knight [from] Byron
Knox Taylor [from] History of England
Maurois has been very fortunate in his translators and all the readings were much enjoyed. Colonel Bramble was his first book & remains the most widely read &
generally acclaimed of them all. ‘Ariel’ his life of Shelley gained him a reputation for writing ‘Romanticized Biography’ which he resented and tried to counteract
in his lives of Byron and Disraeli. The general opinion of the Book Club was that he writes always with more charm and wit than accuracy & Knox Taylor’s
criticism of the ‘History of England[’] was that in trying to give a general impression without much detail, Maurois has picked out the wrong details and therefore
gives the wrong impression.
7. Kenneth Nicholson then continued the story of Maurois’ life up to the present day, when he is living in America with his wife, while their children remain in
France.
[signed as a true record by] J. Knox Taylor 13/3/44.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Oakdene”, Northcourt Avenue. 14.2.44
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
5. After an interval for refreshment we turned our thoughts to the Study of the Life and Works of André Maurois, which proved to be a subject of absorbing
interest. Rosamund Wallis was his Biographer up to the time of the outbreak of this war — her chief source of information being Maurois’ autobiography “Call no
man happy” from which she read several extracts. She revealed to us the child Emil Hertzog, born an Alsatian Jew & brought up in the sheltered atmosphere of
French family life. Brilliantly successful at school, in business, as a soldier and under the name of André Maurois as a writer. Success was his easily and
immediately for allied to his native genius was an infinite capacity for hard work.
6. Readings from Maurois’s works were given as follows:-
Howard Smith from ‘The Silence of Colonel Bramble’
Isabel Taylor [from] Ariel
F. E. Pollard [from] Disraeli
Frank Knight [from] Byron
Knox Taylor [from] History of England
Maurois has been very fortunate in his translators and all the readings were much enjoyed. Colonel Bramble was his first book & remains the most widely read &
generally acclaimed of them all. ‘Ariel’ his life of Shelley gained him a reputation for writing ‘Romanticized Biography’ which he resented and tried to counteract
in his lives of Byron and Disraeli. The general opinion of the Book Club was that he writes always with more charm and wit than accuracy & Knox Taylor’s
criticism of the ‘History of England[’] was that in trying to give a general impression without much detail, Maurois has picked out the wrong details and therefore
gives the wrong impression.
7. Kenneth Nicholson then continued the story of Maurois’ life up to the present day, when he is living in America with his wife, while their children remain in
France.
[signed as a true record by] J. Knox Taylor 13/3/44.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Oakdene”, Northcourt Avenue. 14.2.44
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
5. After an interval for refreshment we turned our thoughts to the Study of the Life and Works of André Maurois, which proved to be a subject of absorbing
interest. Rosamund Wallis was his Biographer up to the time of the outbreak of this war — her chief source of information being Maurois’ autobiography “Call no
man happy” from which she read several extracts. She revealed to us the child Emil Hertzog, born an Alsatian Jew & brought up in the sheltered atmosphere of
French family life. Brilliantly successful at school, in business, as a soldier and under the name of André Maurois as a writer. Success was his easily and
immediately for allied to his native genius was an infinite capacity for hard work.
6. Readings from Maurois’s works were given as follows:-
Howard Smith from ‘The Silence of Colonel Bramble’
Isabel Taylor [from] Ariel
F. E. Pollard [from] Disraeli
Frank Knight [from] Byron
Knox Taylor [from] History of England
Maurois has been very fortunate in his translators and all the readings were much enjoyed. Colonel Bramble was his first book & remains the most widely read &
generally acclaimed of them all. ‘Ariel’ his life of Shelley gained him a reputation for writing ‘Romanticized Biography’ which he resented and tried to counteract
in his lives of Byron and Disraeli. The general opinion of the Book Club was that he writes always with more charm and wit than accuracy & Knox Taylor’s
criticism of the ‘History of England[’] was that in trying to give a general impression without much detail, Maurois has picked out the wrong details and therefore
gives the wrong impression.
7. Kenneth Nicholson then continued the story of Maurois’ life up to the present day, when he is living in America with his wife, while their children remain in
France.
[signed as a true record by] J. Knox Taylor 13/3/44.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Oakdene”, Northcourt Avenue. 14.2.44
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
5. After an interval for refreshment we turned our thoughts to the Study of the Life and Works of André Maurois, which proved to be a subject of absorbing
interest. Rosamund Wallis was his Biographer up to the time of the outbreak of this war — her chief source of information being Maurois’ autobiography “Call no
man happy” from which she read several extracts. She revealed to us the child Emil Hertzog, born an Alsatian Jew & brought up in the sheltered atmosphere of
French family life. Brilliantly successful at school, in business, as a soldier and under the name of André Maurois as a writer. Success was his easily and
immediately for allied to his native genius was an infinite capacity for hard work.
6. Readings from Maurois’s works were given as follows:-
Howard Smith from ‘The Silence of Colonel Bramble’
Isabel Taylor [from] Ariel
F. E. Pollard [from] Disraeli
Frank Knight [from] Byron
Knox Taylor [from] History of England
Maurois has been very fortunate in his translators and all the readings were much enjoyed. Colonel Bramble was his first book & remains the most widely read &
generally acclaimed of them all. ‘Ariel’ his life of Shelley gained him a reputation for writing ‘Romanticized Biography’ which he resented and tried to counteract
in his lives of Byron and Disraeli. The general opinion of the Book Club was that he writes always with more charm and wit than accuracy & Knox Taylor’s
criticism of the ‘History of England[’] was that in trying to give a general impression without much detail, Maurois has picked out the wrong details and therefore
gives the wrong impression.
7. Kenneth Nicholson then continued the story of Maurois’ life up to the present day, when he is living in America with his wife, while their children remain in
France.
[signed as a true record by] J. Knox Taylor 13/3/44.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Isabel Taylor Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Oakdene”, Northcourt Avenue. 14.2.44
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
5. After an interval for refreshment we turned our thoughts to the Study of the Life and Works of André Maurois, which proved to be a subject of absorbing
interest. Rosamund Wallis was his Biographer up to the time of the outbreak of this war — her chief source of information being Maurois’ autobiography “Call no
man happy” from which she read several extracts. She revealed to us the child Emil Hertzog, born an Alsatian Jew & brought up in the sheltered atmosphere of
French family life. Brilliantly successful at school, in business, as a soldier and under the name of André Maurois as a writer. Success was his easily and
immediately for allied to his native genius was an infinite capacity for hard work.
6. Readings from Maurois’s works were given as follows:-
Howard Smith from ‘The Silence of Colonel Bramble’
Isabel Taylor [from] Ariel
F. E. Pollard [from] Disraeli
Frank Knight [from] Byron
Knox Taylor [from] History of England
Maurois has been very fortunate in his translators and all the readings were much enjoyed. Colonel Bramble was his first book & remains the most widely read &
generally acclaimed of them all. ‘Ariel’ his life of Shelley gained him a reputation for writing ‘Romanticized Biography’ which he resented and tried to counteract
in his lives of Byron and Disraeli. The general opinion of the Book Club was that he writes always with more charm and wit than accuracy & Knox Taylor’s
criticism of the ‘History of England[’] was that in trying to give a general impression without much detail, Maurois has picked out the wrong details and therefore
gives the wrong impression.
7. Kenneth Nicholson then continued the story of Maurois’ life up to the present day, when he is living in America with his wife, while their children remain in
France.
[signed as a true record by] J. Knox Taylor 13/3/44.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Oakdene”, Northcourt Avenue. 14.2.44
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
5. After an interval for refreshment we turned our thoughts to the Study of the Life and Works of André Maurois, which proved to be a subject of absorbing
interest. Rosamund Wallis was his Biographer up to the time of the outbreak of this war — her chief source of information being Maurois’ autobiography “Call no
man happy” from which she read several extracts. She revealed to us the child Emil Hertzog, born an Alsatian Jew & brought up in the sheltered atmosphere of
French family life. Brilliantly successful at school, in business, as a soldier and under the name of André Maurois as a writer. Success was his easily and
immediately for allied to his native genius was an infinite capacity for hard work.
6. Readings from Maurois’s works were given as follows:-
Howard Smith from ‘The Silence of Colonel Bramble’
Isabel Taylor [from] Ariel
F. E. Pollard [from] Disraeli
Frank Knight [from] Byron
Knox Taylor [from] History of England
Maurois has been very fortunate in his translators and all the readings were much enjoyed. Colonel Bramble was his first book & remains the most widely read &
generally acclaimed of them all. ‘Ariel’ his life of Shelley gained him a reputation for writing ‘Romanticized Biography’ which he resented and tried to counteract
in his lives of Byron and Disraeli. The general opinion of the Book Club was that he writes always with more charm and wit than accuracy & Knox Taylor’s
criticism of the ‘History of England[’] was that in trying to give a general impression without much detail, Maurois has picked out the wrong details and therefore
gives the wrong impression.
7. Kenneth Nicholson then continued the story of Maurois’ life up to the present day, when he is living in America with his wife, while their children remain in
France.
[signed as a true record by] J. Knox Taylor 13/3/44.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frank Knight Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Oakdene”, Northcourt Avenue. 14.2.44
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
5. After an interval for refreshment we turned our thoughts to the Study of the Life and Works of André Maurois, which proved to be a subject of absorbing
interest. Rosamund Wallis was his Biographer up to the time of the outbreak of this war — her chief source of information being Maurois’ autobiography “Call no
man happy” from which she read several extracts. She revealed to us the child Emil Hertzog, born an Alsatian Jew & brought up in the sheltered atmosphere of
French family life. Brilliantly successful at school, in business, as a soldier and under the name of André Maurois as a writer. Success was his easily and
immediately for allied to his native genius was an infinite capacity for hard work.
6. Readings from Maurois’s works were given as follows:-
Howard Smith from ‘The Silence of Colonel Bramble’
Isabel Taylor [from] Ariel
F. E. Pollard [from] Disraeli
Frank Knight [from] Byron
Knox Taylor [from] History of England
Maurois has been very fortunate in his translators and all the readings were much enjoyed. Colonel Bramble was his first book & remains the most widely read &
generally acclaimed of them all. ‘Ariel’ his life of Shelley gained him a reputation for writing ‘Romanticized Biography’ which he resented and tried to counteract
in his lives of Byron and Disraeli. The general opinion of the Book Club was that he writes always with more charm and wit than accuracy & Knox Taylor’s
criticism of the ‘History of England[’] was that in trying to give a general impression without much detail, Maurois has picked out the wrong details and therefore
gives the wrong impression.
7. Kenneth Nicholson then continued the story of Maurois’ life up to the present day, when he is living in America with his wife, while their children remain in
France.
[signed as a true record by] J. Knox Taylor 13/3/44.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Knox Taylor Print: Book
'Meeting held at School House. 13th March 1944
J. Knox Taylor in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
4. The chairman informed us that the committee had decided that Kenneth
Nicholson’s discourse on ‘The Novel’ was likely to be sufficiently provocative, with
interruptions and comments, to occupy the whole evening. They had therefore
arranged a few readings from novels but no other 5 minute essays or speeches.
5. Kenneth Nicholson, protesting that he had most unwillingly, had this greatness
thrust upon him, proceeded to expound the most interesting theory that the novel,
as a form of literature, had been born in the middle of the 18th Century, flourished
through the C19th and declined in the C20th. He held that although a great number
of novels are still being written, they are of little worth and are being read less
and less by persons of culture & discernment. For the rising generation, the
wireless and the cinema have taken the place of the novel in providing such
entertainment, & what reading they do, is of a much less serious nature.
A lively discussion took place both during and after Kenneth Nicholson’s discourse,
in which many members both criticised and opposed his theories.
6. Frank Knight read from Wm. de Morgan’s “Alice for Short”. Although this book
was written in 1907 the reading was much enjoyed, & many members confessed to
a great liking for De Morgan’s novels.
7. Elsie Harrod read from “Rebecca” by Daphne du Maurier – an even more recent
publication — and again our interest was caught and held.
8. It was getting late, and asked to cho[o]se, for the last reading, between “How
Green was my Valley”, “Precious Bane” and “The ordeal of Richard Feverel”
members chose the latter. By request, Knox Taylor read the well known love
scene entitled ‘Ferdinand and Miranda’. This novel was written in 1859 when the
art of novel-writing was (according to the theory laid down this evening) at its
height. But somehow it touched our sense of humour instead of our deeper
emotions, and Knox Taylor finding himself unable to finish the chapter, the
meeting dissolved amid general laughter.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elsie Harrod Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Frensham” 8th July 1944
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
[...]
7. “Love Came In” by Beatrice Saxon-Snell was read with the following cast:-
Thomas Curtis — F. E. Pollard
Anne Curtis — Isabel Taylor
Sandra — Elsie Harrod
Joe Coale — Bruce Dilks
James Naylor — Howard Smith
Before the reading Howard Smith briefly recounted the historical events leading up
to the time at which the action takes place. which explains the very strained
relations between George Fox & James Naylor. It was agreed that when the copies
were returned to Beatrice Saxon-Snell she should be warmly thanked for lending
them to us, & told how very much the club appreciated the play.
8. “The Dear Departed” by Stanley Houghton a play of a much more frivolous
nature, was read with the following cast:-
Henry Slater — Bruce Dilks
Amelia Slater — Muriel Stevens
Ben Jordan — Howard Smith
Elizabeth Jordan — Rosamund Wallis
Victoria Slater — Margaret Dilks
Abel Merryweather — F. E. Pollard
9. It being still quite early we decided to read another short play & chose quite at
random from the books available “The Man who wouldn't go to Heaven” by F.
Sladen-Smith. Read from sight and cast quite haphazardly this proved most
entertaining. F. E. Pollard as the recording angel, Basil Smith as the Free Church
Minister (with a voice pregnant with unxious non-conformity), Rosamund Wallis as
a string minded woman calling loudly for her dog & indeed every character was
most aptly portrayed. The full cast was as follows:
Thariel — F. E. Pollard
Margaret — Margaret Dilks
Richard Alton — Bruce Dilks
Bobbie Nightingale — Howard Smith
Eliza Muggins — Muriel Stevens
Sister Mary Teresa — Dorothea Taylor
Mrs Cuthbert Bagshawe — Ruth Beck
Harriet Rebecca Strenham — Rosamund Wallis
Rev John McNulty — Basil Smith
Timothy Toto Newbiggin — Sylvanus Reynolds
Derrick Bradley — Elsie Harrod
[signed as a true record by] AB Dilks 18/9/44'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Frensham” 8th July 1944
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
[...]
7. “Love Came In” by Beatrice Saxon-Snell was read with the following cast:-
Thomas Curtis — F. E. Pollard
Anne Curtis — Isabel Taylor
Sandra — Elsie Harrod
Joe Coale — Bruce Dilks
James Naylor — Howard Smith
Before the reading Howard Smith briefly recounted the historical events leading up
to the time at which the action takes place. which explains the very strained
relations between George Fox & James Naylor. It was agreed that when the copies
were returned to Beatrice Saxon-Snell she should be warmly thanked for lending
them to us, & told how very much the club appreciated the play.
8. “The Dear Departed” by Stanley Houghton a play of a much more frivolous
nature, was read with the following cast:-
Henry Slater — Bruce Dilks
Amelia Slater — Muriel Stevens
Ben Jordan — Howard Smith
Elizabeth Jordan — Rosamund Wallis
Victoria Slater — Margaret Dilks
Abel Merryweather — F. E. Pollard
9. It being still quite early we decided to read another short play & chose quite at
random from the books available “The Man who wouldn't go to Heaven” by F.
Sladen-Smith. Read from sight and cast quite haphazardly this proved most
entertaining. F. E. Pollard as the recording angel, Basil Smith as the Free Church
Minister (with a voice pregnant with unxious non-conformity), Rosamund Wallis as
a string minded woman calling loudly for her dog & indeed every character was
most aptly portrayed. The full cast was as follows:
Thariel — F. E. Pollard
Margaret — Margaret Dilks
Richard Alton — Bruce Dilks
Bobbie Nightingale — Howard Smith
Eliza Muggins — Muriel Stevens
Sister Mary Teresa — Dorothea Taylor
Mrs Cuthbert Bagshawe — Ruth Beck
Harriet Rebecca Strenham — Rosamund Wallis
Rev John McNulty — Basil Smith
Timothy Toto Newbiggin — Sylvanus Reynolds
Derrick Bradley — Elsie Harrod
[signed as a true record by] AB Dilks 18/9/44'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Frensham” 8th July 1944
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
[...]
7. “Love Came In” by Beatrice Saxon-Snell was read with the following cast:-
Thomas Curtis — F. E. Pollard
Anne Curtis — Isabel Taylor
Sandra — Elsie Harrod
Joe Coale — Bruce Dilks
James Naylor — Howard Smith
Before the reading Howard Smith briefly recounted the historical events leading up
to the time at which the action takes place. which explains the very strained
relations between George Fox & James Naylor. It was agreed that when the copies
were returned to Beatrice Saxon-Snell she should be warmly thanked for lending
them to us, & told how very much the club appreciated the play.
8. “The Dear Departed” by Stanley Houghton a play of a much more frivolous
nature, was read with the following cast:-
Henry Slater — Bruce Dilks
Amelia Slater — Muriel Stevens
Ben Jordan — Howard Smith
Elizabeth Jordan — Rosamund Wallis
Victoria Slater — Margaret Dilks
Abel Merryweather — F. E. Pollard
9. It being still quite early we decided to read another short play & chose quite at
random from the books available “The Man who wouldn't go to Heaven” by F.
Sladen-Smith. Read from sight and cast quite haphazardly this proved most
entertaining. F. E. Pollard as the recording angel, Basil Smith as the Free Church
Minister (with a voice pregnant with unxious non-conformity), Rosamund Wallis as
a string minded woman calling loudly for her dog & indeed every character was
most aptly portrayed. The full cast was as follows:
Thariel — F. E. Pollard
Margaret — Margaret Dilks
Richard Alton — Bruce Dilks
Bobbie Nightingale — Howard Smith
Eliza Muggins — Muriel Stevens
Sister Mary Teresa — Dorothea Taylor
Mrs Cuthbert Bagshawe — Ruth Beck
Harriet Rebecca Strenham — Rosamund Wallis
Rev John McNulty — Basil Smith
Timothy Toto Newbiggin — Sylvanus Reynolds
Derrick Bradley — Elsie Harrod
[signed as a true record by] AB Dilks 18/9/44'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Bruce Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Frensham” 8th July 1944
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
[...]
7. “Love Came In” by Beatrice Saxon-Snell was read with the following cast:-
Thomas Curtis — F. E. Pollard
Anne Curtis — Isabel Taylor
Sandra — Elsie Harrod
Joe Coale — Bruce Dilks
James Naylor — Howard Smith
Before the reading Howard Smith briefly recounted the historical events leading up
to the time at which the action takes place. which explains the very strained
relations between George Fox & James Naylor. It was agreed that when the copies
were returned to Beatrice Saxon-Snell she should be warmly thanked for lending
them to us, & told how very much the club appreciated the play.
8. “The Dear Departed” by Stanley Houghton a play of a much more frivolous
nature, was read with the following cast:-
Henry Slater — Bruce Dilks
Amelia Slater — Muriel Stevens
Ben Jordan — Howard Smith
Elizabeth Jordan — Rosamund Wallis
Victoria Slater — Margaret Dilks
Abel Merryweather — F. E. Pollard
9. It being still quite early we decided to read another short play & chose quite at
random from the books available “The Man who wouldn't go to Heaven” by F.
Sladen-Smith. Read from sight and cast quite haphazardly this proved most
entertaining. F. E. Pollard as the recording angel, Basil Smith as the Free Church
Minister (with a voice pregnant with unxious non-conformity), Rosamund Wallis as
a string minded woman calling loudly for her dog & indeed every character was
most aptly portrayed. The full cast was as follows:
Thariel — F. E. Pollard
Margaret — Margaret Dilks
Richard Alton — Bruce Dilks
Bobbie Nightingale — Howard Smith
Eliza Muggins — Muriel Stevens
Sister Mary Teresa — Dorothea Taylor
Mrs Cuthbert Bagshawe — Ruth Beck
Harriet Rebecca Strenham — Rosamund Wallis
Rev John McNulty — Basil Smith
Timothy Toto Newbiggin — Sylvanus Reynolds
Derrick Bradley — Elsie Harrod
[signed as a true record by] AB Dilks 18/9/44'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Frensham” 8th July 1944
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
[...]
7. “Love Came In” by Beatrice Saxon-Snell was read with the following cast:-
Thomas Curtis — F. E. Pollard
Anne Curtis — Isabel Taylor
Sandra — Elsie Harrod
Joe Coale — Bruce Dilks
James Naylor — Howard Smith
Before the reading Howard Smith briefly recounted the historical events leading up
to the time at which the action takes place. which explains the very strained
relations between George Fox & James Naylor. It was agreed that when the copies
were returned to Beatrice Saxon-Snell she should be warmly thanked for lending
them to us, & told how very much the club appreciated the play.
8. “The Dear Departed” by Stanley Houghton a play of a much more frivolous
nature, was read with the following cast:-
Henry Slater — Bruce Dilks
Amelia Slater — Muriel Stevens
Ben Jordan — Howard Smith
Elizabeth Jordan — Rosamund Wallis
Victoria Slater — Margaret Dilks
Abel Merryweather — F. E. Pollard
9. It being still quite early we decided to read another short play & chose quite at
random from the books available “The Man who wouldn't go to Heaven” by F.
Sladen-Smith. Read from sight and cast quite haphazardly this proved most
entertaining. F. E. Pollard as the recording angel, Basil Smith as the Free Church
Minister (with a voice pregnant with unxious non-conformity), Rosamund Wallis as
a string minded woman calling loudly for her dog & indeed every character was
most aptly portrayed. The full cast was as follows:
Thariel — F. E. Pollard
Margaret — Margaret Dilks
Richard Alton — Bruce Dilks
Bobbie Nightingale — Howard Smith
Eliza Muggins — Muriel Stevens
Sister Mary Teresa — Dorothea Taylor
Mrs Cuthbert Bagshawe — Ruth Beck
Harriet Rebecca Strenham — Rosamund Wallis
Rev John McNulty — Basil Smith
Timothy Toto Newbiggin — Sylvanus Reynolds
Derrick Bradley — Elsie Harrod
[signed as a true record by] AB Dilks 18/9/44'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Muriel Stevens Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Frensham” 8th July 1944
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
[...]
7. “Love Came In” by Beatrice Saxon-Snell was read with the following cast:-
Thomas Curtis — F. E. Pollard
Anne Curtis — Isabel Taylor
Sandra — Elsie Harrod
Joe Coale — Bruce Dilks
James Naylor — Howard Smith
Before the reading Howard Smith briefly recounted the historical events leading up
to the time at which the action takes place. which explains the very strained
relations between George Fox & James Naylor. It was agreed that when the copies
were returned to Beatrice Saxon-Snell she should be warmly thanked for lending
them to us, & told how very much the club appreciated the play.
8. “The Dear Departed” by Stanley Houghton a play of a much more frivolous
nature, was read with the following cast:-
Henry Slater — Bruce Dilks
Amelia Slater — Muriel Stevens
Ben Jordan — Howard Smith
Elizabeth Jordan — Rosamund Wallis
Victoria Slater — Margaret Dilks
Abel Merryweather — F. E. Pollard
9. It being still quite early we decided to read another short play & chose quite at
random from the books available “The Man who wouldn't go to Heaven” by F.
Sladen-Smith. Read from sight and cast quite haphazardly this proved most
entertaining. F. E. Pollard as the recording angel, Basil Smith as the Free Church
Minister (with a voice pregnant with unxious non-conformity), Rosamund Wallis as
a string minded woman calling loudly for her dog & indeed every character was
most aptly portrayed. The full cast was as follows:
Thariel — F. E. Pollard
Margaret — Margaret Dilks
Richard Alton — Bruce Dilks
Bobbie Nightingale — Howard Smith
Eliza Muggins — Muriel Stevens
Sister Mary Teresa — Dorothea Taylor
Mrs Cuthbert Bagshawe — Ruth Beck
Harriet Rebecca Strenham — Rosamund Wallis
Rev John McNulty — Basil Smith
Timothy Toto Newbiggin — Sylvanus Reynolds
Derrick Bradley — Elsie Harrod
[signed as a true record by] AB Dilks 18/9/44'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothea Taylor Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Frensham” 8th July 1944
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
[...]
7. “Love Came In” by Beatrice Saxon-Snell was read with the following cast:-
Thomas Curtis — F. E. Pollard
Anne Curtis — Isabel Taylor
Sandra — Elsie Harrod
Joe Coale — Bruce Dilks
James Naylor — Howard Smith
Before the reading Howard Smith briefly recounted the historical events leading up
to the time at which the action takes place. which explains the very strained
relations between George Fox & James Naylor. It was agreed that when the copies
were returned to Beatrice Saxon-Snell she should be warmly thanked for lending
them to us, & told how very much the club appreciated the play.
8. “The Dear Departed” by Stanley Houghton a play of a much more frivolous
nature, was read with the following cast:-
Henry Slater — Bruce Dilks
Amelia Slater — Muriel Stevens
Ben Jordan — Howard Smith
Elizabeth Jordan — Rosamund Wallis
Victoria Slater — Margaret Dilks
Abel Merryweather — F. E. Pollard
9. It being still quite early we decided to read another short play & chose quite at
random from the books available “The Man who wouldn't go to Heaven” by F.
Sladen-Smith. Read from sight and cast quite haphazardly this proved most
entertaining. F. E. Pollard as the recording angel, Basil Smith as the Free Church
Minister (with a voice pregnant with unxious non-conformity), Rosamund Wallis as
a string minded woman calling loudly for her dog & indeed every character was
most aptly portrayed. The full cast was as follows:
Thariel — F. E. Pollard
Margaret — Margaret Dilks
Richard Alton — Bruce Dilks
Bobbie Nightingale — Howard Smith
Eliza Muggins — Muriel Stevens
Sister Mary Teresa — Dorothea Taylor
Mrs Cuthbert Bagshawe — Ruth Beck
Harriet Rebecca Strenham — Rosamund Wallis
Rev John McNulty — Basil Smith
Timothy Toto Newbiggin — Sylvanus Reynolds
Derrick Bradley — Elsie Harrod
[signed as a true record by] AB Dilks 18/9/44'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Ruth Beck Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Frensham” 8th July 1944
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
[...]
7. “Love Came In” by Beatrice Saxon-Snell was read with the following cast:-
Thomas Curtis — F. E. Pollard
Anne Curtis — Isabel Taylor
Sandra — Elsie Harrod
Joe Coale — Bruce Dilks
James Naylor — Howard Smith
Before the reading Howard Smith briefly recounted the historical events leading up
to the time at which the action takes place. which explains the very strained
relations between George Fox & James Naylor. It was agreed that when the copies
were returned to Beatrice Saxon-Snell she should be warmly thanked for lending
them to us, & told how very much the club appreciated the play.
8. “The Dear Departed” by Stanley Houghton a play of a much more frivolous
nature, was read with the following cast:-
Henry Slater — Bruce Dilks
Amelia Slater — Muriel Stevens
Ben Jordan — Howard Smith
Elizabeth Jordan — Rosamund Wallis
Victoria Slater — Margaret Dilks
Abel Merryweather — F. E. Pollard
9. It being still quite early we decided to read another short play & chose quite at
random from the books available “The Man who wouldn't go to Heaven” by F.
Sladen-Smith. Read from sight and cast quite haphazardly this proved most
entertaining. F. E. Pollard as the recording angel, Basil Smith as the Free Church
Minister (with a voice pregnant with unxious non-conformity), Rosamund Wallis as
a string minded woman calling loudly for her dog & indeed every character was
most aptly portrayed. The full cast was as follows:
Thariel — F. E. Pollard
Margaret — Margaret Dilks
Richard Alton — Bruce Dilks
Bobbie Nightingale — Howard Smith
Eliza Muggins — Muriel Stevens
Sister Mary Teresa — Dorothea Taylor
Mrs Cuthbert Bagshawe — Ruth Beck
Harriet Rebecca Strenham — Rosamund Wallis
Rev John McNulty — Basil Smith
Timothy Toto Newbiggin — Sylvanus Reynolds
Derrick Bradley — Elsie Harrod
[signed as a true record by] AB Dilks 18/9/44'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Frensham” 8th July 1944
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
[...]
7. “Love Came In” by Beatrice Saxon-Snell was read with the following cast:-
Thomas Curtis — F. E. Pollard
Anne Curtis — Isabel Taylor
Sandra — Elsie Harrod
Joe Coale — Bruce Dilks
James Naylor — Howard Smith
Before the reading Howard Smith briefly recounted the historical events leading up
to the time at which the action takes place. which explains the very strained
relations between George Fox & James Naylor. It was agreed that when the copies
were returned to Beatrice Saxon-Snell she should be warmly thanked for lending
them to us, & told how very much the club appreciated the play.
8. “The Dear Departed” by Stanley Houghton a play of a much more frivolous
nature, was read with the following cast:-
Henry Slater — Bruce Dilks
Amelia Slater — Muriel Stevens
Ben Jordan — Howard Smith
Elizabeth Jordan — Rosamund Wallis
Victoria Slater — Margaret Dilks
Abel Merryweather — F. E. Pollard
9. It being still quite early we decided to read another short play & chose quite at
random from the books available “The Man who wouldn't go to Heaven” by F.
Sladen-Smith. Read from sight and cast quite haphazardly this proved most
entertaining. F. E. Pollard as the recording angel, Basil Smith as the Free Church
Minister (with a voice pregnant with unxious non-conformity), Rosamund Wallis as
a string minded woman calling loudly for her dog & indeed every character was
most aptly portrayed. The full cast was as follows:
Thariel — F. E. Pollard
Margaret — Margaret Dilks
Richard Alton — Bruce Dilks
Bobbie Nightingale — Howard Smith
Eliza Muggins — Muriel Stevens
Sister Mary Teresa — Dorothea Taylor
Mrs Cuthbert Bagshawe — Ruth Beck
Harriet Rebecca Strenham — Rosamund Wallis
Rev John McNulty — Basil Smith
Timothy Toto Newbiggin — Sylvanus Reynolds
Derrick Bradley — Elsie Harrod
[signed as a true record by] AB Dilks 18/9/44'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Basil Smith Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Frensham” 8th July 1944
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
[...]
7. “Love Came In” by Beatrice Saxon-Snell was read with the following cast:-
Thomas Curtis — F. E. Pollard
Anne Curtis — Isabel Taylor
Sandra — Elsie Harrod
Joe Coale — Bruce Dilks
James Naylor — Howard Smith
Before the reading Howard Smith briefly recounted the historical events leading up
to the time at which the action takes place. which explains the very strained
relations between George Fox & James Naylor. It was agreed that when the copies
were returned to Beatrice Saxon-Snell she should be warmly thanked for lending
them to us, & told how very much the club appreciated the play.
8. “The Dear Departed” by Stanley Houghton a play of a much more frivolous
nature, was read with the following cast:-
Henry Slater — Bruce Dilks
Amelia Slater — Muriel Stevens
Ben Jordan — Howard Smith
Elizabeth Jordan — Rosamund Wallis
Victoria Slater — Margaret Dilks
Abel Merryweather — F. E. Pollard
9. It being still quite early we decided to read another short play & chose quite at
random from the books available “The Man who wouldn't go to Heaven” by F.
Sladen-Smith. Read from sight and cast quite haphazardly this proved most
entertaining. F. E. Pollard as the recording angel, Basil Smith as the Free Church
Minister (with a voice pregnant with unxious non-conformity), Rosamund Wallis as
a string minded woman calling loudly for her dog & indeed every character was
most aptly portrayed. The full cast was as follows:
Thariel — F. E. Pollard
Margaret — Margaret Dilks
Richard Alton — Bruce Dilks
Bobbie Nightingale — Howard Smith
Eliza Muggins — Muriel Stevens
Sister Mary Teresa — Dorothea Taylor
Mrs Cuthbert Bagshawe — Ruth Beck
Harriet Rebecca Strenham — Rosamund Wallis
Rev John McNulty — Basil Smith
Timothy Toto Newbiggin — Sylvanus Reynolds
Derrick Bradley — Elsie Harrod
[signed as a true record by] AB Dilks 18/9/44'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Frensham” 8th July 1944
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
[...]
7. “Love Came In” by Beatrice Saxon-Snell was read with the following cast:-
Thomas Curtis — F. E. Pollard
Anne Curtis — Isabel Taylor
Sandra — Elsie Harrod
Joe Coale — Bruce Dilks
James Naylor — Howard Smith
Before the reading Howard Smith briefly recounted the historical events leading up
to the time at which the action takes place. which explains the very strained
relations between George Fox & James Naylor. It was agreed that when the copies
were returned to Beatrice Saxon-Snell she should be warmly thanked for lending
them to us, & told how very much the club appreciated the play.
8. “The Dear Departed” by Stanley Houghton a play of a much more frivolous
nature, was read with the following cast:-
Henry Slater — Bruce Dilks
Amelia Slater — Muriel Stevens
Ben Jordan — Howard Smith
Elizabeth Jordan — Rosamund Wallis
Victoria Slater — Margaret Dilks
Abel Merryweather — F. E. Pollard
9. It being still quite early we decided to read another short play & chose quite at
random from the books available “The Man who wouldn't go to Heaven” by F.
Sladen-Smith. Read from sight and cast quite haphazardly this proved most
entertaining. F. E. Pollard as the recording angel, Basil Smith as the Free Church
Minister (with a voice pregnant with unxious non-conformity), Rosamund Wallis as
a string minded woman calling loudly for her dog & indeed every character was
most aptly portrayed. The full cast was as follows:
Thariel — F. E. Pollard
Margaret — Margaret Dilks
Richard Alton — Bruce Dilks
Bobbie Nightingale — Howard Smith
Eliza Muggins — Muriel Stevens
Sister Mary Teresa — Dorothea Taylor
Mrs Cuthbert Bagshawe — Ruth Beck
Harriet Rebecca Strenham — Rosamund Wallis
Rev John McNulty — Basil Smith
Timothy Toto Newbiggin — Sylvanus Reynolds
Derrick Bradley — Elsie Harrod
[signed as a true record by] AB Dilks 18/9/44'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Elsie Harrod Print: Book
'Meeting held at 39, Eastern Avenue 18th Sept, 1944
A. Bruce Dilks in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
5. Alice Joselin introduced the subject of the evening by telling us something of the life of William Blake. Born in 1757 he was living through the
beginning of the industrial revolution. He had no schooling but showed early artistic ability and was apprenticed for 7 years to an engraver. During
this time he wrote some of his early poetry. Becoming himself a professional engraver he experimented with a new method of printing “shown
to him in a vision”. As she traced the pattern of his life during the remaining 27 years, Alice Joselin gave us a portrait of an embittered man,
never well loved even by his friends and incomprehensible to his contemporaries. She concluded with an extract from a Short Survey of William
Blake by Quiller Couch.
6. F. E. Pollard said that he had been reluctant to undertake the task of talking to the Club on the literature of Wm. Blake since he was acquainted
with only three of his poems. But as this was 50% more than anyone else knew, he need not have worried. He emphasised Blakes great lyrical
gifts and his share in the poetic revolution of the C18th, even suggesting that Blake led the way. Frances Pollard illustrated his remarks by reading
from: [“]To the evening star”, “How sweet I roam” and “Memory hither come”. He also read a short extract from Jerusalem throwing out the
suggestion that the subject matter showed some influence of Thomas Payne, Quaker.
7. After some refreshment we welcomed to our meeting Mr. George Goyder who is a very keen student and collector of William Blake. It was a
great privilege to have among us one whose profound knowledge of and enthusiasm for his subject was absolutely convincing. After listening to Mr.
Goyder and looking at his many beautiful examples of Blake’s work, we were willing to allow that he is probably our greatest English artist and
equalled as an engraver only by Dürer.
The Chairman expressed our very warmest thanks to Mr. Goyder.
[signed as a true record by] J. Knox Taylor 16/X/44.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at Grove House. 16th October 1944
J. Knox Taylor in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read & signed.
[...]
5. The subject of the evening was Charles Dickens and we were once again indebted to Howard Smith for a biography. In a
skilfully condensed account of the chief events of his life, we heard of the hardships Dickens underwent in childhood, of his
sudden & quite early achievement of success & financial ease. His marriage, his many children & the unhappy atmosphere
of his home life in later years. His visits to America and his sudden death at the age of 58.
6. Muriel Stevens read from David Copperfield the account of his arrival at the house of his Aunt Betsey Trotwood.
Humphrey Hare gave us the benefit of his local knowledge and described Peggotty’s Cottage at Great Yarmouth as seen by
his Father, and also Blundestone Rookery as it is today.
7. F. E. Pollard told us something of Chestertons book on Dickens and read a number of extracts showing his appreciation
of a number some of the lesser characters. Among these were Mrs. Nickleby, Mantalini, Dick Swiveller, Mr.
Stiggins, the Rev. Septimus Crisparkle and Toots.
8. We heard with interest that a recent census of boys’ reading at Leighton Park revealed Dickens even now as the third
most popular author.
9. Arnold Joselin read from Martin Chuzzlewit the chapter where Mrs. Gamp instals herself as night-nurse.
10. Knox Taylor read from The Pickwick Papers the account of the visit to Eatanswill parliamentary election.
[signed as a true record by] Arnold G. Joselin 21 Nov. 1944'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Print: Book
'Meeting held at 7 Marlborough Avenue, 21.XI.44
A. G. Joselin in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and after considerable discussion &
some alteration, signed.
5. After adjourning for refreshment we listened with very great interest to some
letters from Ralph Smith and also one from a repatriated Prisoner of War giving
first hand news of him.
6. Knox Taylor opened our evening of controversial subjects by a defence of
‘Vice’. He maintained that drinking and gambling in moderation were
harmless in themselves when dissociated from their social evils. In the discussion
which followed members seemed on the whole to favour a life of virtue, being
unwilling thus to separate cause from effect.
7. Elsie Harrod spoke on the housing question and after putting forward the many
problems which must be considered by those responsible for building the houses
for this generation, she proposed that the only way of meeting all requirements
was to pass a law that no house should be built to last for more than 10 years.
The chief argument which was put forward against this was that if the house was
guaranteed to decay in 10 years what would it be like in the 2 or 3 years
preceding this limit.
8. In a vehement and convincing discourse F. E. Pollard defended Reason against
this Age of Unreason. A lively discussion which followed showed that the speaker
had largely carried his audience with him along the path of Reason, although some
of us were unwilling to part with our sub-conscious minds.
[signed as a true record by] Muriel M. Stevens 16-12-44'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Knox Taylor Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 7 Marlborough Avenue, 21.XI.44
A. G. Joselin in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and after considerable discussion &
some alteration, signed.
5. After adjourning for refreshment we listened with very great interest to some
letters from Ralph Smith and also one from a repatriated Prisoner of War giving
first hand news of him.
6. Knox Taylor opened our evening of controversial subjects by a defence of
‘Vice’. He maintained that drinking and gambling in moderation were
harmless in themselves when dissociated from their social evils. In the discussion
which followed members seemed on the whole to favour a life of virtue, being
unwilling thus to separate cause from effect.
7. Elsie Harrod spoke on the housing question and after putting forward the many
problems which must be considered by those responsible for building the houses
for this generation, she proposed that the only way of meeting all requirements
was to pass a law that no house should be built to last for more than 10 years.
The chief argument which was put forward against this was that if the house was
guaranteed to decay in 10 years what would it be like in the 2 or 3 years
preceding this limit.
8. In a vehement and convincing discourse F. E. Pollard defended Reason against
this Age of Unreason. A lively discussion which followed showed that the speaker
had largely carried his audience with him along the path of Reason, although some
of us were unwilling to part with our sub-conscious minds.
[signed as a true record by] Muriel M. Stevens 16-12-44'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue, Northcourt Avenue, 25th April 1945
F. E. Pollard in the chair.
[...]
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read & signed.
5. Alice Joselin introduced the subject of the evening with a biographical study of
the Brontë family. Contrary to her expressed idea that she could do little more
than recite a list of dates, Alice Joselin drew for us a vivid picture of the life at
Haworth Rectory and the way in which the three sisters took the literary world by
storm.
6. After adjourning for refreshment we turned our attentions to a study of the
works of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. First Margaret Dilks read from
“Vil[l]ette” the description of Mme. Rachel, the famous actress. Since this passage
is the only contribution Charlotte Brontë is allowed to make to the Oxford Book of
English Prose, it is presumably considered great by someone who should be
qualified to judge. But when the reader had finished, the only audible comment
from this learned gathering was “Can someone tell me what all that means?”
7. F. E. Pollard then gave us the benefit of his discerning criticism of the works of
these writers. Describing himself as of a naturally romantic & sentimental turn of
mind (cheers and prolonged applause) he championed Jane Eyre and Shirley.
There followed a lively discussion in which nearly all members took part. The
excessive wordiness of which both Emily & Charlotte are sometimes guilty, was
attributed to the bad influence of the continent on the Englishman’s [sic!] natural
restraint. Several members of the fair sex expressed a distaste for the horrors of
Wuthering Heights, one even going so far as to suggest that the author was
probably mad. Cyril Langford, reading from a newspaper article, put forward an
interesting theory that the book was the natural psychological reaction of one
whose life was mainly occupied in household duties; and Thomas Hopkins crowned
all by telling us that he had once been presented with Wuthering Heights as a
Sunday School prize. Cyril Langford also drew our attention to Jane Eyre’s
description of her own paintings, which were clearly the forerunners of surrealism.
Other readings given were:-
Howard Smith from Wuthering Heights[,]
Rosamund Wallis from Shirley[,]
& Howard Smith from The Gondal Poems[.]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 7 Marlborough Avenue 22/10/45
Arnold G. Joselin in the chair
1. The minutes of the previous meeting were read & signed.
[...]
3. Dr Taylor read from Kingdon Ward’s Modern Exploration giving us some idea of
the History of Exploration. Early man was immobile. Exploration has kept step
with Civilization. Exploration of the Earths surface is nearly finished, now we go
either up or down.
4. We adjourned for refreshment.
5. H. R. Smith read Smythe’s account of his singlehanded assault on the Everest
on the Everest summit.
6. Elsie Harrod from Gino Watkins by J M Scott first the description of suitable diet
for Greenland and second an account of travel over the Greenland Icecap. Very
Vivid.
7. Cyril Langford read from Hanno [half-emended, correctly, to ‘Hanno’] by J.
Leslie Mitchell on the ideas of what the earth is like deep beneath our feet. We got
a picture of a vast Hollow echoing caverns & great underground seas.
8. Thos Hopkins read extracts from Richard Bird [sic] in the Antarctic all alone
being slowly poisoned by Carbon Monoxide the fumes from his stove slowly
escaping a very introspective depressing story. Taking the evening as a whole it
was perhaps felt that there was rather a lot of physchology [sic] stirred into the
adventures.
[signed as a true record by] A. Austin Miller 28.XI.45 [at the club meeting held at
67 Eastern Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 44.]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothea Taylor Print: Book
'Meeting held at 67 Eastern Avenue, 28th. Nov. 1945.
A. Austin Miller in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read & signed.
[...]
3. While we were discussing possible books for the coming year, the Treasurer
was dispatched to fetch from his home the Club account books in order that we
might be able to review our finances. He was later able to assure us that we have
a balance in hand of about £7.
[...]
7. X = 0 by John Drinkwater was read with the following cast: —
Pronax — F. E. Pollard
Salvius — A B Dilks
Ilus — T. Hopkins
Capys — Austin Miller
Stage directions, passing sentinels & noises off — Hilda Hopkins
We then had three readings each of a national character. For the first of these
representing England Dora Langford read from “Nicholas Married” a sequel to
Nicholas Nickleby of doubtful authorship. Both the age of the book and its
illustrations were extremely interesting. Scotland was represented by an extract
from ‘A Window in Thrums’ by J. M. Barrie read by Muriel Stevens. And Wales by
readings by Stella Hopkins from “An Englishman looks at Wales by R. W.
Thompson”
[signed as a true record by] C.J. Langford [on 10 January 1946, at the club meeting
held at 44 Hamilton Rd.: see Minute Book, p. 48.]
'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Print: Book
'Meeting held at 67 Eastern Avenue, 28th. Nov. 1945.
A. Austin Miller in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read & signed.
[...]
3. While we were discussing possible books for the coming year, the Treasurer
was dispatched to fetch from his home the Club account books in order that we
might be able to review our finances. He was later able to assure us that we have
a balance in hand of about £7.
[...]
7. X = 0 by John Drinkwater was read with the following cast: —
Pronax — F. E. Pollard
Salvius — A B Dilks
Ilus — T. Hopkins
Capys — Austin Miller
Stage directions, passing sentinels & noises off — Hilda Hopkins
We then had three readings each of a national character. For the first of these
representing England Dora Langford read from “Nicholas Married” a sequel to
Nicholas Nickleby of doubtful authorship. Both the age of the book and its
illustrations were extremely interesting. Scotland was represented by an extract
from ‘A Window in Thrums’ by J. M. Barrie read by Muriel Stevens. And Wales by
readings by Stella Hopkins from “An Englishman looks at Wales by R. W.
Thompson”
[signed as a true record by] C.J. Langford [on 10 January 1946, at the club meeting
held at 44 Hamilton Rd.: see Minute Book, p. 48.]
'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Bruce Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at 67 Eastern Avenue, 28th. Nov. 1945.
A. Austin Miller in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read & signed.
[...]
3. While we were discussing possible books for the coming year, the Treasurer
was dispatched to fetch from his home the Club account books in order that we
might be able to review our finances. He was later able to assure us that we have
a balance in hand of about £7.
[...]
7. X = 0 by John Drinkwater was read with the following cast: —
Pronax — F. E. Pollard
Salvius — A B Dilks
Ilus — T. Hopkins
Capys — Austin Miller
Stage directions, passing sentinels & noises off — Hilda Hopkins
We then had three readings each of a national character. For the first of these
representing England Dora Langford read from “Nicholas Married” a sequel to
Nicholas Nickleby of doubtful authorship. Both the age of the book and its
illustrations were extremely interesting. Scotland was represented by an extract
from ‘A Window in Thrums’ by J. M. Barrie read by Muriel Stevens. And Wales by
readings by Stella Hopkins from “An Englishman looks at Wales by R. W.
Thompson”
[signed as a true record by] C.J. Langford [on 10 January 1946, at the club meeting
held at 44 Hamilton Rd.: see Minute Book, p. 48.]
'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Hopkins Print: Book
'Meeting held at 67 Eastern Avenue, 28th. Nov. 1945.
A. Austin Miller in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read & signed.
[...]
3. While we were discussing possible books for the coming year, the Treasurer
was dispatched to fetch from his home the Club account books in order that we
might be able to review our finances. He was later able to assure us that we have
a balance in hand of about £7.
[...]
7. X = 0 by John Drinkwater was read with the following cast: —
Pronax — F. E. Pollard
Salvius — A B Dilks
Ilus — T. Hopkins
Capys — Austin Miller
Stage directions, passing sentinels & noises off — Hilda Hopkins
We then had three readings each of a national character. For the first of these
representing England Dora Langford read from “Nicholas Married” a sequel to
Nicholas Nickleby of doubtful authorship. Both the age of the book and its
illustrations were extremely interesting. Scotland was represented by an extract
from ‘A Window in Thrums’ by J. M. Barrie read by Muriel Stevens. And Wales by
readings by Stella Hopkins from “An Englishman looks at Wales by R. W.
Thompson”
[signed as a true record by] C.J. Langford [on 10 January 1946, at the club meeting
held at 44 Hamilton Rd.: see Minute Book, p. 48.]
'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: A. Austin Miller Print: Book
'Meeting held at 67 Eastern Avenue, 28th. Nov. 1945.
A. Austin Miller in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read & signed.
[...]
3. While we were discussing possible books for the coming year, the Treasurer
was dispatched to fetch from his home the Club account books in order that we
might be able to review our finances. He was later able to assure us that we have
a balance in hand of about £7.
[...]
7. X = 0 by John Drinkwater was read with the following cast: —
Pronax — F. E. Pollard
Salvius — A B Dilks
Ilus — T. Hopkins
Capys — Austin Miller
Stage directions, passing sentinels & noises off — Hilda Hopkins
We then had three readings each of a national character. For the first of these
representing England Dora Langford read from “Nicholas Married” a sequel to
Nicholas Nickleby of doubtful authorship. Both the age of the book and its
illustrations were extremely interesting. Scotland was represented by an extract
from ‘A Window in Thrums’ by J. M. Barrie read by Muriel Stevens. And Wales by
readings by Stella Hopkins from “An Englishman looks at Wales by R. W.
Thompson”
[signed as a true record by] C.J. Langford [on 10 January 1946, at the club meeting
held at 44 Hamilton Rd.: see Minute Book, p. 48.]
'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilda Hopkins Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Oakdene”, Northcourt Avenue. 2.3.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
1. Minutes of the last meeting were read & approved.
[...]
5. Bruce Dilks reported on behalf of the committee, that in order to provide a
controversial evening seven people had been asked to come prepared to speak or
read about seven widely differing subjects. [...] The subjects would be open for
debate and it was not proposed to cut short an interesting discussion in order
necessarily to include 7 all subjects [...].
6. Rosamund Wallis read an extract from “The Screwtape Letters” by C. S. Lewis.
She was a lesson in the act of tempting, especially the kind of temptations into
which people are most likely to be led during war time. A discussion followed on
whether or not war produced a ‘moral torpor’ and whether it is necessary to live
dangerously, in order to develop physical and moral courage. C. S. Lewis says that
“Despair is a greater sin, than any of the sins that provoke it.”
7. Alice Joselin’s subject was Experiment in Education and she read first from E. S.
Grant-Watson’s book “The Old School” which described the founding of Bedales in
1893 and its gradual change from its cranky, ultra-idealistic outlook then into a
good modern progressive school. Her other reading was from A. S. Neil’s book
“That Dreadful School” the author being founder and headmaster of “Summerhill”.
[...] It was clear from the remarks that followed that this system of education had
no support from members of the club. Dorothea Taylor. as an old Bedalean
confirmed Grant-Watson’s A/C of the school (except that she had no recollection of
the use of the switch) and told us of the great loyalty of old scholars. [...] This led
on to the question of co-education and the very strong Sidcot contingent present at
the meeting began to throw its weight about until Howard Smith recalled that in
his Unit of the F.A.U. during the last war, the Old Sidcotians were labelled “Gods
little Gentlemen”[.] Knox Taylor exhibited himself as the exception to this rule &
the subject was considered dead. [Note: the F.A.U. is the Friends’ Ambulance Unit;
Sidcot is a co-educational school associated with the Quakers.]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at Gower Cottage. 8th May ’43
Muriel Stevens in the Chair
1. Minutes of last meeting read & signed
[...]
3. Knox Taylor opened our study of Johnson & his Circle by giving us a most
comprehensive picture of the background of this period.
4. Howard Smith told us of Johnson’s life and publications.
5. Isabel Taylor read Johnson’s famous letter to Lord Chesterfield.
6. Roger Moore read ‘The Wedding Day’ by Boswell & an account of his first
meeting with Johnson.
7. F. E. Pollard described Johnson’s Circle. He spoke of Garrick, Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Burke, Godlsmith, Boswell, Richardson, Fielding, Mrs. Thrale and her
daughter Hester & others and A. B Dilks read from Johnson’s “Vanity of Human
Wishes.”
8. Mention must be made of the excellent refreshments provided by our hostess
and the Secretary regrets that owing to lack of time, she has in these minutes
done Scant justice to a most thoughtfully prepared & extremely interesting
evening.
[signed as a true record by] Howard R Smith
22/6/43 [at the club meeting held at Frensham: see Minute Book, p. 155: ‘We
adjourned indoors & the minutes of the last meeting were read, corrected and
signed.’]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Knox Taylor Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at Gower Cottage. 8th May ’43
Muriel Stevens in the Chair
1. Minutes of last meeting read & signed
[...]
3. Knox Taylor opened our study of Johnson & his Circle by giving us a most
comprehensive picture of the background of this period.
4. Howard Smith told us of Johnson’s life and publications.
5. Isabel Taylor read Johnson’s famous letter to Lord Chesterfield.
6. Roger Moore read ‘The Wedding Day’ by Boswell & an account of his first
meeting with Johnson.
7. F. E. Pollard described Johnson’s Circle. He spoke of Garrick, Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Burke, Goldsmith, Boswell, Richardson, Fielding, Mrs. Thrale and her
daughter Hester & others and A. B Dilks read from Johnson’s “Vanity of Human
Wishes.”
8. Mention must be made of the excellent refreshments provided by our hostess
and the Secretary regrets that owing to lack of time, she has in these minutes
done Scant justice to a most thoughtfully prepared & extremely interesting
evening.
[signed as a true record by] Howard R Smith
22/6/43 [at the club meeting held at Frensham: see Minute Book, p. 155: ‘We
adjourned indoors & the minutes of the last meeting were read, corrected and
signed.’]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at Frensham. 22nd June 1943
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. The first part of the meeting was spent most happily in the Frensham garden.
[...]
2. We adjourned indoors & the minutes of last meeting were read, corrected &
signed.
[...]
6. ‘Distant Point’ a translation from the Russian Play by Afinogenev was then read.
In this F. E. Pollard was a somewhat timid and bewildered stationmaster, Margaret
Dilks his huntin’ shootin’ gold-digging wife, and Elsie Harrod, their very high
spirited daughter. The latter two, being no doubt, largely responsible for the
timidity & bewilderment of the former. Then there was Kenneth Nicholson as the
linesman who wanted to get on, Isabel Taylor as his very beautiful wife who with
their small son he feared would cramp his style. S. A. Reynolds was switchman
and father-in-law to the linesman. A. B. Dilks was the Telegraph operator – a
mixture of poet, musician & inventor. Roger Moore read with keen insight the part
of the 2nd linesman who was a drunken sot with a past. Out of the railway coach
marooned at this station, came H. R. Smith as a Commander in the Far Eastern
Russian army, Muriel Stevens as his wife, & Arnold Joselin as his Aide-de-camp.
Rosamund Wallis read the stage directions and battled nobly with the Russian
names. The write-up on the cover of this book said that this play shows the
Russians laughing at themselves, & this would seem as good a way as any of
summing it up.
[signed as a true record by] F. E. Pollard
4. IX. 43. [at the club meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 158]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham. 22nd June 1943
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. The first part of the meeting was spent most happily in the Frensham garden.
[...]
2. We adjourned indoors & the minutes of last meeting were read, corrected &
signed.
[...]
6. ‘Distant Point’ a translation from the Russian Play by Afinogenev was then read.
In this F. E. Pollard was a somewhat timid and bewildered stationmaster, Margaret
Dilks his huntin’ shootin’ gold-digging wife, and Elsie Harrod, their very high
spirited daughter. The latter two, being no doubt, largely responsible for the
timidity & bewilderment of the former. Then there was Kenneth Nicholson as the
linesman who wanted to get on, Isabel Taylor as his very beautiful wife who with
their small son he feared would cramp his style. S. A. Reynolds was switchman
and father-in-law to the linesman. A. B. Dilks was the Telegraph operator – a
mixture of poet, musician & inventor. Roger Moore read with keen insight the part
of the 2nd linesman who was a drunken sot with a past. Out of the railway coach
marooned at this station, came H. R. Smith as a Commander in the Far Eastern
Russian army, Muriel Stevens as his wife, & Arnold Joselin as his Aide-de-camp.
Rosamund Wallis read the stage directions and battled nobly with the Russian
names. The write-up on the cover of this book said that this play shows the
Russians laughing at themselves, & this would seem as good a way as any of
summing it up.
[signed as a true record by] F. E. Pollard
4. IX. 43. [at the club meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 158]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham. 22nd June 1943
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. The first part of the meeting was spent most happily in the Frensham garden.
[...]
2. We adjourned indoors & the minutes of last meeting were read, corrected &
signed.
[...]
6. ‘Distant Point’ a translation from the Russian Play by Afinogenev was then read.
In this F. E. Pollard was a somewhat timid and bewildered stationmaster, Margaret
Dilks his huntin’ shootin’ gold-digging wife, and Elsie Harrod, their very high
spirited daughter. The latter two, being no doubt, largely responsible for the
timidity & bewilderment of the former. Then there was Kenneth Nicholson as the
linesman who wanted to get on, Isabel Taylor as his very beautiful wife who with
their small son he feared would cramp his style. S. A. Reynolds was switchman
and father-in-law to the linesman. A. B. Dilks was the Telegraph operator – a
mixture of poet, musician & inventor. Roger Moore read with keen insight the part
of the 2nd linesman who was a drunken sot with a past. Out of the railway coach
marooned at this station, came H. R. Smith as a Commander in the Far Eastern
Russian army, Muriel Stevens as his wife, & Arnold Joselin as his Aide-de-camp.
Rosamund Wallis read the stage directions and battled nobly with the Russian
names. The write-up on the cover of this book said that this play shows the
Russians laughing at themselves, & this would seem as good a way as any of
summing it up.
[signed as a true record by] F. E. Pollard
4. IX. 43. [at the club meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 158]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elsie Harrod Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham. 22nd June 1943
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. The first part of the meeting was spent most happily in the Frensham garden.
[...]
2. We adjourned indoors & the minutes of last meeting were read, corrected &
signed.
[...]
6. ‘Distant Point’ a translation from the Russian Play by Afinogenev was then read.
In this F. E. Pollard was a somewhat timid and bewildered stationmaster, Margaret
Dilks his huntin’ shootin’ gold-digging wife, and Elsie Harrod, their very high
spirited daughter. The latter two, being no doubt, largely responsible for the
timidity & bewilderment of the former. Then there was Kenneth Nicholson as the
linesman who wanted to get on, Isabel Taylor as his very beautiful wife who with
their small son he feared would cramp his style. S. A. Reynolds was switchman
and father-in-law to the linesman. A. B. Dilks was the Telegraph operator – a
mixture of poet, musician & inventor. Roger Moore read with keen insight the part
of the 2nd linesman who was a drunken sot with a past. Out of the railway coach
marooned at this station, came H. R. Smith as a Commander in the Far Eastern
Russian army, Muriel Stevens as his wife, & Arnold Joselin as his Aide-de-camp.
Rosamund Wallis read the stage directions and battled nobly with the Russian
names. The write-up on the cover of this book said that this play shows the
Russians laughing at themselves, & this would seem as good a way as any of
summing it up.
[signed as a true record by] F. E. Pollard
4. IX. 43. [at the club meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 158]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Kenneth F. Nicholson Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham. 22nd June 1943
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. The first part of the meeting was spent most happily in the Frensham garden.
[...]
2. We adjourned indoors & the minutes of last meeting were read, corrected &
signed.
[...]
6. ‘Distant Point’ a translation from the Russian Play by Afinogenev was then read.
In this F. E. Pollard was a somewhat timid and bewildered stationmaster, Margaret
Dilks his huntin’ shootin’ gold-digging wife, and Elsie Harrod, their very high
spirited daughter. The latter two, being no doubt, largely responsible for the
timidity & bewilderment of the former. Then there was Kenneth Nicholson as the
linesman who wanted to get on, Isabel Taylor as his very beautiful wife who with
their small son he feared would cramp his style. S. A. Reynolds was switchman
and father-in-law to the linesman. A. B. Dilks was the Telegraph operator – a
mixture of poet, musician & inventor. Roger Moore read with keen insight the part
of the 2nd linesman who was a drunken sot with a past. Out of the railway coach
marooned at this station, came H. R. Smith as a Commander in the Far Eastern
Russian army, Muriel Stevens as his wife, & Arnold Joselin as his Aide-de-camp.
Rosamund Wallis read the stage directions and battled nobly with the Russian
names. The write-up on the cover of this book said that this play shows the
Russians laughing at themselves, & this would seem as good a way as any of
summing it up.
[signed as a true record by] F. E. Pollard
4. IX. 43. [at the club meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 158]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Isabel Taylor Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham. 22nd June 1943
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. The first part of the meeting was spent most happily in the Frensham garden.
[...]
2. We adjourned indoors & the minutes of last meeting were read, corrected &
signed.
[...]
6. ‘Distant Point’ a translation from the Russian Play by Afinogenev was then read.
In this F. E. Pollard was a somewhat timid and bewildered stationmaster, Margaret
Dilks his huntin’ shootin’ gold-digging wife, and Elsie Harrod, their very high
spirited daughter. The latter two, being no doubt, largely responsible for the
timidity & bewilderment of the former. Then there was Kenneth Nicholson as the
linesman who wanted to get on, Isabel Taylor as his very beautiful wife who with
their small son he feared would cramp his style. S. A. Reynolds was switchman
and father-in-law to the linesman. A. B. Dilks was the Telegraph operator – a
mixture of poet, musician & inventor. Roger Moore read with keen insight the part
of the 2nd linesman who was a drunken sot with a past. Out of the railway coach
marooned at this station, came H. R. Smith as a Commander in the Far Eastern
Russian army, Muriel Stevens as his wife, & Arnold Joselin as his Aide-de-camp.
Rosamund Wallis read the stage directions and battled nobly with the Russian
names. The write-up on the cover of this book said that this play shows the
Russians laughing at themselves, & this would seem as good a way as any of
summing it up.
[signed as a true record by] F. E. Pollard
4. IX. 43. [at the club meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 158]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham. 22nd June 1943
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. The first part of the meeting was spent most happily in the Frensham garden.
[...]
2. We adjourned indoors & the minutes of last meeting were read, corrected &
signed.
[...]
6. ‘Distant Point’ a translation from the Russian Play by Afinogenev was then read.
In this F. E. Pollard was a somewhat timid and bewildered stationmaster, Margaret
Dilks his huntin’ shootin’ gold-digging wife, and Elsie Harrod, their very high
spirited daughter. The latter two, being no doubt, largely responsible for the
timidity & bewilderment of the former. Then there was Kenneth Nicholson as the
linesman who wanted to get on, Isabel Taylor as his very beautiful wife who with
their small son he feared would cramp his style. S. A. Reynolds was switchman
and father-in-law to the linesman. A. B. Dilks was the Telegraph operator – a
mixture of poet, musician & inventor. Roger Moore read with keen insight the part
of the 2nd linesman who was a drunken sot with a past. Out of the railway coach
marooned at this station, came H. R. Smith as a Commander in the Far Eastern
Russian army, Muriel Stevens as his wife, & Arnold Joselin as his Aide-de-camp.
Rosamund Wallis read the stage directions and battled nobly with the Russian
names. The write-up on the cover of this book said that this play shows the
Russians laughing at themselves, & this would seem as good a way as any of
summing it up.
[signed as a true record by] F. E. Pollard
4. IX. 43. [at the club meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 158]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Bruce Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham. 22nd June 1943
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. The first part of the meeting was spent most happily in the Frensham garden.
[...]
2. We adjourned indoors & the minutes of last meeting were read, corrected &
signed.
[...]
6. ‘Distant Point’ a translation from the Russian Play by Afinogenev was then read.
In this F. E. Pollard was a somewhat timid and bewildered stationmaster, Margaret
Dilks his huntin’ shootin’ gold-digging wife, and Elsie Harrod, their very high
spirited daughter. The latter two, being no doubt, largely responsible for the
timidity & bewilderment of the former. Then there was Kenneth Nicholson as the
linesman who wanted to get on, Isabel Taylor as his very beautiful wife who with
their small son he feared would cramp his style. S. A. Reynolds was switchman
and father-in-law to the linesman. A. B. Dilks was the Telegraph operator – a
mixture of poet, musician & inventor. Roger Moore read with keen insight the part
of the 2nd linesman who was a drunken sot with a past. Out of the railway coach
marooned at this station, came H. R. Smith as a Commander in the Far Eastern
Russian army, Muriel Stevens as his wife, & Arnold Joselin as his Aide-de-camp.
Rosamund Wallis read the stage directions and battled nobly with the Russian
names. The write-up on the cover of this book said that this play shows the
Russians laughing at themselves, & this would seem as good a way as any of
summing it up.
[signed as a true record by] F. E. Pollard
4. IX. 43. [at the club meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 158]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham. 22nd June 1943
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. The first part of the meeting was spent most happily in the Frensham garden.
[...]
2. We adjourned indoors & the minutes of last meeting were read, corrected &
signed.
[...]
6. ‘Distant Point’ a translation from the Russian Play by Afinogenev was then read.
In this F. E. Pollard was a somewhat timid and bewildered stationmaster, Margaret
Dilks his huntin’ shootin’ gold-digging wife, and Elsie Harrod, their very high
spirited daughter. The latter two, being no doubt, largely responsible for the
timidity & bewilderment of the former. Then there was Kenneth Nicholson as the
linesman who wanted to get on, Isabel Taylor as his very beautiful wife who with
their small son he feared would cramp his style. S. A. Reynolds was switchman
and father-in-law to the linesman. A. B. Dilks was the Telegraph operator – a
mixture of poet, musician & inventor. Roger Moore read with keen insight the part
of the 2nd linesman who was a drunken sot with a past. Out of the railway coach
marooned at this station, came H. R. Smith as a Commander in the Far Eastern
Russian army, Muriel Stevens as his wife, & Arnold Joselin as his Aide-de-camp.
Rosamund Wallis read the stage directions and battled nobly with the Russian
names. The write-up on the cover of this book said that this play shows the
Russians laughing at themselves, & this would seem as good a way as any of
summing it up.
[signed as a true record by] F. E. Pollard
4. IX. 43. [at the club meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 158]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham. 22nd June 1943
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. The first part of the meeting was spent most happily in the Frensham garden.
[...]
2. We adjourned indoors & the minutes of last meeting were read, corrected &
signed.
[...]
6. ‘Distant Point’ a translation from the Russian Play by Afinogenev was then read.
In this F. E. Pollard was a somewhat timid and bewildered stationmaster, Margaret
Dilks his huntin’ shootin’ gold-digging wife, and Elsie Harrod, their very high
spirited daughter. The latter two, being no doubt, largely responsible for the
timidity & bewilderment of the former. Then there was Kenneth Nicholson as the
linesman who wanted to get on, Isabel Taylor as his very beautiful wife who with
their small son he feared would cramp his style. S. A. Reynolds was switchman
and father-in-law to the linesman. A. B. Dilks was the Telegraph operator – a
mixture of poet, musician & inventor. Roger Moore read with keen insight the part
of the 2nd linesman who was a drunken sot with a past. Out of the railway coach
marooned at this station, came H. R. Smith as a Commander in the Far Eastern
Russian army, Muriel Stevens as his wife, & Arnold Joselin as his Aide-de-camp.
Rosamund Wallis read the stage directions and battled nobly with the Russian
names. The write-up on the cover of this book said that this play shows the
Russians laughing at themselves, & this would seem as good a way as any of
summing it up.
[signed as a true record by] F. E. Pollard
4. IX. 43. [at the club meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 158]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Muriel Stevens Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham. 22nd June 1943
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. The first part of the meeting was spent most happily in the Frensham garden.
[...]
2. We adjourned indoors & the minutes of last meeting were read, corrected &
signed.
[...]
6. ‘Distant Point’ a translation from the Russian Play by Afinogenev was then read.
In this F. E. Pollard was a somewhat timid and bewildered stationmaster, Margaret
Dilks his huntin’ shootin’ gold-digging wife, and Elsie Harrod, their very high
spirited daughter. The latter two, being no doubt, largely responsible for the
timidity & bewilderment of the former. Then there was Kenneth Nicholson as the
linesman who wanted to get on, Isabel Taylor as his very beautiful wife who with
their small son he feared would cramp his style. S. A. Reynolds was switchman
and father-in-law to the linesman. A. B. Dilks was the Telegraph operator – a
mixture of poet, musician & inventor. Roger Moore read with keen insight the part
of the 2nd linesman who was a drunken sot with a past. Out of the railway coach
marooned at this station, came H. R. Smith as a Commander in the Far Eastern
Russian army, Muriel Stevens as his wife, & Arnold Joselin as his Aide-de-camp.
Rosamund Wallis read the stage directions and battled nobly with the Russian
names. The write-up on the cover of this book said that this play shows the
Russians laughing at themselves, & this would seem as good a way as any of
summing it up.
[signed as a true record by] F. E. Pollard
4. IX. 43. [at the club meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 158]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Joselin Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham. 22nd June 1943
H. R. Smith in the chair
1. The first part of the meeting was spent most happily in the Frensham garden.
[...]
2. We adjourned indoors & the minutes of last meeting were read, corrected &
signed.
[...]
6. ‘Distant Point’ a translation from the Russian Play by Afinogenev was then read.
In this F. E. Pollard was a somewhat timid and bewildered stationmaster, Margaret
Dilks his huntin’ shootin’ gold-digging wife, and Elsie Harrod, their very high
spirited daughter. The latter two, being no doubt, largely responsible for the
timidity & bewilderment of the former. Then there was Kenneth Nicholson as the
linesman who wanted to get on, Isabel Taylor as his very beautiful wife who with
their small son he feared would cramp his style. S. A. Reynolds was switchman
and father-in-law to the linesman. A. B. Dilks was the Telegraph operator – a
mixture of poet, musician & inventor. Roger Moore read with keen insight the part
of the 2nd linesman who was a drunken sot with a past. Out of the railway coach
marooned at this station, came H. R. Smith as a Commander in the Far Eastern
Russian army, Muriel Stevens as his wife, & Arnold Joselin as his Aide-de-camp.
Rosamund Wallis read the stage directions and battled nobly with the Russian
names. The write-up on the cover of this book said that this play shows the
Russians laughing at themselves, & this would seem as good a way as any of
summing it up.
[signed as a true record by] F. E. Pollard
4. IX. 43. [at the club meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: see Minute Book, p. 158]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue 4th September 1943
F. E. Pollard in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
[...]
6. Edith Smith opened the evening of miscellaneous readings by reading part of a
short story “The Man with No Face” by Dorothy Sayers. She left the murder
mystery tantalizingly unsolved, but gave us a clever and amusing picture of the
occupants rightful and encroaching of a 1st-class railway carriage.
7. Mary Stansfield read from a collection of letters written by Freya Stark entitled
“Letters from Syria”. These were written some years ago in an atmosphere of
peace & tranquility. A particularly beautiful description of the writer’s first sight of
the Greek Islands recalled to F. E. Pollard his voyage there with Charles
Stansfield, about which he gave us some interesting and amusing reminiscences.
8. Arnold Joselin Read Boswells account of his first meeting with Johnson and then
“My Streatham Visit” by Frances Burney in which she describes meeting Johnson at
Thrale Hall and records some of the conversation at the dinner table.
9. [...] we listened to F. E. Pollard reading about “The Functional Alternative” from
a pamphlet published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs entitled “A
Working Peace System” by David Mitrany. The author suggests that in Post-War
Europe we should pursue a line of action similar to that adopted by President
Roosevelt in America in 1932/33. This started a lively discussion during which it
became apparent that federal union does not function in the Pollard family.
10. Reverting to more tranquil times Howard Smith read from André Maurois’ “Life
of Disraeli”. This led to the suggestion that Parliamentary speeches of today might
be improved if they contained more personal venom & we were assured that
Eleanor Rathbone is doing her best to liven things up.
11. Muriel Stevens read from The Autobiography of a Chinese Girl” by Hsieh Ping-
Ying. This proved to be a suitably soothing and uncontroversial ending to a most
varied and interesting evening.
[signed as a true record by] Howard R. Smith
6/10/1943 [at the club meeting held at Frensham: see Minute Book, p. 161]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
'Meeting held at School House, Leighton Park. Jan 27th 1942
J. Knox Taylor in the Chair.
1. In the absence of the Secretary the minutes of the last meeting were read by
Alice Joselin.
2. With reference to Minute 6 of the last meeting, i.e. the selection of books for
reading this year, it was decided that as two of the selected books could not be
procured, Margaret Dilks and Mary S. W. Pollard should be asked to select two
alternatives from the last list. The minutes were then approved and signed.
4. After partaking of coffee, the excellence of which & the enjoyment thereof,
being in no way impaired by the introduction of powdered milk, (despite our host’s
perturbation at this war-time inclusion!) we settled down with eager expectations
and interest to the main business of the evening.
5. The subject was a provocative one “Modern Poetry” & we very gladly welcomed
Kenneth Nicholson into our midst, as he had kindly consented to come & talk to us
about modern poetry & to lead us into the strange regions of this somewhat
unknown world.
6. Gerard Manley Hopkins & W. B. Yeats were apparently the leaders in breaking
away from the old traditions of poetry-making, & of setting up a new form, even
expressing a new spirit. We then listened to poems of T. S. Eliot, Wilfred Owen &
W. Auden, & saw how this new way progressed & was elaborated.
We were bewildered, astounded & intrigued by turns! Through the intracacies [sic]
of “sprung rhythm”, down the “arterial roads” of poetical imagery of the early
1920’s to the more apparently intelligible sombreness of recent poetry, we were
led gently but inexorably, by our persuasive speaker, to see & realise that
however strangely we might regard this literature of our age, we must
acknowledge the urgency & sincerity of what the modern poet had to say.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: [a member of the XII Book Club – one of Isabel Taylor, Roger Moore, Margaret Dilks, A. G. Joselin, or F. E. Pollard] Print: Book
'Meeting held at School House, Leighton Park. Jan 27th 1942
J. Knox Taylor in the Chair.
[...]
5. The subject was a provocative one “Modern Poetry” & we very gladly welcomed
Kenneth Nicholson into our midst, as he had kindly consented to come & talk to us
about modern poetry & to lead us into the strange regions of this somewhat
unknown world.
6. Gerard Manley Hopkins & W. B. Yeats were apparently the leaders in breaking
away from the old traditions of poetry-making, & of setting up a new form, even
expressing a new spirit. We then listened to poems of T. S. Eliot, Wilfred Owen &
W. Auden, & saw how this new way progressed & was elaborated.
We were bewildered, astounded & intrigued by turns! Through the intracacies [sic]
of “sprung rhythm”, down the “arterial roads” of poetical imagery of the early
1920’s to the more apparently intelligible sombreness of recent poetry, we were
led gently but inexorably, by our persuasive speaker, to see & realise that
however strangely we might regard this literature of our age, we must
acknowledge the urgency & sincerity of what the modern poet had to say.
7. Isabel Taylor, Roger Moore, Margaret Dilks, A. G. Joselin, and F. E. Pollard all
contributed readings, some from the poets already mentioned, others from the
poetry of Day Lewis, Stephen Spender, McNeice & Dylan Thomas. Some pleased,
others perplexed; we capitulated before such a phrase as “As a madman shakes a
dead geranium”, but again were revived with what appeared to us as more lucid
poems. One which pleased us with its clarity, evoked the remark from F. E.
Pollard “that the only thing wrong with it was what was the
matter with that except that it was immediately intelligible”!
Such was our introduction to “Modern Poetry,” whether or not we appreciated its
“difference,” we were deeply grateful to K. Nicholson for inspiring us with the
desire to read more.
[signed as a true record by] Arnold G. Joselin
23/2/42. [at the club meeting held at 72 Shinfield Road: see XII Book Club Minute
Book, p. 113]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: [a member of the XII Book Club – one of Isabel Taylor, Roger Moore, Margaret Dilks, A. G. Joselin, or F. E. Pollard] Print: Book
'Meeting held at School House, Leighton Park. Jan 27th 1942
J. Knox Taylor in the Chair.
[...]
5. The subject was a provocative one “Modern Poetry” & we very gladly welcomed
Kenneth Nicholson into our midst, as he had kindly consented to come & talk to us
about modern poetry & to lead us into the strange regions of this somewhat
unknown world.
6. Gerard Manley Hopkins & W. B. Yeats were apparently the leaders in breaking
away from the old traditions of poetry-making, & of setting up a new form, even
expressing a new spirit. We then listened to poems of T. S. Eliot, Wilfred Owen &
W. Auden, & saw how this new way progressed & was elaborated.
We were bewildered, astounded & intrigued by turns! Through the intracacies [sic]
of “sprung rhythm”, down the “arterial roads” of poetical imagery of the early
1920’s to the more apparently intelligible sombreness of recent poetry, we were
led gently but inexorably, by our persuasive speaker, to see & realise that
however strangely we might regard this literature of our age, we must
acknowledge the urgency & sincerity of what the modern poet had to say.
7. Isabel Taylor, Roger Moore, Margaret Dilks, A. G. Joselin, and F. E. Pollard all
contributed readings, some from the poets already mentioned, others from the
poetry of Day Lewis, Stephen Spender, McNeice & Dylan Thomas. Some pleased,
others perplexed; we capitulated before such a phrase as “As a madman shakes a
dead geranium”, but again were revived with what appeared to us as more lucid
poems. One which pleased us with its clarity, evoked the remark from F. E.
Pollard “that the only thing wrong with it was what was the
matter with that except that it was immediately intelligible”!
Such was our introduction to “Modern Poetry,” whether or not we appreciated its
“difference,” we were deeply grateful to K. Nicholson for inspiring us with the
desire to read more.
[signed as a true record by] Arnold G. Joselin
23/2/42. [at the club meeting held at 72 Shinfield Road: see XII Book Club Minute
Book, p. 113]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: [a member of the XII Book Club – one of Isabel Taylor, Roger Moore, Margaret Dilks, A. G. Joselin, or F. E. Pollard] Print: Book
'Morning it was so hot went into the garden and read. Afternoon Miss Klug began the most beautiful book called "Helen's babies" after lessons she read again tea in the garden so hot took off over shoes and stokings [sic] afterwards Miss Klug read till it was time for Maurice to go to bed.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'I am sending you a play of Sudermann's, "Heimat", which I have just read and which I must say I thought tremendous. I fancy it will suit Mr Hyde's taste and I wonder if Dr Jekyll could not make something out of it. It would be better for a little cutting and pulling together — 3 acts instead of 4 perhaps — but that is just what Dr Jekyll does so well. Do write and tell me what you think of it; the last act so carried me away that I can't help suspecting I must be exaggerating its value. Anyhow the fact remains that it has had the desired effect upon one person at least. I believe it has been acted in Berlin, but with what success I don't know.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Started at 11 from Victoria. [...]. Very prosperous journey — smooth, fine. I read "Francis Cludde" which is most exciting and interesting. Reached Paris at 7.30.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Left at 12.30 and reached Munich at 9, but the journey didn't seem at all long. Read Morelli and "La Cousine Bette". Stopped at the Hotel Belle Vue, supper and so to bed.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Left at 12.30 and reached Munich at 9, but the journey didn't seem at all long. Read Morelli and "La Cousine Bette". Stopped at the Hotel Belle Vue, supper and so to bed.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'I am reading the Renan book and am fascinated with it. It is really a beautiful book. I daresay I shall finish it before I get to London and will post it back to you. You ought to read it — it's a comfort to come across anything so distinguished.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'We even sat on deck though the ship rolled too much to allow of our having up deck chairs. Read Rose's "Greek War" lent me by Sir W.S. [Smith]; "Life of Nicholson" the day before and "Corleone" before that.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Perfectly delicious bright warm day. Sat on deck in a hot sun, pitching our tents near the L[amont]s with whom we are making friends. Began Renan's "History of the Jews".
Gertrude Bell then read this work over a period of two and a half weeks until 2 February 1898 after which she makes no further reference to it in her diary,
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Read till Dejeuner; sat opposite the Espieux. Afterwards finished the "Cathédral[e]" and talked to M. de Rival. Played chess with the bearded gentleman, finished "Paris", talked to the Belgian missionary. Had a conversation about beliefs with the Commandant. Temp 92. Began the "Recherche de l'Absolu". The Captain took me to see the little Ourang Outang — horrible. There is a baby very ill on board. It nearly died today. After dinner piquet.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'I'll post A. [Anatole] France tomorrow. How good it is!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'After lunch I went to the Borghese Villa. Aren't the gardens a dream! I had my Morelli with me and spent a long peaceful time looking at the pictures with the help of his essay on them.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'I'm going to return you "La Terre qui Meurt" which is most excellent.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Read Mrs Gascoyne's [sic] book on Burmah, Kipling and Murray and wrote letters. Very steamy day. Read Mrs Cotes' "Delightful Americans" after dinner and thought it only tolerably good.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Read Mrs Gascoyne's [sic] book on Burmah, Kipling and Murray and wrote letters. Very steamy day. Read Mrs Cotes' "Delightful Americans" after dinner and thought it only tolerably good.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Read Mrs Gascoyne's [sic] book on Burmah, Kipling and Murray and wrote letters. Very steamy day. Read Mrs Cotes' "Delightful Americans" after dinner and thought it only tolerably good.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'And woke at 7 [she had been sleeping on deck] — no nonsense about swabbing down the decks here! Very hot and steaming and the smell downstairs appalling. Read the Java book and a "Voyage of Consolation". Got to Port Swettenham at 12.30 '
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'The coast of Sumatra is very low — we could see it as a belt of trees on the water. Felt very slack before dinner and went to sleep. It got hot again. Read some of Sir F. [Frank] Swettenham's "Unaddressed Letters" which are curious and rather good.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'In parenthesis, I hope you'll like Mrs Sara Jeannette [Duncan]. I thought her charming and she was so kind to us [in Calcutta]. She longs to know you. Read "A Voyage of Consolation" and "A Social Departure". The latter is autobiographical.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Finished "Les Cosaques" and began "Il Santo" which is rather dull reading. Saw a good many swallows some of which rested on the ship.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'The ... grandiloquent "education programme" we were able to satisfy sufficiently. A number of the "boys" were barely literate and Miss Nettleton could deal with the three R's. Some of them were not at all too old to sit around her on the floor like children while she read them Treasure Island or The Wind in the Willows: this could be counted as an hour of "English".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Irene Nettleton Print: Book
'There travels with them an agreeable man called Pontremoli, who wrote an excellent book on the temple of Apollo Didymus. I've just read the book and I shall see the temple shortly so it has been interesting talking to him about it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Fine all day, sunny but cold. Mr Henriez, vice consul at Aleppo and at Mosul is on board, going to take up his post at Alexandria. Reading "Jean Christophe" — most excellent. '
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'It was delicious to sit outside my tent writing to you. The inhabitants of the village showed perfect manners and left me in peace; not so the sheep who kept bunting into the tent and sniffing at all it contained. Towards sunset the cows brought themselves home and the bare hills revealed their glorious structure in blue shadow and golden slope — oh dear, I'm being like Queen Victoria! do you remember the perfect passage quoted by Strachy [sic]? "Darling Albert said that the reason why mountain scenery is so beautiful is because it is constantly changing." We got home at 6.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'As for Mother I'm as usual lost in amazement at the amount she gets through without turning a hair. The "Cat and the Fiddle book" I thought a masterpiece — she would have been pleased to see me giggling over it. Fortunately just as I had decided that I was ill there came an excellent batch of books including "Vera" and "Mr Waddington of Wyck" — how clever both of them in their way!
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'The books you sent me lasted beautifully. I read the two Lucases (which I loved) and the Hutchinson (mediocre) in the train and am now deep in "Ariel" which is delightful. After that I can get books on board.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'But this is specially to thank you for the two books — the "Adding Machine" and "Men and Masses". Modern literature is very queer isn't it, but it's also extremely interesting. One has to get oneself accustomed to entirely new forms — that which they embody is as old as the world because it is variant of the human story. I thought both those books — I can't call them plays — very striking and I'm so grateful because that is just the kind of thing I miss, not knowing about them. Yes, I've read "St Joan", this week. I thought it was wonderful; I wish I had seen it on the stage. It's so clever of him to have made her a bluff — not to say rough — country girl. Of course so she was, with the mysticism threaded separately through her.
I'll tell you a novel I thought extremely clever — "God's Step Children"; have you read it? by Millin. I've been chiefly absorbed however by a new book on Mohammadan architecture by a man I'm ashamed to say I've never heard of, namens Briggs. It's admirable, but unfortunately deals only with Egypt and Syria which is all he knows. So I've written to him and invited him to come here and study our monuments — without which he can't really (but I didn't tell him so) write a history of that kind at all. He makes a lot of mistakes when he alludes to them.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'I always meant to ask you whether you read "Fidelity" by Susan Glaspell — of course you did, and didn't you think it excellent?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'I always meant to ask you whether you read "Fidelity" by Susan Glaspell — of course you did, and didn't you think it excellent? '
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'I have been reading on board the life of Pasteur, provided by Sylvia. It would interest you both, especially you, for now that I come to think of it wriggling germs are not exactly Mother's taste. Still it's a wonderful book. I have still 4 novels left — I loved the "King who went on Strike".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'I have been reading on board the life of Pasteur, provided by Sylvia. It would interest you both, especially you, for now that I come to think of it wriggling germs are not exactly Mother's taste. Still it's a wonderful book. I have still 4 novels left — I loved the "King who went on Strike".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Didn't go out all day. May brought me from Library "Women the world over" and took back "Candles in the flame" and "Lighter side of school life["].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'Very wet. Read "Mistress of Brae Farm" by Carey.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'Finished Mistress of Brae Farm.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'Little Marjorie's birthday. The verses in Daily Light were as usual uplifting ... Much enjoyed J. 20.
19, 20 with the patients in Hope Ward.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: BookManuscript: Telegraph cable
'Wrote to Clara & thanked for flowers & book & gave account of birthday. Finished Wall of Partition.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'May finished Only a Governess. Pr. ¼ past 9. 1 Cor vii.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: May Print: Book
'This has been a very uneventful week and I have nothing much to add to my letter to Father, except that I've read "Sayonara" and think it excellent.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Each night I hurried into my best second-hand suit of clothes, hurried down my tea and then hurried off to evening class to learn English grammar and literature. And what a revelation it was ... The study of style and the composition of poetry were especially fascinating, and I used to go to bed with Addison or Macaulay flashing in my mind and with my emotions stirred by the Ode to the Nightingale.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vero Walter Garratt Print: Book
'Each night I hurried into my best second-hand suit of clothes, hurried down my tea and then hurried off to evening class to learn English grammar and literature. And what a revelation it was ... The study of style and the composition of poetry were especially fascinating, and I used to go to bed with Addison or Macaulay flashing in my mind and with my emotions stirred by the Ode to the Nightingale.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vero Walter Garratt Print: Book
'With Shelley I shared the sadness of human frailty. Except for some of his shorter poems, Browning was too involved for me, while I restricted my reading of Shakespeare to his Sonnets. But the most ravishing of all was Keats. While others gave stimulus to mind and emotion, Keats was like champagne to the senses and kept the joyous bubbles winking at the brim.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vero Walter Garratt Print: Book
'The book that influenced me most in this direction was Sylvanus Stall's, What a Young Man Ought to Know, which I accepted as the guiding testament of youth in all matters of sex knowledge.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vero Walter Garratt Print: Book
'Fortunately, the casualties were not very heavy and we varied the time by hunting rats and watching the mice playing about in the dug-outs. My own favourite practice was to lie in the sombre light of a candle reading the Golden Treasury, or else scribbling verses of my own composition.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vero Walter Garratt Print: Book
'... when evening came I sought the isolation of a disused hut at the bottom of a garden and revelled in poetic creations by candlelight as a solace to my distraught mind. And as the Palgrave's Treasury became more battered so it became more of a blessing.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vero Walter Garratt Print: Book
'March 11 [1914]
Joined Hampstead Library £1..5.
Books read March [1914:] Mrs Sewell
His Grace of Osmond
Helen Keller Out of the Dark
A Lady of Quality.
The 3 Bronte's
The broken [sic] Halo.
Bridges Poems.
Life of Octavia Hill.
Life of Florence Nightingale Vol. 1
In the Guardianship of God
Rose o' the River. Wiggin'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'[Books read] May [1914]. Alice Ottley Memoir.
Pennell 10/6 Memoirs. at last!
Neve Kashmir
A woman in the antipodes & far east
by Mary Hall F.R.G.S.
Anatomy of Xtianity of Truth
Car of destiny
Garden of Resurrection.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'[Books read] June [1914]. Life's Trivial Round
White Linen Nurse. Most bits rubbish
A passage perilous
Prisons & prisoners (suffragists)'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'[Books read] June [1914]. Life's Trivial Round
White Linen Nurse. Most bits rubbish
A passage perilous
Prisons & prisoners (suffragists)'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'[Books read] June [1914]. Life's Trivial Round
White Linen Nurse. Most bits rubbish
A passage perilous
Prisons & prisoners (suffragists)'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'[Books read] August [1914:] By waters of Germany.
Queenie's whim.
Timothy's quest.
Basil Lyndhurst.
Highway of Fate.
Lamp Lighter
Book on Birds'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'[Books read] August [1914:] By waters of Germany.
Queenie's whim.
Timothy's Guest.
Basil Lyndhurst.
Highway of Fate.
Lamp Lighter
Book on Birds'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'[Books read] August [1914:] By waters of Germany.
Queenie's whim.
Timothy's Guest.
Basil Lyndhurst.
Highway of Fate.
Lamp Lighter
Book on Birds'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'Am enjoying Leviticus with commentaries in the morning.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: Book
'Enjoyed Ps 39.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: Book
'Pilot came on board & took us up the 16 miles to Beira. Landed at 3.15 pm ... had tea at the
Savoy & latest telegrams & papers. There was a Times of Jan 16 & a Spectator of Jan 27. Heard
of the push in the W. [i.e., on the Western Front].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: NewspaperManuscript: Letter, telegram
'Pilot came on board & took us up the 16 miles to Beira. Landed at 3.15 pm ... had tea at the
Savoy & latest telegrams & papers. There was a Times of Jan 16 & a Spectator of Jan 27. Heard
of the push in the W. [i.e., on the Western Front].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: Serial / periodicalManuscript: Letter, telegram
'Enjoyed Bees in Amber.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: BookManuscript: Letter, telegram
'Finished Hey Groves' modern methods of treating fractures & excellent book. Started Saville's Clinical Medicine — 7 hrs. reading.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: BookManuscript: Letter, telegram
'Marjorie [Cook's daughter] has lost her little gold locket. Reading Savile's Clinical Medicine.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: BookManuscript: Letter, telegram
'Forged ahead with Savile's Clinical Medicine.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: BookManuscript: Letter, telegram
'On many nights I would sit beside the kitchen fire, listening to my father reading or telling tales. There was no wireless then and no gramophones, and our fireside talk was little different from that which had been going on for generations by any Connaught fireside ... At other times my father would read to me from a book. These tales were usually of the "creepy" variety—Thrawn Janet; or one of Marion Crawford's uncanny stories; or Green Tea, or The Watcher, by that master of the macabre, Sheridan Le Fanu; or the most vivid ghost story in English, Bulwer Lytton's The Haunted and the Haunters; and many another tooth-chattering tale, as Stevenson called them.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Desmond Malone Print: Book
'On many nights I would sit beside the kitchen fire, listening to my father reading or telling tales. There was no wireless then and no gramophones, and our fireside talk was little different from that which had been going on for generations by any Connaught fireside ... At other times my father would read to me from a book. These tales were usually of the "creepy" variety—Thrawn Janet; or one of Marion Crawford's uncanny stories; or Green Tea, or The Watcher, by that master of the macabre, Sheridan Le Fanu; or the most vivid ghost story in English, Bulwer Lytton's The Haunted and the Haunters; and many another tooth-chattering tale, as Stevenson called them.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Desmond Malone Print: Book
'On many nights I would sit beside the kitchen fire, listening to my father reading or telling tales. There was no wireless then and no gramophones, and our fireside talk was little different from that which had been going on for generations by any Connaught fireside ... At other times my father would read to me from a book. These tales were usually of the "creepy" variety—Thrawn Janet; or one of Marion Crawford's uncanny stories; or Green Tea, or The Watcher, by that master of the macabre, Sheridan Le Fanu; or the most vivid ghost story in English, Bulwer Lytton's The Haunted and the Haunters; and many another tooth-chattering tale, as Stevenson called them.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Desmond Malone Print: Book
'"Been across before?" I asked him, condescendingly.
"Once or twice," he answered with a grin. "Have you?"
"A few times," I admitted largely; and I proceeded to entertain him with an account of various remarkable journeys I had made across the Irish Sea, the descriptive matter of these accounts being looted from Lever and other sources. When he apparently swallowed it all with nothing more than a faint grin, I grew more adventurous. I recounted a voyage I had made down the Portuguese coast (Peter Simple) and the Mediterranean (Midshipman Easy) ... I filled in the background of my Australian adventures with local colour from Robbery Under Arms and penetrated Darkest Africa with Stanley.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Desmond Malone Print: Book
'I knew that enlistment in the Navy was out of the question, because I had not the faintest hope of passing the eyesight test ... At last, while I was still itching with restlessless, I heard that there was a dearth of wireless operators in the Merchant Service ... I bought Hawkhead's text-book—in those days the classic of wireless telegraphy—and studied it industriously.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Desmond Malone Print: Book
'On July 5th [1918] Katharine [Cook] saw Albert [Ruskin Cook] off from Paddington station. As
the train pulled out Albert was "glad to have a corner seat and a copy of The Times"
until he recovered himself.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: Newspaper
'Books specially studied during furlough. 1917–1918.
The World & the Gospel. J. H. Oldham. S.V.M.U.
The Valley of Decision. Burroughs. Longmans.
Ordeal by Battle. F. S. Oliver. Macmillan.
Ecclesiastes. Devine. Macmillan
The Jesus of History. Glover.
In Christ. A. J. Gordon. Hodder & Stoughton.
The Manhood of the Master. Fosdick S.C.M.
The Meaning of Prayer. Fosdick. S.C.M.
The Creed of a Churchman. Various Longmans
The Problem of Pain. MacFadyen.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: Book
'Read on furlough. 1917–1918.
A. Medical.
Surgical Diagnosis – Martin
Tropical Diseases – Stitt
Abdominal Injuries – Morison & R.
Household Pests & remedies.
Injuries to Joints – Jones
Injuries to Head – Rawlings
Modern Treatment of Fractures – Hey Groves
Clinical Medicine – Savile.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: Book
'Read on furlough. 1917–1918.
A. Medical.
[...]
Minor Horrors of present war.
Staying the Plague – Harman
Military Orthopedics – Jones
Medical Hints – Squire
Wounds in War – Power
Injuries to Head – Rawlings
Cerebro-Sp. Fever – Horder
Diagnosis of Nervous D – Purves Stewart
Refraction of eye – Thorington.
Tropical Diseases – Manson.
Diseases of Male Urethra – Kidd
Diagnosis & Treatment of Diseases of Heart – MacKenzie
Surgical After-Treatment – Todd.
Malarial Work in Macedonia. – Willoughby & Cassidy
Shell-Shock – Elliott Smith
War Shock – Eder
Neurasthenia – Hartenberg
Practitioner. July '18 – June '19
Tuberculosis – Jex Blake
Minor Maladies – 1918
Psycho-neuroses of War – L'hermitte
Internal Secretions. Vol. 1.
Internal Secretions. Vol 2.
Brookbank's Treatment & Diagnosis of Heart Diseases
Gerrish's Anatomy'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: Book
'Read on furlough. 1917–1918.
A. Medical.
[...]
Minor Horrors of present war.
Staying the Plague – Harman
Military Orthopedics – Jones
Medical Hints – Squire
Wounds in War – Power
Injuries to Head – Rawlings
Cerebro-Sp. Fever – Horder
Diagnosis of Nervous D – Purves Stewart
Refraction of eye – Thorington.
Tropical Diseases – Manson.
Diseases of Male Urethra – Kidd
Diagnosis & Treatment of Diseases of Heart – MacKenzie
Surgical After-Treatment – Todd.
Malarial Work in Macedonia. – Willoughby & Cassidy
Shell-Shock – Elliott Smith
War Shock – Eder
Neurasthenia – Hartenberg
Practitioner. July '18 – June '19
Tuberculosis – Jex Blake
Minor Maladies – 1918
Psycho-neuroses of War – L'hermitte
Internal Secretions. Vol. 1.
Internal Secretions. Vol 2.
Brookbank's Treatment & Diagnosis of Heart Diseases
Gerrish's Anatomy'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: Book
'Read on furlough. 1917–1918.
A. Medical.
[...]
Minor Horrors of present war.
Staying the Plague – Harman
Military Orthopedics – Jones
Medical Hints – Squire
Wounds in War – Power
Injuries to Head – Rawlings
Cerebro-Sp. Fever – Horder
Diagnosis of Nervous D – Purves Stewart
Refraction of eye – Thorington.
Tropical Diseases – Manson.
Diseases of Male Urethra – Kidd
Diagnosis & Treatment of Diseases of Heart – MacKenzie
Surgical After-Treatment – Todd.
Malarial Work in Macedonia. – Willoughby & Cassidy
Shell-Shock – Elliott Smith
War Shock – Eder
Neurasthenia – Hartenberg
Practitioner. July '18 – June '19
Tuberculosis – Jex Blake
Minor Maladies – 1918
Psycho-neuroses of War – L'hermitte
Internal Secretions. Vol. 1.
Internal Secretions. Vol 2.
Brookbank's Treatment & Diagnosis of Heart Diseases
Gerrish's Anatomy'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: Book
'Read on furlough. 1917–1918.
A. Medical.
[...]
Minor Horrors of present war.
Staying the Plague – Harman
Military Orthopedics – Jones
Medical Hints – Squire
Wounds in War – Power
Injuries to Head – Rawlings
Cerebro-Sp. Fever – Horder
Diagnosis of Nervous D – Purves Stewart
Refraction of eye – Thorington.
Tropical Diseases – Manson.
Diseases of Male Urethra – Kidd
Diagnosis & Treatment of Diseases of Heart – MacKenzie
Surgical After-Treatment – Todd.
Malarial Work in Macedonia. – Willoughby & Cassidy
Shell-Shock – Elliott Smith
War Shock – Eder
Neurasthenia – Hartenberg
Practitioner. July '18 – June '19
Tuberculosis – Jex Blake
Minor Maladies – 1918
Psycho-neuroses of War – L'hermitte
Internal Secretions. Vol. 1.
Internal Secretions. Vol 2.
Brookbank's Treatment & Diagnosis of Heart Diseases
Gerrish's Anatomy'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: Book
'Read on furlough. 1917–1918.
[...]
B. General.
Hist.y of our own Times. '85–11. Gooch
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Felix Holt – [George Eliot]
A Mill on the Floss – [George Eliot]
Men, Women & Guns – Sapper
A Student in Arms – Hankey.
Great Texts of the Bible – Psalms
Battles of the 19th Cent.y – Ency. Brit
The Real Kaiser –
In a German Prince's house
Life of Stanley – Autobiography
Political Hist.y of the World – Innes.
The Practice of Xt.s Presence – Fullerton
Malarial Work in Macedonia. – Willoughby & Cassidy
Bible Prophecies of the present war.
Where are we?
The lost tribes.
The Marne & after
Nelson's Hist.y of the War. XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX.
A strange story. 1 & 2.
The eyes of His glory – Harrington Lees
The Practice of Christ's Presence
I.R.M. Jan — Dec 1917. Jan — July 1918.
Advent Testimony.
The King's Highway
The Vision Splendid
All's Well.
Bunyan's Characters. White. Vols. 1 & 3
Lichnowsky.
Prophetic Outlook — Cachemaile
Rhymes of a Red Cross man
Kipling – 20 poems
In Christ – Gordon
Scenes of Clerical Life. George Eliot
Sense & Sensibility – J. Austen.
Nicholas Nickleby – Dickens.
Dombey & Son "
Silvia's Lovers. Mrs Gaskell.
Emma. Jane Austen
Agnes Grey. Ann Bronte
Thirsting for the Springs. Jowett
Germany at Bay. Major MacFall
Sir Nigel Loring. Conan Doyle'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: Book
'Read on furlough. 1917–1918.
[...]
B. General.
Hist.y of our own Times. '85–11. Gooch
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Felix Holt – [George Eliot]
A Mill on the Floss – [George Eliot]
Men, Women & Guns – Sapper
A Student in Arms – Hankey.
Great Texts of the Bible – Psalms
Battles of the 19th Cent.y – Ency. Brit
The Real Kaiser –
In a German Prince's house
Life of Stanley – Autobiography
Political Hist.y of the World – Innes.
The Practice of Xt.s Presence – Fullerton
Malarial Work in Macedonia. – Willoughby & Cassidy
Bible Prophecies of the present war.
Where are we?
The lost tribes.
The Marne & after
Nelson's Hist.y of the War. XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX.
A strange story. 1 & 2.
The eyes of His glory – Harrington Lees
The Practice of Christ's Presence
I.R.M. Jan — Dec 1917. Jan — July 1918.
Advent Testimony.
The King's Highway
The Vision Splendid
All's Well.
Bunyan's Characters. White. Vols. 1 & 3
Lichnowsky.
Prophetic Outlook — Cachemaile
Rhymes of a Red Cross man
Kipling – 20 poems
In Christ – Gordon
Scenes of Clerical Life. George Eliot
Sense & Sensibility – J. Austen.
Nicholas Nickleby – Dickens.
Dombey & Son "
Silvia's Lovers. Mrs Gaskell.
Emma. Jane Austen
Agnes Grey. Ann Bronte
Thirsting for the Springs. Jowett
Germany at Bay. Major MacFall
Sir Nigel Loring. Conan Doyle'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Ruskin Cook Print: Book
'The only books he had were little nature-study notebooks, supplemented by his mother reading The Pilgrim's Progress aloud. Once she cheated by leaving out a long theological dissertation, but that made him very cross. "You spoil the whole thing" he shouted, and ran up to his bedroom.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alan Mathison Turing Print: Book
'The truth is that every true admirer of the novels cherishes the happy thought that he alone — reading between the lines — has become the secret friend of the author'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'For the first time we seem to hear the echo of the voice, and to see the picture of the unknown friend who has charmed us so long... So we gladly welcome one more glimpse of an old friend come back with a last greeting'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie Print: Book
'Thanks so much for your letter & the little Book. (The Vision Splendid by John Oxenham) That was a ripping little poem wasn't it? I guess it's just about right!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Guy Mainwaring Knocker Print: Book
'Down town with Dad and Mum in morning. Gally and Leon in for tea and dinner. Dad read "Literary Lapses" after dinner — very bon! Bed early.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Cuthbert George Knocker Print: Book
'Down town with Dad and Mum in morning. Gally and Leon in for tea and dinner. Dad read "Literary Lapses" after dinner — very bon! Bed early.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Guy Mainwaring Knocker Print: Book
'Read in afternoon and then clipped all the border for Dad. Pretty tiring work ... Bed at 12. Finished book "The Pendulum" — rather poor. Pretty tired.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Guy Mainwaring Knocker Print: Book
'Got to bed at about midnight again after finding a landscape of Messines and Wulverghem in our
house in an illustrated Paper drawn for the same view or nearly so as one I did myself there. I
cut this out and sent it home.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Stafford Wollocombe Print: Newspaper
'Meeting held at “Oakdene” Northcourt Avenue. 31st March 1942. S. A. Reynolds in
the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read & signed.
[...]
4. The evening was devoted to miscellaneous readings as follows:
from: Autobiography by Eric Gill read by Muriel Stevens
The Lost Peace by Harold Butler [read by] F. E. Pollard
Letters of Gertrude Bell [read by] Isabel Taylor
Florence through Aged Eyes by H. M. Wallis [read by] H. R. Smith
Shepherds Life by W. H. Hudson [read by] L. Dorothea Taylor
Triolets by T. B. Clark [read by] S. A. Reynolds
Sick Heart River by John Buchan [read by] Margaret Dilks
[Signature of] M Stevens May 4th. 1942'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith
'Meeting held at “Oakdene” Northcourt Avenue. 31st March 1942. S. A. Reynolds in
the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read & signed.
[...]
4. The evening was devoted to miscellaneous readings as follows:
from: Autobiography by Eric Gill read by Muriel Stevens
The Lost Peace by Harold Butler [read by] F. E. Pollard
Letters of Gertrude Bell [read by] Isabel Taylor
Florence through Aged Eyes by H. M. Wallis [read by] H. R. Smith
Shepherds Life by W. H. Hudson [read by] L. Dorothea Taylor
Triolets by T. B. Clark [read by] S. A. Reynolds
Sick Heart River by John Buchan [read by] Margaret Dilks
[Signature of] M Stevens May 4th. 1942'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at Gower Cottage 4th. May 1942.
M. Stevens in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read, pronounced rather more accurate
than usual, and signed.
[...]
4. First we had the telegram which was from the Alexanders, regretting that a
chicken pox epidemic among the children prevented their parents from
contributing to our evenings entertainment.
5. Next an essay entitled “An Autumn Ramble” was read by A. G. Joselin and the
author was later identified as S. A. Reynolds, who told us that it had been written
some 50 years ago.
[...]
7. Roger Moore read an essay entitled “Langdale, Easter 1942” and casting among
our members for a rock-climber we soon realized that the author was Knox
Taylor. [...]
8. Rosamund Wallis read “Samuel Butler at the Book Club” which was recognised
at once as being written by the secretary. She had rather let herself go in an
account of an imaginary meeting which explained the unusual brevity and accuracy
of this months minutes.
9. “Three Weeks in Kerry” was the title of a most interesting essay read by F. E.
Pollard. We had some difficulty in identifying this as being written by his wife –
perhaps because although we were told it had been written many years ago in the
author’s ‘comparative youth’ our imaginations failed to picture Mrs. Pollard on a
perilous journey in an Irish car, holding up an umbrella with one hand and and
peeling a hard-boiled egg with the other. [...]
10. A. B. Dilks read a dissertation in which the author wrote for some four or five
pages on the difficulty of deciding what to write about. Roger Fry, food, gardens
and cats were among the subjects he considered but for one reason or another,
laid aside. As members of the Book Club are so noted for beating around the bush
we had considerable difficulty in spotting this particular beater — but it proved to
be Roger Moore.
[...]
[Signature of] A. B. Dilks 6th June 1942'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: [Unnamed member of the XII Book Club] Print: Telegram
'Meeting held at Gower Cottage 4th. May 1942.
M. Stevens in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read, pronounced rather more accurate
than usual, and signed.
[...]
4. First we had the telegram which was from the Alexanders, regretting that a
chicken pox epidemic among the children prevented their parents from
contributing to our evenings entertainment.
5. Next an essay entitled “An Autumn Ramble” was read by A. G. Joselin and the
author was later identified as S. A. Reynolds, who told us that it had been written
some 50 years ago.
[...]
7. Roger Moore read an essay entitled “Langdale, Easter 1942” and casting among
our members for a rock-climber we soon realized that the author was Knox
Taylor. [...]
8. Rosamund Wallis read “Samuel Butler at the Book Club” which was recognised
at once as being written by the secretary. She had rather let herself go in an
account of an imaginary meeting which explained the unusual brevity and accuracy
of this months minutes.
9. “Three Weeks in Kerry” was the title of a most interesting essay read by F. E.
Pollard. We had some difficulty in identifying this as being written by his wife –
perhaps because although we were told it had been written many years ago in the
author’s ‘comparative youth’ our imaginations failed to picture Mrs. Pollard on a
perilous journey in an Irish car, holding up an umbrella with one hand and and
peeling a hard-boiled egg with the other. [...]
10. A. B. Dilks read a dissertation in which the author wrote for some four or five
pages on the difficulty of deciding what to write about. Roger Fry, food, gardens
and cats were among the subjects he considered but for one reason or another,
laid aside. As members of the Book Club are so noted for beating around the bush
we had considerable difficulty in spotting this particular beater — but it proved to
be Roger Moore.
[...]
[Signature of] A. B. Dilks 6th June 1942'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore Manuscript: Unknown
Meeting held at 22, Cintra Avenue. 17th Sept. 1942
F. E. Pollard in the chair.
1. A card of greetings was read from Janet Rawlings, Beth and Victor
Alexander.
2. The minutes of the last meeting were read & signed.
[...]
5. Howard Smith introduced the subject of Coleridge by telling us something of his
life and character. It was a sad story of real genius & ability frustrated &
unfulfilled by an entire lack of the powers of application and concentration, of a
brilliant conversationalist, a nature generous & affectionate, and a man extremely
fortunate in his friends.
F. E Pollard spoke briefly of Coleridge’s poetical importance & of some of the
sources of his ideas and images – sources not always acknowledge[d]. And
readings from his poetry were then given as follows:-
Parts of The Ancient Mariner read by AB. Dilks
Part I of Christabel [read by] J. K. Taylor
Kubla Khan [read by] Margaret Dilks
The Devils Thoughts [read by] Isabel Taylor
Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouny [read by] S. A. Reynolds
[signed at the meeting held 17 September 1942 by] L Dorothea Taylor
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Dilks Manuscript: postcard
'Meeting held at 72, Shinfield Road, 14th November 1942
Arnold Joselin in the Chair
2. In the absence of the Secretary, the Treasurer [Bruce Dilks] took it upon
himself to read the minutes which were approved and signed.
[...]
5. The subject of the evening, “The Age of Pericles” was then introduced by Knox
Taylor.
[...]
7. F. E. Pollard took up where Knox Taylor had left off, though as he remarked, he
hadn’t been left much. Thereupon we had an able discourse on the thought and
writing of the Age.
8. Arnold Joselin and Roger Moore read from Plato’s “Republic.” This was an
amusing mono-duologue between Socrates and a pupil on the subject of Justice.
Socrates, by completely tangling up his pupil, showed that the art of
schoolmastering has changed little in 2000 years.
[signed as a true record by] Harry Stevens
Dec. 12. 1942'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Knox Taylor Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 72, Shinfield Road, 14th November 1942
Arnold Joselin in the Chair
2. In the absence of the Secretary, the Treasurer [Bruce Dilks] took it upon
himself to read the minutes which were approved and signed.
[...]
5. The subject of the evening, “The Age of Pericles” was then introduced by Knox
Taylor.
[...]
7. F. E. Pollard took up where Knox Taylor had left off, though as he remarked, he
hadn’t been left much. Thereupon we had an able discourse on the thought and
writing of the Age.
8. Arnold Joselin and Roger Moore read from Plato’s “Republic.” This was an
amusing mono-duologue between Socrates and a pupil on the subject of Justice.
Socrates, by completely tangling up his pupil, showed that the art of
schoolmastering has changed little in 2000 years.
[signed as a true record by] Harry Stevens
Dec. 12. 1942'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 39, Eastern Avenue, 10.2.41
A. B. Dilks in the chair
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
4. The subject for this evening was “Winter – in Poetry & Prose”. [...]
The programme was as follows:
Dickens – extract from “A Christmas Carol”
read by R. D. L. Moore
Hardy – “The Mellstock Carols” from ‘Under the Greeenwood Tree’
read by Mrs. H. R. [Edith] Smith
Shakespeare – “Blow, blow thou winter wind”
sung by F. E. Pollard
V. Sackville West – extract from a poem “The Land”
read by Margaret Dilks
H. M. Wallis – Account of the Blizzard of 1881
read by Howard Smith
Dickens – The Pickwick Club on the Ice
read by A. B. Dilks
Mendelssohn – The Hebrides overture
played by Beecham & the L.P.O. (on gramophone records)'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue 10.3.41
F. E. Pollard in the Chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
3. Violet Clough read an exceedingly interesting paper on “Children’s Literature”
showing the was it has developed from the “Moral Tales” of Maria Edgeworth
published at the beginning of the 19th. Century, to the delightful tales by Beatrix
Potter & A. A. Milne which are read today. The one retrogressive step she thought
was in the binding of the books, which today seem to come to pieces almost at
once. All the mothers present agreed with this, so it is no reflection on the Clough
children in particular although it may be on the modern child in general.
4. Readings from children’s literature were then given as follows:
Labour Lost from the Rollo Books. Selected by S. A. Reynolds & read by A. B.
Dilks.
“The Fairchild Family” by Mrs. Sherwood read by Mrs. Pollard – this was
particularly gruesome.
“Little Women” by Louisa Alcott read by Mary Stansfield.
Divers examples of children[’]s poetry read by Rosamund Wallis, which included
an impromptu recitation by Howard Smith of one of Hillair[e] Belloc’s Cautionary
Tales.
“Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carrol[l] read by F. E. Pollard.
“Samuel Whiskers” by Beatrix Potter read by Muriel Stevens.
“The Sing Song of Old Man Kangaroo” a Just So Story by Rudyard Kipling, read by
Howard Smith.
“The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame read by Margaret Dilks.
“The House at Pooh Corner” by A. A. Milne, read by A. B. Dilks.
5. Bruce Dilks sang two of Fraser-Simsons settings of A. A. Milne’s Poems.
“Christopher Robin Alone in the Dark” and “Happiness”.
[Signed as a true record of the meeting by] S. A. Reynolds
April 7th / 41'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue 7.iv.41
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
6. After an interval for refreshment we came to “The Admirable Crichton” probably
Barries best play. Knox Taylor briefly outlined the story and then the last Act was
read with the following cast:
Agatha – Isabel Taylor
Ernest – F. E. Pollard
Catherine – Mary Reynolds
Lord Loam – S. A. Reynolds
Crichton – A. B. Dilks
Lady Mary – Margaret Dilks
Lord Brocklehurst – Arnold Joselin
Lady Brocklehurst – Muriel Stevens
Treherne – H. R. Smith
Tweeny – Violet Clough
Howard Smith recalled that this was the third time the Book Club had selected to
read from this play and on each occasion he had been cast as the cricketing
parson. F. E. Pollard hoped that it would not be his lot to play the Hon. Ernest
Wooley again, but it was generally felt that he had been excellently cast in view of
the stage direction “he is a match for any old lady”.
[...]
[Signed as a true record by] A. G. Joselin
5 May 1941'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Knox Taylor Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 72 Shinfield Road. 5th May 1941
A. G Joselin in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved
2. Apologies of absence were read from Violet Clough & Mr. & Mrs. Knox
Taylor.
[...]
4. Our evening was devoted to a study of the work and writings of Matthew Arnold
and we are very grateful to the Committee who arranged the programme and in
particular to A. G. Joselin and F. E. Pollard for a most interesting and enlightening
evening.
First Mr. Joselin told us something of Matthew Arnold’s work as an Educationalist —
of his attempts to secure the improvement of education & particularly secondary
education in England. His views on Education are expressed in “Culture and
Anarchy” which was published in 1869, and Mr. Joselin read several extracts from
J. Dover Wilson’s editorial introduction to this book. [...] Other readings given to
illustrate Matthew Arnold the Educationalist and Prose Writer were “Dover Beach”
by Mrs. Joselin and further extracts form “Culture and Anarchy” read by R. D. L.
Moore.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Dilks Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 72 Shinfield Road. 5th May 1941
A. G Joselin in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved
2. Apologies of absence were read from Violet Clough & Mr. & Mrs. Knox
Taylor.
[...]
4. Our evening was devoted to a study of the work and writings of Matthew Arnold
and we are very grateful to the Committee who arranged the programme and in
particular to A. G. Joselin and F. E. Pollard for a most interesting and enlightening
evening.
First Mr. Joselin told us something of Matthew Arnold’s work as an Educationalist —
of his attempts to secure the improvement of education & particularly secondary
education in England. His views on Education are expressed in “Culture and
Anarchy” which was published in 1869, and Mr. Joselin read several extracts from
J. Dover Wilson’s editorial introduction to this book. [...] Other readings given to
illustrate Matthew Arnold the Educationalist and Prose Writer were “Dover Beach”
by Mrs. Joselin and further extracts form “Culture and Anarchy” read by R. D. L.
Moore.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at School House 31st May 1941
R. D. L. Moore in the chair
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
[...]
3. The Chairman read a letter of greetings and regret for her absence from Janet
Rawlings in which she suggested “Modern Poetry” as a possible subject for one of
our meetings.
[...]
5. The Subject of the meeting was “Autobiography” & it proved a very varied and
interesting one. Readings were given as follows:
1) My Life of Music by Sir Henry J. Wood
read by A. B. Dilks
2) My days of strength by Dr. Anne Fearn
read by S. A. Reynolds
Autobiography by John Stuart Mill
read by F. E. Pollard
Vanished Pomps of Yesterday by Lord Frederick Hamilton
read by Rosamund Wallis
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
read by Arnold Joselin.
A Great Experiment by Lord Robert Cecil
read by J. Knox Taylor.
[signed as a true record] AB Dilks'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore Manuscript: Letter
'Meeting held at School House 31st May 1941
R. D. L. Moore in the chair
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
[...]
3. The Chairman read a letter of greetings and regret for her absence from Janet
Rawlings in which she suggested “Modern Poetry” as a possible subject for one of
our meetings.
[...]
5. The Subject of the meeting was “Autobiography” & it proved a very varied and
interesting one. Readings were given as follows:
1) My Life of Music by Sir Henry J. Wood
read by A. B. Dilks
2) My days of strength by Dr. Anne Fearn
read by S. A. Reynolds
Autobiography by John Stuart Mill
read by F. E. Pollard
Vanished Pomps of Yesterday by Lord Frederick Hamilton
read by Rosamund Wallis
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
read by Arnold Joselin.
A Great Experiment by Lord Robert Cecil
read by J. Knox Taylor.
[signed as a true record] AB Dilks'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Print: Book
'Meeting held at Hilliers, Northcourt Avenue. 26. ii. 40Meeting held at Hilliers,
Northcourt Avenue. 26. ii. 40.
Rosamund Walis in the Chair
1. Minutes of last read + approved
2. Minute 7 of 19th Dec. – relating to the accounts – was continued
[...]
5. The subject of letters was introduced by Roger Moore, and led to a desultory but
amusing discussion ranging from the Pastons to modern family letters and
scurrilous blackmailing letters.
[...]
7. Margaret Dilkes read from Lord Chesterfield’s letters to his son.
8. Ethel Stevens read letters which she had cut out of the papers from time to
time, notably one from a child of thirteen to John Ruskin.
9. H. R. Smith read some four or five short letters from E. V. Lucas, “The Second
Post.”
10. Mary Pollard read Pliny’s account of the Eruption of Vesuvius.
11. Roger Moore read some of Keats’s letters which were much enjoyed, and a
Keats evening was suggested for some future meeting.
[signed as a true record:] S A Reynolds
18/3/40'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue: 18. 3. 40.
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
2. We began our meeting with four readings taken before the interval. These
readings were love scenes from the following books or poems:
Chas. Kingsley’s “Westward Ho”: read by Elsie Sikes
Jas. Hilton’s “Goodbye Mr. Chips”: [read by] M Dilkes
J. R. Lowell’s “Coortin’”: [read by] C. E. Stansfield
Rev. W. Barnes’s “Bit o’ Sly Coortin’”: [read by] S. A. Reynolds
These readings stirred the amorous instincts of certain of our members who
regaled the club with courting stories. [...]
5. We then [...] listened to readings from
Shakespeare’s: Merchant of Venice, by R & M Robson
Browning’s: By the Fireside, by F. E. Pollard
F. Stockton’s: Squirrel Inn, by Rosamund Wallis
H. M. Wallis’s: Mistakes of Miss Manisty, by H. R. Smith
Thackeray’s: The Rose and the Ring, by Muriel Stevens
6. These duly received their meed of comment & appreciation, and we then took
our leave, two or three of the husbands going home, we suspect, to curtain
lectures.
[signed as a true record:] F. E. Pollard
17.IV.40.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith
'Meeting held at Gower Cottage, Elm Road.
18–7–40
M Stevens in the chair.
1. Minutes of last were read and signed.
[...]
3. The Treasurer (V. W. Alexander) gave a statement of accounts up to the end of
1939, which showed the astonishingly large balance of £4/10/2. The statement was
accepted.
4. The Secretary (also V. W. Alexander) reported having received a letter of
resignation from Howard and Elsie Sikes who are no longer able to attend our
meetings. We are sorry to lose them.
5. Mary S. W. Pollard read a letter of resignation from Victor W. and Elizabeth
Alexander, who are leaving Reading. A telegram had been received from Elizabeth
Alexander during the day, wishing the Club “goodbye & good luck, with thanks for
many merry meetings.” Howard Smith expressed our gratitude for the very
valuable services of V. W. Alexander & his wife as Secretary and Treasurer, &
afterwards drafted a letter of thanks & good wishes to Elizabeth Alexander, which
was signed by all present.
6. As his last duty for us, V. W. Alexander wrote a letter of affectionate greeting
to Charles Stansfield who has been ill for many weeks. This was signed by all.
7. M. Stevens was asked to write minutes for this time.
[signed as a true record by] A. B. Dilks
20 Aug 40.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard Manuscript: Letter
'Meeting held at 39, Eastern Avenue. 20. 8. 40
A. B. Dilks in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
2. The Treasurer presented his Report. This differed somewhat from the Report
made by the retiring Treasurer at our last meeting, & either for this reason, or
perhaps because she was told she had not yet paid her Subscription, Janet
Rawlings proposed that in future a receipt should be given by the Treasurer for all
money paid to him. The proposal was seconded by Edith Smith & passed
unanimously by the meeting.
3. A letter was read from Ethel Stevens regretting that owing to the present
difficulty of attending meetings, she must resign from the club. The Secretary was
instructed to write to her, regretfully accepting her resignation.
[...]
6. Mary S. W. Pollard started the Literary General Knowledge Test by questioning
us in poetry and the poets. Questions which we found singularly difficult to
answer.
7. Margaret Dilks proceeded to test our knowledge of prose by reading three short
character sketches from novels. Most people had no difficulty in identifying these
as Mr. Pickwick, Mr. & Mrs. Bennett and Soames Forsyte.
8. After coffee we were faced with the Herculean task of answering a General
Knowledge paper consisting of 9 sections, each of about 10 questions. This paper
was set by Howard Smith and A. B. Dilkes and we are very grateful to them for
the time & trouble they took in compiling it. [...] “Time” was called at 10 o’clock
and the chairman then read out the answers. The integrity of the Club was not
questioned so we each corrected our own papers. [It was a matter for regret that
the two sections calling for original composition should have been left out by so
many members ...]
[signed by] Howard R. Smith
13/9/1940'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at 39, Eastern Avenue. 20. 8. 40
A. B. Dilks in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
2. The Treasurer presented his Report. This differed somewhat from the Report
made by the retiring Treasurer at our last meeting, & either for this reason, or
perhaps because she was told she had not yet paid her Subscription, Janet
Rawlings proposed that in future a receipt should be given by the Treasurer for all
money paid to him. The proposal was seconded by Edith Smith & passed
unanimously by the meeting.
3. A letter was read from Ethel Stevens regretting that owing to the present
difficulty of attending meetings, she must resign from the club. The Secretary was
instructed to write to her, regretfully accepting her resignation.
[...]
6. Mary S. W. Pollard started the Literary General Knowledge Test by questioning
us in poetry and the poets. Questions which we found singularly difficult to
answer.
7. Margaret Dilks proceeded to test our knowledge of prose by reading three short
character sketches from novels. Most people had no difficulty in identifying these
as Mr. Pickwick, Mr. & Mrs. Bennett and Soames Forsyte.
8. After coffee we were faced with the Herculean task of answering a General
Knowledge paper consisting of 9 sections, each of about 10 questions. This paper
was set by Howard Smith and A. B. Dilkes and we are very grateful to them for
the time & trouble they took in compiling it. [...] “Time” was called at 10 o’clock
and the chairman then read out the answers. The integrity of the Club was not
questioned so we each corrected our own papers. [It was a matter for regret that
the two sections calling for original composition should have been left out by so
many members ...]
[signed by] Howard R. Smith
13/9/1940'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at 39, Eastern Avenue. 20. 8. 40
A. B. Dilks in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
2. The Treasurer presented his Report. This differed somewhat from the Report
made by the retiring Treasurer at our last meeting, & either for this reason, or
perhaps because she was told she had not yet paid her Subscription, Janet
Rawlings proposed that in future a receipt should be given by the Treasurer for all
money paid to him. The proposal was seconded by Edith Smith & passed
unanimously by the meeting.
3. A letter was read from Ethel Stevens regretting that owing to the present
difficulty of attending meetings, she must resign from the club. The Secretary was
instructed to write to her, regretfully accepting her resignation.
[...]
6. Mary S. W. Pollard started the Literary General Knowledge Test by questioning
us in poetry and the poets. Questions which we found singularly difficult to
answer.
7. Margaret Dilks proceeded to test our knowledge of prose by reading three short
character sketches from novels. Most people had no difficulty in identifying these
as Mr. Pickwick, Mr. & Mrs. Bennett and Soames Forsyte.
8. After coffee we were faced with the Herculean task of answering a General
Knowledge paper consisting of 9 sections, each of about 10 questions. This paper
was set by Howard Smith and A. B. Dilkes and we are very grateful to them for
the time & trouble they took in compiling it. [...] “Time” was called at 10 o’clock
and the chairman then read out the answers. The integrity of the Club was not
questioned so we each corrected our own papers. [it was a matter for regret that
the two sections calling for original composition should have been left out by so
many members. [...]
[signed by] Howard R. Smith
13/9/1940'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at 39, Eastern Avenue. 20. 8. 40
A. B. Dilks in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
2. The Treasurer presented his Report. This differed somewhat from the Report
made by the retiring Treasurer at our last meeting, & either for this reason, or
perhaps because she was told she had not yet paid her Subscription, Janet
Rawlings proposed that in future a receipt should be given by the Treasurer for all
money paid to him. The proposal was seconded by Edith Smith & passed
unanimously by the meeting.
3. A letter was read from Ethel Stevens regretting that owing to the present
difficulty of attending meetings, she must resign from the club. The Secretary was
instructed to write to her, regretfully accepting her resignation.
[...]
6. Mary S. W. Pollard started the Literary General Knowledge Test by questioning
us in poetry and the poets. Questions which we found singularly difficult to
answer.
7. Margaret Dilks proceeded to test our knowledge of prose by reading three short
character sketches from novels. Most people had no difficulty in identifying these
as Mr. Pickwick, Mr. & Mrs. Bennett and Soames Forsyte.
8. After coffee we were faced with the Herculean task of answering a General
Knowledge paper consisting of 9 sections, each of about 10 questions. This paper
was set by Howard Smith and A. B. Dilkes and we are very grateful to them for
the time & trouble they took in compiling it. [...] “Time” was called at 10 o’clock
and the chairman then read out the answers. The integrity of the Club was not
questioned so we each corrected our own papers. [it was a matter for regret that
the two sections calling for original composition should have been left out by so
many members. [...]
[signed by] Howard R. Smith
13/9/1940'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Hilliers”, Northcourt Avenue. 18.XI.40
Rosamund Wallis in the chair.
[...]
5. Mary S. W. Pollard read “Ode to Autumn”. Rosamund Wallis read “Ode to a
Nightingale” these served as an introduction to a talk by F. E. Pollard on Keats’
Poetry. He described his lack of interest in the affairs of the world. Contrasted
Keats’ attitude to Nature with those of Wordsworth & Shelley – told how he lived
essentially in the present and expressed this in his writings rather than regrets for
the past or hopes for the future. Keats, he thought was influenced chiefly by
Shakespeare, Spencer and perhaps Milton, while among his immediate friends the
influence of Leigh Hunt was a regrettable one. Keats in his turn had a very great
influence on most of the Poets of the 19th. Century. Finally Mr. Pollard quoted
from the Ode on a Grecian Urn:
‘Beauty is Truth, truth beauty – that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know”.
adding with great temerity that he doubted the truth of this famous statement.
[...]
[signed] Howard R. Smith
13/12/40'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard
'Meeting held at “Hilliers”, Northcourt Avenue. 18.XI.40
Rosamund Wallis in the chair.
[...]
5. Mary S. W. Pollard read “Ode to Autumn”. Rosamund Wallis read “Ode to a
Nightingale” these served as an introduction to a talk by F. E. Pollard on Keats’
Poetry. He described his lack of interest in the affairs of the world. Contrasted
Keats’ attitude to Nature with those of Wordsworth & Shelley – told how he lived
essentially in the present and expressed this in his writings rather than regrets for
the past or hopes for the future. Keats, he thought was influenced chiefly by
Shakespeare, Spencer and perhaps Milton, while among his immediate friends the
influence of Leigh Hunt was a regrettable one. Keats in his turn had a very great
influence on most of the Poets of the 19th. Century. Finally Mr. Pollard quoted
from the Ode on a Grecian Urn:
‘Beauty is Truth, truth beauty – that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know”.
adding with great temerity that he doubted the truth of this famous statement.
[...]
[signed] Howard R. Smith
13/12/40'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis
'Meeting held at “Hilliers”, Northcourt Avenue. 18.XI.40
Rosamund Wallis in the chair.
[...]
5. Mary S. W. Pollard read “Ode to Autumn”. Rosamund Wallis read “Ode to a
Nightingale” these served as an introduction to a talk by F. E. Pollard on Keats’
Poetry. He described his lack of interest in the affairs of the world. Contrasted
Keats’ attitude to Nature with those of Wordsworth & Shelley – told how he lived
essentially in the present and expressed this in his writings rather than regrets for
the past or hopes for the future. Keats, he thought was influenced chiefly by
Shakespeare, Spencer and perhaps Milton, while among his immediate friends the
influence of Leigh Hunt was a regrettable one. Keats in his turn had a very great
influence on most of the Poets of the 19th. Century. Finally Mr. Pollard quoted
from the Ode on a Grecian Urn:
‘Beauty is Truth, truth beauty – that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know”.
adding with great temerity that he doubted the truth of this famous statement.
[...]
[signed] Howard R. Smith
13/12/40'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard
'Meeting held at “Hilliers”, Northcourt Avenue. 18.XI.40
Rosamund Wallis in the chair.
[...]
5. Mary S. W. Pollard read “Ode to Autumn”. Rosamund Wallis read “Ode to a
Nightingale” these served as an introduction to a talk by F. E. Pollard on Keats’
Poetry. He described his lack of interest in the affairs of the world. Contrasted
Keats’ attitude to Nature with those of Wordsworth & Shelley – told how he lived
essentially in the present and expressed this in his writings rather than regrets for
the past or hopes for the future. Keats, he thought was influenced chiefly by
Shakespeare, Spencer and perhaps Milton, while among his immediate friends the
influence of Leigh Hunt was a regrettable one. Keats in his turn had a very great
influence on most of the Poets of the 19th. Century. Finally Mr. Pollard quoted
from the Ode on a Grecian Urn:
‘Beauty is Truth, truth beauty – that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know”.
adding with great temerity that he doubted the truth of this famous statement.
[...]
[signed] Howard R. Smith
13/12/40'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at “Hilliers”, Northcourt Avenue. 18.XI.40
Rosamund Wallis in the chair.
[...]
6. Isabel Taylor read from “The Eve of St. Agnes”. S. A. Reynolds read some of
Keats’ Sonnets including “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” and others
written to or about various members of the Reynolds family and their cat. Violet
Clough read some more sonnets and a discussion followed on the great Sonnet
writers of the English language of whom Keats had certainly been one. Among the
others mentioned was Matthew Arnold and it was suggested that he would make
an excellent subject for a future meeting.
[...]
[signed] Howard R. Smith
13/12/40'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Isabel Taylor
'Meeting held at “Hilliers”, Northcourt Avenue. 18.XI.40
Rosamund Wallis in the chair.
[...]
6. Isabel Taylor read from “The Eve of St. Agnes”. S. A. Reynolds read some of
Keats’ Sonnets including “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” and others
written to or about various members of the Reynolds family and their cat. Violet
Clough read some more sonnets and a discussion followed on the great Sonnet
writers of the English language of whom Keats had certainly been one. Among the
others mentioned was Matthew Arnold and it was suggested that he would make
an excellent subject for a future meeting.
[...]
[signed] Howard R. Smith
13/12/40'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds
'Meeting held at “Hilliers”, Northcourt Avenue. 18.XI.40
Rosamund Wallis in the chair.
[...]
6. Isabel Taylor read from “The Eve of St. Agnes”. S. A. Reynolds read some of
Keats’ Sonnets including “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” and others
written to or about various members of the Reynolds family and their cat. Violet
Clough read some more sonnets and a discussion followed on the great Sonnet
writers of the English language of whom Keats had certainly been one. Among the
others mentioned was Matthew Arnold and it was suggested that he would make
an excellent subject for a future meeting.
[...]
[signed] Howard R. Smith
13/12/40'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds
'Meeting held at “Hilliers”, Northcourt Avenue. 18.XI.40
Rosamund Wallis in the chair.
[...]
6. Isabel Taylor read from “The Eve of St. Agnes”. S. A. Reynolds read some of
Keats’ Sonnets including “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” and others
written to or about various members of the Reynolds family and their cat. Violet
Clough read some more sonnets and a discussion followed on the great Sonnet
writers of the English language of whom Keats had certainly been one. Among the
others mentioned was Matthew Arnold and it was suggested that he would make
an excellent subject for a future meeting.
[...]
[signed] Howard R. Smith
13/12/40'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Violet Clough
'Meeting held at “Hilliers”, Northcourt Avenue. 18.XI.40
Rosamund Wallis in the chair.
[...]
7. Isabel Talor read “La Belle dame sans merci”[.] Some discussion followed in
which what Knox Taylor described as the “sensuous melancholy” of Keats was
contrasted unfavourably with the keen virility of Shelley. But warmed by some
excellent coffee, from the depths of a luxurious settee, some members were
heard to murmur that there was a lot to be said for the things of the senses____
[...]
[signed] Howard R. Smith
13/12/40'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Isabel Taylor
'Meeting held at “Hilliers”, Northcourt Avenue. 18.XI.40
Rosamund Wallis in the chair.
[...]
4. Roger Moore gave us a biographical sketch of John Keats chiefly as revealed
through his letters. To him Keats was memorable as much for the man he was as
for what he wrote. We heard of Keats’ ideals, his religion as revealed in his letters
in spite of his professed unbelief, of his family and circle of close friends and of
his tragic & untimely death. In conclusion Roger Moore asked whether anyone
could set his mind at rest with regard to Ruth in tears amid the alien corn. His
knowledge of the Scriptures led him to suppose that Ruth was extremely happy in
her exile, in which case Keats himself would have been the first to admit that an
idea lacking truth could not be beautiful. This led to some discussion on Ruth and
exiles in general and Howard Smith suggested that it was strange that Keats had
selected Ruth when there had been so many famous exiles through whose
really sad hearts the self-same song might have found a path. He
thought Iphigenia would have been a better choice, but it was generally felt that
the sadness of her exile was somewhat outweighed by the length of her name.
[...]
[signed] Howard R. Smith
13/12/40'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Hilliers”, Northcourt Avenue. 18.XI.40
Rosamund Wallis in the chair.
[...]
4. Roger Moore gave us a biographical sketch of John Keats chiefly as revealed
through his letters. To him Keats was memorable as much for the man he was as
for what he wrote. We heard of Keats’ ideals, his religion as revealed in his letters
in spite of his professed unbelief, of his family and circle of close friends and of
his tragic & untimely death. In conclusion Roger Moore asked whether anyone
could set his mind at rest with regard to Ruth in tears amid the alien corn. His
knowledge of the Scriptures led him to suppose that Ruth was extremely happy in
her exile, in which case Keats himself would have been the first to admit that an
idea lacking truth could not be beautiful. This led to some discussion on Ruth and
exiles in general and Howard Smith suggested that it was strange that Keats had
selected Ruth when there had been so many famous exiles through whose
really sad hearts the self-same song might have found a path. He
thought Iphigenia would have been a better choice, but it was generally felt that
the sadness of her exile was somewhat outweighed by the length of her name.
[...]
[signed] Howard R. Smith
13/12/40'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore
'Meeting held at 70 Northcourt Avenue: 17.1.39
Charles E. Stansfield in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
[...]
3. A letter from R. H. Robson was then read. It stated that the excellence of Book
Club suppers has increased, is increasing, & ought to be diminished. This caused a
certain embarrassment. Several members who liked to think of themselves as
frugal folk, reflected uneasily that the interval for light refreshment had often
proved itself more palatable than some of the drier fare before and after.[...]
[...]
6. Francis E Pollard then gave an appreciation of H. G. Wells in the form of a
biographical sketch. He dealt too with the amazing variety and extent of Wells’s
output, and the development of his character and beliefs.
7. Victor W. Alexander read an extract from “God the Invisible King.”
8. Further passages were read as follows:-
Margaret J Dilks from “Mankind in the making”.
H. R. Smith from “The Sea Lady”.
Mary S. W. Pollard from “Joan & Peter”.
Muriel Stevens from “The Valley of Spiders”.
9. Finally the Chairman referred again to the Supper question. R. H. Robson’s
concern was one of those which demanded from us a statesmanlike Quaker
compromise, perhaps an acceptance in principle and a rejection in practice wold
best meet the case. It was felt we should thank R. H. Robson for his letter, and
watch him closely during heat.
[signed] R. D. L. Moore
Feb. 20 1939.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at Gower Cottage, 20.II.’39
R. D. L. Moore, & subsequently H. Stevens in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
[...]
5. R. H. Robson told of The Stately Homes of Thames, + we heard of Bisham
Abbey, Mapledurham, Ufton Court, of Jesuits hunted by Walsingham, of the
incident of The Rape of the Lock, of Lovelace, Lady Place, Hurley, and Soames
Forsyte.
6. H. R. Smith, dealing with the Story of the River, + passing lightly over the
Danish incursions upstream, spoke of the thousand years in which the Thames had
been in bounds. Weirs had been made by millers, navigation had been slow and
perilous, the modern lock was a matter of the last hundred + fifty years. Twenty-
six mills were named in Domesday Book[.] The Thames Conservancy had brought
order out of chaos.
[...]
8. S. A. Reynolds read from Mortimer Menpes of warehouses + houseboats, the
boat race + Henley Regatta, Kingfishers + quick backwaters, fishing + the
vagaries of the towpath.
9. R. D. L. Moore gave us Literary Gleanings, touching on Spenser and Shelley,
quoting from The Scholar Gypsy + Thyrsis, + reading Soames Forsyte’s thoughts
in the early morning on the river, Kipling’s The River’s Tale, + Virginia Woolf’s
astonishing account in Orlando of the great frost, when a girl dissolved into
powder + fish were frozen twenty fathoms deep!
[...]
11. Muriel Stevens read a friend’s notes on Deptford + its river scenes.
12. A. B. Dilkes from Three Men in a Boat.
[Signed] S A Reynolds
27/3/93 [i.e. 27/3/39]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene, 27. III. 1939
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of last read + approved.
3. A. B. Dilks read from Sir James Jeans’ ‘Universe around Us’. Man’s
insignificance was not even tempered by the possibility of life on Mars.
4. Muriel Stevens brought us to more homely surroundings with passages from
Eleanor Acland’s ‘Goodbye for the Present.’
5. Hilaire Belloc’s descriptive power was illustrated by R. H. Robson’s reading from
‘The Eyewitness’, telling of Napoleon’s pursuit of of Sir John Moore + a snow storm
in the Sierras.
6. Ethel C. Stevens’s extract from Agnes Hunt’s Reminiscences dealt with
experiences in the Tasmanian Bush.
7. R. D. L Moore read from T Jefferson Hogg – from a book published in 1833 – an
account of Shelley at Oxford.
8. Dorothea Taylor gave us Taine’s impressions of England written in 1871.
[...]
[signed] R. H. Robson
19. 5. 39'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Muriel Stevens Print: Book
'Meeting held at 219 King’s Rd 20. IV. 1939.
Dorothea Taylor in the Chair.
1. Opening the subject of Euripides, F. E. Pollard gave some account of Athens in
the fifth century B.C. — the history from the victory over the Persians, through the
tyranny of the Athenian Empire, the degradation of standards, to the fall of the
city; & in the realm of thought, the coming of the questioning spirit typified by the
sophists, Socrates & Euripides.
2. A reading from ‘The Trojan Women’ was given by Elizabeth Alexander & Mary E.
Robson, in the characters of Cassandra & Hecuba.
3. Leslie Scott, in general comments on the poet’s quality and philosophy, noted
his contradictory reputations — serious or the reverse, nationalist or idealist? With
Dr. Verrall & Gilbert Murray, his popularity had grown immensely. He is accused
of lack of restraint, but he is human. His pathos is moving, even if occasionally
overdrawn. He breaks through stage conventions, his characters are mixed, &
reveal inner conflict. He is at his best with women, though regarded at times as a
woman-hater, at others as a pioneer of her emancipation. It is almost certain that
he deliberately ridicules the Gods. [...]
4. Muriel Stevens took Iphigenia, C. E. Stansfield Orestes, & F. E. Pollard Pylades,
from the Iphigenia in Tauris — the recognition scene.
5. Mary S. W. Pollard as Andromache, & S. A. Reynolds as Talthybius, read the
tragic scene from the Trojan Women, when it is told to his mother that the little
boy Astyanax is to be killed: &
6. Hecuba’s lament for her grandchild was read by Mary E. Robson.
7. The reading of the minutes of the last meeting was deferred.
[...]
[signed] Reginald H. Robson
19. 5. 1939'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at 39, Eastern Avenue: 24. 11. 39.
A Bruce Dilks in the chair.
1. Minutes of last [two meetings] read & approved.
[...]
7. F. E. Pollard gave a brief introduction to American literature, introducing a large
number of names including Benjamin Franklin, John Woolman, Tom Paine,
Washington Irving, Fennimore Cooper, the poet Bryant, the historians Bancroft,
Prescott and Motley, Louisa M. Alcott, Emerson, Longfellow & Whittier, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thoreau, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Hermann Dick, J. R. Lowell, Walt Whitman, Henry Hames, Winston
Churchill, O. Henry, & Mark Twain. He attempted very briefly to assess the place
of these & some others.
8. C. E. Stansfield read from the Autocrat at the Breakfast Table an extract in
praise of Meerschaums, Violins & Poems. We felt from the caressing tones of his
voice that like the Autocrat he gave pride of place to the Meerschaums.
9. A. B. Dilks, after a brief reference to the career and mystical experience of
Walt Whitman read from his Poems on the Sea.
10. R. D. L. Moore read a dramatic passage from the ‘Bridge of San Luis Rey[’],
describing the last hours of Brother Juniper.
11 We were, finally, introduced to Babbitt – those of us who had not previously
met him — by R. H. Robson. We were suitably amused at the manner in which
St.Clair Lewis makes his hero rise and shave.
[signed] R. D. L. Moore
19.XII.39'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Manuscript: Unknown
'This morning we made for Bécourt Wood. In a sand-bag shelter in the wood I found two novels—"Exton Manor" by Archibald Marshall and "Justice" by Galsworthy, which I have annexed.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Douglas Herbert Bell Print: Book
'Read two books lately, one in French called "L'Éveil" and another by Una Silberrad called "John "Bolsover". We buy odd books in the village and pass them on when we have read them.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Douglas Herbert Bell Print: Book
'Miss Owen began the 'Mysteries of Udolpho'... but Mrs Owen thought it would take her up so much that...she gave her a shilling to put off reading it till she went home, and gave her 'Guy Mannering' and the 'Romance of the Forest' to read meanwhile.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Owen Print: Book
'Miss Owen began the 'Mysteries of Udolpho'... but Mrs Owen thought it would take her up so much that...she gave her a shilling to put off reading it till she went home, and gave her 'Guy Mannering' and the 'Romance of the Forest' to read meanwhile.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Owen Print: Book
'I read Barbusse in trenches and he made me see things I had never seen before though they were before my eyes every day; yet his description bore the same relation to an ordinary man's as does a passage of Æschylus.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Stephen Lucius Gwynn Print: Book
'I think Anne's 'Tales' particularly interesting ... I prefer the first, there is greater purity and far greater truth. 'The Admiral's Daughter' is deficient in both these qualities...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jessie Sismondi Print: Book
'Books read from Feby 16th/18
King Richard II Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream do.
Henry the Eighth do.
As You Like It do.
Ziska Marie Corelli
Lorna Doone R. D. Blackmore
Don Quixote de la mancha Vol II
(Miguel de Cervantes Savedra)
Food of the Gods H. G. Wells
Odette's Marriage Albert Delpit
A Walking Gentleman James Prior
The Making of a Marchioness F. H. Burnett
Vixen Mrs. Braddon
The Magnetic North Eliz. Robins
A Roman Singer Marion Crawford
In the Reign of Terror G. A. Henty
Songs of a Sourdough R. W. Service
Forest Folk James Prior
John Henry Hugh McHugh
The Inviolable Sanctuary G. A. Birmingham'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Henry Jones Print: Book
'Friday. Lovely day. Walked about[.] No letters. Shown sketches by Russian ... Read Aysha [sic] by Rider Haggard. Ev Bridge. Did not play well. Gym gets on well.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Rawlinson sore leg. Wrote a letter home asking for biscuits &c. Read The Wayfarers by JC Snaith.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'11.30 service. Rather depressed. Ev Bridge Won. Read the Wayfarers & the Country of the Blind by HG Wells.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'We are near the end of Macauley's 'History', and it is very entertaining reading.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Allen Print: Book
Tues. Sent letter to Findlay. Fine day. Nil by mail. Read 2535 Mayfair by Frank Richardson.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Thurs. Nil by mail. Read Red Eve by Ryder Haggard.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Mon. Nil [i.e., no post]. Gym. Hurt finger. Read The Orange Lady by Bailey.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Fri. Nil [i.e., no post]. Read The Vultures by Merriman.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'... I was too severe on Newman ... There are many striking, wise and good things in the first part
of his book, so that the latter falls on you with the shock of a shower-bath, and disposes one to say
hard things...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jessie Sismondi Print: Book
'Read Count Hannibal by Stanley Weyman ... Aft. Rugger. Officers 4 Men 3.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Sun. Morn. Service. Cold much better. Read a Knight on Wheels by "Ian Hay". Card from Findlay. Much fighting on West.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Read "The Right Stuff" by Ian Hay.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Sat. Welcome May. Letter from home. Read "The Right Stuff" by Ian Hay ... Up 62 in bridge. Thunder Storm.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Letter from home May 5th. Roullette -5. Read Slave of Lamp by Merriman.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Read "Famous Modern Battles" by [ ]. Ev. Bridge.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Read Round the Fire Stories by Conan Doyle. Joined the Library. Started Lettres de Mon Moulin Par Alphonse Daudet. No sign of peace. Will it last another year 2:1 it will.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Tues. Received letter from no one[.] Damnation[.] Reading Man & Superman by Bernard Shaw.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Wed. Nil. Marriage is popular because it combines the maxm of temptation with the maxm of opportunity.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Sat. Read Play You Never Can Tell by Bernard Shaw & Odd Things by Dolf Wyllarde. Ev Badminton with Bolton.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'Sun. Nil. Read A Trap to Catch a Dream.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
'I am just finishing Neander's Life of Christ, and I believe I have derived good from it. I did not clearly understand his reasoning on miracles ... but every now and then I felt a note struck which seemed to awake a spiritual sense within me.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Allen
'I am well off for books, for I have a second in hand there almost more interesting, and that is Mungo Park's travels, which I never read before.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Darwin
'I am also reading an English translation of Mme de Sevigne and like it very much.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Darwin Print: Book
'I was never forbidden but once in my life to read any book, and that was by my stupid governess, who forbade me to read 'Old St. Paul's', by Harrison Ainsworth... I promptly got out the prescribed book and read it with a feeling of deep disappointment because it contained nothing I did not already know.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emily Lytton Print: Book
'Grant Allen’s”[The] Woman Who Did”, c’est un livre mort. Gr.[ant]Allen is a man of inferior
intelligence and his work is not art in any sense. “[The] Woman Who Did” had a kind of success,
of curiosity mostly—and that only among the philistines –the sort of people who read Marie
Corelli and Hall Caine. Neither of these writers belongs to literature. All three are very popular
with the public—and they are also puffed in the press.[...] Grant Allen is considered a man of
letters among scholars and a scholar among men of letters. He writes popular scientific manuals
equally well. En somme—un imbecile. Marie Corelli is not noticed critically by the serious
reviews. She is simply ignored. Her books sell largely; Hall Caine is a kind of male Marie Corelli.
[...] Among the writers who deserve attention the first is Rudyard Kipling (his last book, ”The
Day’s Work”,a novel). J.M. Barrie—a Scotsman. His last book “Sentimental Tommy” (last year).
[...] George Moore has published the novel “Evelyn Innes”—un succès d’estime. He is supposed
to belong to to the naturalistic school and Zola is his prophet. Tout ça, c’est très vieux jeu. A
certain Mr. T Watts-Dunton published the novel “Aylwin”, a curiosity success, as this Watts-
Dunton (who is also a barrister) is apparently a friend of different celebrities in the world of Fine
Arts (especially in the pre-Raphaelite School). He has crammed them all into his book. H.G.
Wells published this year “The War of the Worlds” and “The Invisible Man”. He is a very original
writer, romancier du fantastique, with a very individualist judgement in all things and an
astonishing imagination.’
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'In the afternoon, at a tennis party at Blair Castle, a bicycle orderly arrives
with an urgent telegram for my battalion. Being the senior Cameronian officer
present I open it and read that we are to return to Glasgow forthwith in
accordance with the "Precautionary Period" measures of the Defence Plan
prior to Mobilisation. Tennis ends abruptly ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lochhead Jack Manuscript: telegram
'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
'I am at present engaged in reading Newman's poems; do you know them at all? They are very,
very delicate and pretty, and are like nothing more than one of those valuable painted Chinese
vases which a touch would destroy. I must except from this criticism the "Dream of Gerontius",
which is very strongly written. but the rest are almost too delicate for my taste: it is a kind of
beauty that I can't very much appreciate.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'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
'I am now engaged in reading "Sense & Sensibility'. It is, undoubtedly, one of her best. Do you
remember the Palmer family?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'Merriman is a far cry from the Brontes. Both of course are good, but while they should be
sipped with luxurious slowness in the winter evening, he may be read in a cheap copy on top
of a tram. And yet I don't know: of course his novels are melodrama, but then they are the
best melodrama ever written, while passages like the "Storm" or the "Wreck" in the Grey
Lady, or the Reconciliation between the hero and his father in "Edged Tools", are as good
things as English prose contains.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'Did you read Lloyd George's speech the other day introducing the remark about the German
potato bread — "I fear that potato bread more than all Von Kluck's strategy". Although, as you
have seen, I don't often read the newspapers, I was glad when Kirk pointed that out to me.
Most
of the people one hears rather laugh at that bread "wheeze", but I rather think Lloyd George's
is
the wiser view.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Newspaper
'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
'I have been reading nothing since Othello but a translation from the Icelandic'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'I... am going through an English literature of Kirk's by Andrew Lang. Lang is always charming
whatever he does - or "did" as we must unfortunately say, and this book is very good. More a
rambling record of personal tastes than a set handbook, but all the better for that reason.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'There has also been from the London Library a book called "Springs of Helicon" by Mackail —
you know, Professor of Poetry at Oxford and the man on William Morris. This is a study on
Chaucer, Spenser and Milton and I enjoyed it immensely. He has quite infected me with his
enthusiasm for the former, whom I must begin to read. He talks of other works, "The Legend of
Good Women", "Troilus and Cresseide" as being better than the tales.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'The other book — which I am denying myself to write to YOU, yes YOU of all people — is
from the library by Blackwood called "Uncle Paul". Oh, I have never read anything like it,
except perhaps "The Lore of Proserpine. When you have got it out of your library and read
how Nixie and Uncle Paul get into a dream together and went to a primaeval forest at dawn to
"see the winds awake" and how they went to the "Crack between yesterday and tomorrow you
will agree with me.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'Talking of books — you might ask, when do I talk of anything else — I have read and finished
"The Green Knight", which is absolutely top-hole: in fact the only fault I have to find with it is
that it is too short — in itself a compliment. It never wearies you from first to last, and
considering the time when it was written, some things about it, the writer's power of getting up
atmosphere for instance, quite in the Bronte manner, are little short of marvellous.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'I am rather surprised at your remark about "Persuasion", as it seemed to me very good —
though not quite in her usual manner. I mean it is more romantic and less humorous than the
others, while the inevitable love interest, instead of being perfunctory as in "Emma" and
"Mansfield Park" is the real point of the story. Of course I admit that's not quite the style we
have learned to expect from Jane Austen, but still don't you think it is rather interesting to
see an author trying his — or her — hand at something outside their own "line of business"?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
(1) 'I wish you would get that Academy book which one always finds in a dentist's waiting
room so that we could compare notes. If you do you must particularly notice "The Egyptian
Dancers" [A Dancer of Ancient Egypt"], "The Valley of the Weugh or Sleugh" or something like
that ["The Valley of the Feugh"] (a glorious snow scene) ... and a lovely faery scene from
Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market". It costs only a shilling I think and tho' of course the black
and white reproductions lose a lot, still they are quite enjoyable.' (2) 'What an old miser you
are though. I suppose I shall have to buy the Academy book myself now: and rest assured
that you will never see one page of it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'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
'In odd moments last week I read an excellent novel by — you'd never guess — Bernard Shaw.
It is called "Love among the Artists" and is published in Constable's shilling series. I want you
to get it: there are one or two extraordinary characters in it, and I think the whole gist of the
thing, all about music, art etc. would appeal to you very strongly. Tell me if you do. I wonder
what the good author who takes his own works so seriously would think if he knew that he
was read for pleasure to fill up the odd moments of a schoolboy. If you do get the book, don't
forget to read the preface which is very amusing.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'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
'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
'Did you see a long article in the Times Literary Supplement about the "Magic Flute" which is on
at the Shaftesbury? How I wish I could go up and hear it and also "Tristan and Isolde" — though
if I did it would be a disappointment in all probability.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Serial / periodical
(1) 'This week's new purchase consisted of ... "John Silence" in the 7d. edition.... It fairly
swept me off my feet, so that on Saturday night I hardly dared to go upstairs. I left off - until
next weekend - in the middle of the "Nemesis of Fire" — Oh, Arthur, aren't they priceless?
Particularly the "Ancient Sorceries" one, which I think I shall remember all my life.'(2) 'I have
now finished that adorable... "John Silence": I still think "Ancient Sorceries" the best, though
indeed all, particularly the "Fire" one, are glorious. In the last one the opening part, all about
those lovely Northern Islands and the camp life — wouldn't you love to go there? — is so very
beautiful that you feel almost sorry to have the supernatural dragged in. Though the idea of
the were-wolf is splendid. At what point of the story did you begin to guess the truth?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'The journey home was absolutely damnable: I had to wait an hour at Letterkenny, and an hour
and a quarter at Strabane. You may judge of my boredom when I tell you that I was reduced to
buying a "Novel" magazine — because everything else on the bookstall was even more
impossible.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Serial / periodical
'In the mornings in bed I am going over "Sense and Sensibility" again — which I had nearly
forgotten. Do you remember Mrs Jennings and Marianne Dashwood and the rest?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
(1) 'I have also bought a 7d. Macmillan book by Algernon Blackwood called "Jimbo, a fantasy".
Although you have never mentioned it, I dare say you know there is such a book - I never
heard of it myself. I am keeping it to read in the train when I go back (Friday night), but I
have to restrain myself every moment — it looks so awfully appetizing.' (2) 'I finished it on
Sunday and am awfully bucked with it — a very good 7d. worth. It is quite in Blackwood's best
manner, and you will specially love the last thirty pages or so — they are terrific.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'...through the week I have read an excellent novel of Vachell's "The Paladin" which you have
probably read too.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'I was very sorry to hear about the death of "A Student in arms", whose book I read last holidays
as you may remember. I never met anything exactly like it before, it is wonderfully original and
beautiful.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'Nothing in it however, [ie "A Student in Arms"], if I remember aright, quite reaches the level
of this last article, a wise and charming piece of work - and doubly so from the exquisite
appropriateness with which it comes from the pen of a man who died a few days after writing
it. As you say, there is almost something divine about the way in which he sums up his beliefs
and his views on death, just as though he knew the end was coming and meant to finish off his
work. The substance of this paper resembles Bernard Shaw's cry, "Why not give Christianity a
trial?" - so far at least as the writing of a scholar and a gentleman can resemble that of a
Philistine.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Serial / periodical
'I like last week's "Romance" by the Student in Arms very much - in some ways as much as the
other, tho' perhaps you will not agree with me.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Serial / periodical
'That is rather a fine article on Hakluyt in this week's Literary Supplement and a good deal of it
might stand as an apology - in the Newman sense of course — for my hours spent on poor
Mandeville. The quotation about the deer coming down to the water "as we rowed" is particularly
attractive.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Serial / periodical
'... 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
(1) 'I am reading at present, what do you think? Our own friend "Pilgrim's Progress". It is one
of those books that are usually read too early to appreciate, and perhaps don't come back to. I
am very glad however to have discovered it. The allegory of course is obvious and even
childish, but just as a romance it is unsurpassed, and also as a specimen of real English. Try a
bit of your Ruskin or Macaulay after it, and see the difference between diamonds and tinsel.'
(2) 'It is funny that we should both have the same idea about the Temple Classics. I was
almost sure they were out of print and only wrote on the off chance for the "Pilgrim's
Progress" (did I mention it? I have read it again and am awfully bucked) and then for the
"Grael".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'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
'Mary Gaywood giving evidence at the trial for theft of her servant Eleanor Clark at the Old
Bailey, 21 October 1761: "Last Tuesday right she went away, and not coming on the Wednesday,
we missed a cream pot; I went to Westminster, where she [i.e. Eleanor Clark] lodg'd, in John's
Street, thinking she was not well; going up stairs, I saw her reading in a book; I looked to see,
and found it to be the Pilgrim's Progress, my own book."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Eleanor Clark Print: Book
'The book of my boyhood was, however, the "Pilgrim's Progress", a beautiful edition of which
was given me by a paternal uncle. I used to read it from morning to night, and could not but
believe the pilgrimage to be a real one, and often wished my mother to set out, with me and
my sister, upon the journey. She endeavoured to explain that it set forth the pilgrimage
through this world to a better; but I could not understand how it could be, and longed to visit
the House Beautiful, and even to brave the lions, and the grim fangs of Apollyon. This book it
was that early awakened my imaginative powers.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Leatherland Print: Book
'I was also much struck with many parts of the Bible. My favourite chapters were the xv. of
the 1 Ep. of Corinthians; the xi of Hebrews; Ezekiel's vision; and most of the Apocalypse.
These I used to read over and over again, but could not go on with the dry ceremonies of the
Israelites recorded in Leviticus, or what appeared to me to be the barbarous slaughter of the
Canaanites and Philistines; and to this day I have not read these portions of scripture
consecutively. I also used to think the Epistles dry reading, but these are now my favourite
parts of the Book of Inspiration.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Leatherland Print: Book
'Speaking of the Quarterly Review, a "stray number" of which was a prize I once found on the
counter of a grocer, and which I rescued from the ignominious fate of being torn up into butter
papers. This I eagerly read.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Leatherland Print: Serial / periodical
(1) 'I wonder does the "Wayfarer" series publish my latest discovery - the most glorious novel
(almost) that I have ever read.... It is Nathaniel Hawthorne's "House with the Seven Gables". I
love the idea of a house with a curse! And although there is nothing supernatural in the story
itself there is a brooding sense of mystery and fate over the whole thing: Have you read it?
See if it is in the "Wayfarers" as I want to get an edition of my own as soon as possible.' (2) 'I
shouldn't have said "mystery", there is really no mystery in the proper sense of the word, but
a sort of feeling of fate & inevitable horror as in "Wuthering Heights". I really think I have
never enjoyed a novel more. There is one lovely scene where the villain - Judge Pyncheon -
has suddenly died in his chair.... it describes the corpse sitting there as the day wears on.... I
intend to read all Hawthorne after this.' (3) 'This week I have been reading "The House of the
Seven Gables" which I have often heard praised but never met before. Have you? It is well
worth the reading.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'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
(1) 'Just before supper I finished the 2nd volume of Mackail's "Life of W.M." There is nothing
nicer than to lay aside a book with a certain satisfaction at getting it settled with and yet
having enjoyed it thoroughly, is there? I certainly know Morris better than I did before, tho' in
a way his character is a disappointment. You can't really think there's any resemblance
between him and me? Of course I would give mine eyes to be like him in some ways, but I
don't honestly think my temper is quite so bad.' (2) 'I am sorry you don't like Mackail's second
volume. I suppose I am a bundle of contradictions, but I must say socialism does interest me.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
(1) 'You say "Arethusa" is lovely: have you bought it or got a copy from the library? In any
case I am very glad you have started it. Isn't Omobono a lovely character, and also the slave
dealer's wife? I think it a very good romance all round.' (2) 'I rather expected some fuller
criticism of Arethusa, and would like to know your final verdict when you write. Tho' of course
it's not in the rank of 'real books', I have a sentimental affection for it from reading it over
ever since I was about ten.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'My French is under rather different conditions to yours, as I read from 10 - 11 every night
except on Wednesdays when I write to you. I have really never counted exactly how much I
cover and it wd. not be accurate to count by pages, as they vary so in size and in type.... Then
again why not get something in that 1/6 Dents edition with the lovely paper, say Voltaire's
"Contes" (very amusing)....'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
(1) 'I have now made a good start on my second volume of Macaulay, which is admirable. What
a nice man James must have been!' (2) 'I am nearly through Macaulay Vol. II, which I have
enjoyed immensely, especially the part about Oxford.' (3) '...having finished Macaulay (an
admirable book, tho' of course the writer is too much of a whig and puritan for my taste: the old
cavaliers were at any rate gentlemen)....'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'Before starting this [ie Macaulay's "History of England", v. 2] I read in a library copy two of F.
W. Bain's Indian Tales "The Descent of the Sun" & "The Heifer of the Dawn". They are
translations from the Sanskrit and are "really rather adorable". A little too weird, perhaps, for
your solid tastes; but you should certainly have a look at them in Lily's copies.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'Italian quite comes up to K's promises about its easiness and on Sunday I read the first 200 lines
of Dante with much success. By the end of term I should be able to read it as easily as French.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
(1) 'I also bought a French Book on the Poetry of the middle ages — so you see dear Oxford is a
dangerous place for a book lover.' (2) 'I am now reading in French this book on French literature
of the Middle Ages which at least to me is very interesting.' (3) 'I have finished my book on
French Literature (admirable, excellent, exquisite)...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
“What further stimulated Ruddy’s interest in the British soldier was a book he reviewed for his paper: Nathaniel Bancroft’s “From Recruit to Staff Sergeant” the autobiography of a retired British soldier living in Simla.”
Note The paper was the Pioneer
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Rudyard Kipling Print: Book
'I could begin to read one of the books that had been given to me ... and lose myself
in another world. [Followed by a list of the books enjoyed].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Eileen Lawrence
'… folk talk about men not wanting religion—the men
who really know what the War is have a different
tale to tell—have you read Neville’s book, just out?
I’ll send you a copy, if you like.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Thomas Byard Clayton Print: Book
Looked over the notes Mrs. Lefanu had written on Watkin's life of her brother - little in them - chiefly about her father's respectability etc. etc. which, though very interesting to herself, has little to do with [italics] my [italics] object,
Richard Brinsly [sic]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Moore Print: Book
‘J. E. Patterson has written a book around Minehead, perhaps "Fishers of
the Sea", or no—"Love Like the Sea"; which I liked. Perhaps you might. He
has power, but an amateurish trick of underlining his points which is
irritating … The Sonnet of R. B. you sent me, I do not like. It seems to me
that Rupert Brooke would not have improved with age, would not have
broadened, his manner has become a mannerism, both in ryme and diction.
I do not like it.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘Carlyle has not put it too strongly in Heroes. It is chiefly a matter of
environment with the really great men what shape they take in their
power; but with smaller men, such as Wordsworth, I am not quite sure …
What made me more sensitive to this is that I have just bought
Wordsworth’s life in Jack’s 6d Home Series, and his colossal complacency
makes one anxious. What a crowd they must have been—Wordsworth,
Dorothy and Coleridge!’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘You mention Ian Hay and MacGill. I had a glance at Ian Hay, and wished I
could read it, but had to leave it. What I saw was very good indeed … By the
way have you ever read W. H. Davies "Autobiography of a Super-Tramp". It
would delight you immensely by its simplicity and plain truth … The only thing
poor about Autobiography is the title. I hate “Super” things.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘You mention Ian Hay and MacGill. I had a glance at Ian Hay, and wished I
could read it, but had to leave it. What I saw was very good indeed … By the
way have you ever read W. H. Davies "Autobiography of a Super-Tramp". It
would delight you immensely by its simplicity and plain truth … The only thing
poor about Autobiography is the title. I hate “Super” things.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘This morning that extraordinarily unequal collection "The Golden Treasury"
came out of its hiding place, and served to astonish me once more with its
lasting wonders of the “Intimations” Ode. But what I really want is a
Marcus Aurelius, a small cheap one. Would you send it me? The Gospels
annoy me by their emptiness, and the eloquence of St Paul though good
enough in some place is mere argumentative theology only too often … As
for news, you in England are far more fortunate than we. My self I love
newspapers when my brain is watery, and none I have seen that is not a
week old. In reserve however I was a hardened but often puzzled reader
of "Le Telegramme", "Le Journal", "Le Petit Parisien", "Le Matin".
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘The Katharine Tynan verses are perfectly charming in that War Poetry cutting.
Sweet, original and truly felt.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Newspaper, Serial / periodical
‘Your book—my book [Davies, "Child Lovers"] has just arrived, and it is
finished. Only to increasing certainty that Davies was once an exquisite
poet—of which time he has now but occasional memories, and that he
knows himself to be failing in power and is bitter at the knowledge. I
happen to know it is true, from private information, but anyone who knows
his earlier work must feel sad … Thank you very much for such a charming
present … Thank you also for sending me the "Times Literary Supplement",
but I have one sent already. However both are passed on, and read with
enthusiasm by one and another … I might be a good soldier if I could forget
music and books. Indeed I try to full my still-sick mind with thoughts of
these. Which makes a strange combination, as you may imagine.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘Well … our gallant regiment … have been in it a damn sight more than ever
they expected, by the Lord. We are hardened veterans, fed up to the neck,
muddy to the eyes, for the weather is execrable. And like Justice Shallow
we have had our losses. Two of the nicest chaps in the whole crowd killed.
And of our very best Lieutenants more gone than I like. So it goes with us
… Have you seen "Child Lovers", W. H. D.’s new book? It has some good
stuff in it—but he would do well to shut up shop … Mrs Abercrombie has
sent me [Lascelle Abercrombie’s] "Deborah", which I like immensely, except
the "Gabriel Hounds", which are poor tykes not worthy of poetic license.
And the blank verse, also very fine, is hardly often enough simple. It is too
skilled, too educated … But how good the storm is! And the marsh! And
Barnaby! … One thing that runs continually in my head out here is L.
Binyon’s “To the Fallen” which delights me ever more and more. Did you see
Bridges’ Sonnett on Kitcher? That was fine too … I would not believe the
news at first—it sounded so like the obvious rumour. Oh, but it’s raining like
the blazes!’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘ [ … ] it was nice … to get the "Evening Standard" packed up with the rest
[of the parcel]. I do adore newspapers in certain moods. For frivolling time
away they are incomparable … Why was the "Daily Telegraph" one page
sent? For the College awards? Or for the review of Colles’ latest book? … I
asked for a book to be sent in the parcel. That means any sort of book. A
twopenny box in London would give me acute joy, but if you are debarred
from such, Nelson’s 6d Classics would be more than excellent. What a
washout most of the "Golden Treasury" is! As for the period of Pope, the
selection is simply lamentable. Only the Elizabethan and Wordsworth period
have much real stuff in them. Could you steal and small dirty copy of Shelley
or Keats and sent it me? I have tried to get these in the penny Poets, but
they must be out of print. The Everymans are too big, or my pack too small.
"Macbeth" is with me, but there is too much real tragedy about to find it
pleasant. Milton I can read (and have) particularly the Ode on Time which is
terrific … Palgrave makes me feel what a lot of good stuff I miss by reading
anthologies.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘Your parcels have arrived … You have my deepest assurances that the
pleasure caused by your kindness has been considerable…. The reason I
dared to ask for all these things is—we have been so busy and so much in
the trenches, that it has been impossible to get these things ourselves, in
the towns and villages. As for our canteen, the only one is certain of
getting, is bootpolish … But now—the books. Shelley was very nice to get.
Keats I haven’t touched yet. But O—Walt Whitman! I never dreamed he
was so good … it has annoyed me to find so much in so tiny a book. I will
go as far as to say that no present has very given me so much pleasure …
Pip is a jolly book, and full of good descriptions of sport (O, what would a
clean hit for four feel like now?) But there is [no] need to send me such …
One can only read them once, then hand them on. True, a lot of men see
them. But Walt Whitman—why he has after some fashion renewed me.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘When I clamp-clump-clamp-clumped into the Poetry Bookshop on Thursday,
the poetic ladies were not a little surprised. The Readings were from
Rabindranath Tagore, read by a Lady without much insight into the Hindu
spirit. I could not speak to Monro, but he smiled sadly at my khaki … Did I
tell you I got in half-price at “the Strand” to see the Scarlet Pimpernel. Fred
Terry was indisposed, but I could hardly imagine a better impersonation
than was done by the Understudy. I have just read "El Dorado", the last
tale of the S. Pimpernel—not very readable.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfrid Owen Print: Book
‘The next book for you to read is "A Knight on Wheels". It is great. I, with the
inherited diffidence of my distinguished Grandma, must say I could never do
anything like so great. I suppose in the million eyes of the Empire I have
already done a thing greater than this merry book; but, then, more fools the
million eyes …’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
‘We make another sally today … I have the parcel, and the letters and J.
Oxenham’s books … "The V.[Vision] Splendid" contains several real poems:
those indeed which you [i.e., Owen’s mother] have marked. But the
majority of the things have no poetic value at all. The “Cross Roads” is very
very good. Otherwise the book has little Pacific Value, if you understand me
… "Barbe of Grand Bayou" seems a little too idyllic so far. Oxenham’s aim
seems to be to unsophisticate the reader. It is very pleasant to be
reminded of Brittany, which seems not to be of this continent at all … The
book is at the opposite pole from the O. Henry books which Leslie sent me.
Impossible to read them together … At the same time I am at p. 50 of A. &
E. Castle’s recent book: "The Hope of the House", which promises well, and
which I can recommend … I am in haste to pack … I crave Travel and shall
be pleased like any infant to get into a puff-puff again.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
‘We make another sally today … I have the parcel, and the letters and J.
Oxenham’s books … "The V.[Vision] Splendid" contains several real poems:
those indeed which you [i.e., Owen’s mother] have marked. But the
majority of the things have no poetic value at all. The “Cross Roads” is very
very good. Otherwise the book has little Pacific Value, if you understand me
… "Barbe of Grand Bayou" seems a little too idyllic so far. Oxenham’s aim
seems to be to unsophisticate the reader. It is very pleasant to be
reminded of Brittany, which seems not to be of this continent at all … The
book is at the opposite pole from the O. Henry books which Leslie sent me.
Impossible to read them together … At the same time I am at p. 50 of A. &
E. Castle’s recent book: "The Hope of the House", which promises well, and
which I can recommend … I am in haste to pack … I crave Travel and shall
be pleased like any infant to get into a puff-puff again.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
‘We make another sally today … I have the parcel, and the letters and J.
Oxenham’s books … "The V.[Vision] Splendid" contains several real poems:
those indeed which you [i.e., Owen’s mother] have marked. But the
majority of the things have no poetic value at all. The “Cross Roads” is very
very good. Otherwise the book has little Pacific Value, if you understand me
… "Barbe of Grand Bayou" seems a little too idyllic so far. Oxenham’s aim
seems to be to unsophisticate the reader. It is very pleasant to be
reminded of Brittany, which seems not to be of this continent at all … The
book is at the opposite pole from the O. Henry books which Leslie sent me.
Impossible to read them together … At the same time I am at p. 50 of A. &
E. Castle’s recent book: "The Hope of the House", which promises well, and
which I can recommend … I am in haste to pack … I crave Travel and shall
be pleased like any infant to get into a puff-puff again.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
‘The other day I read a Biography of Tennyson, which says he was
unhappy, even in the midst of his fame, wealth, and domestic serenity.
Divine discontent! I can quite believe he never knew happiness for one
moment such as I have … But as for misery, was he ever frozen alive, with
dead men for comforters. Did he ever hear the moaning at the bar, not at
twilight and evening bell only, but at dawn, noon, and night, eating and
sleeping, walking and working, always the close moaning of the Bar; the
thunder, the hissing and the whining of the Bar?’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
‘Last week I went to an excellent play, a really charming Comedy—Quinney’s,
by Vachell. Am now reading and book by Vachell "The Hill", a tale of Harrow,
and the hills on which I never lay, nor shall lie: heights of thought, heights of
friendship, heights of riches, heights of jinks … Lovely and melancholy reading
it is for me.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'I arrived half-dead at La Neuville, and slept there
for twelve hours or more. The next day we went to
Braches, and then on foot to Rouvrel. About there,
the country was unscathed by war, and very
beautiful. On a bank by the roadside, I took
Walden out of my pocket, where it had been
forgotten since the morning of the 21st, and there
began to read it. At Rouvrel the rest of the
Battalion rejoined us the next day.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Edward Read Print: Book
'Here I have been reading any amount of rubbish:
among them (the rubbishes) two quite admirable
shockers by John (Prester) Buchan: THE POWERHOUSE
and THE THIRTY NINE STEPS. Both cheap editions by
Blackwood and excellent fun. I wish I could write
shockers. I worship them. Then a very clever
sevenpenny (Heinemann) The Divine Fire by May
Sinclair, which might have been excellent if
people didn't TALK so much. I hate people to say
the same thing twice over ... By this mail I shall
send you the first half of MARCHING ON TANGA ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Brett Young Print: Book
'Here I have been reading any amount of rubbish:
among them (the rubbishes) two quite admirable
shockers by John (Prester) Buchan: THE POWERHOUSE
and THE THIRTY NINE STEPS. Both cheap editions by
Blackwood and excellent fun. I wish I could write
shockers. I worship them. Then a very clever
sevenpenny (Heinemann) The Divine Fire by May
Sinclair, which might have been excellent if
people didn't TALK so much. I hate people to say
the same thing twice over ... By this mail I shall
send you the first half of MARCHING ON TANGA ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Brett Young Print: Book
'I’ve finished The History of the Fabian
Society and I now return it to you with many
thanks for the pleasure it has given me.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Edward Read Print: Book
'I am a week late in thanking you for your parcel and letter … and specially for
the book of sonnets which has been constantly either in my pocket or hand. It
is just the kind of thing one wants—that can be opened and closed again for
five or ten minutes that may come to hand. It contains many fine ones which I
had not met before: and altogether its possession is a great boon.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Hamilton Sorley Print: Book
24 June 1916 ‘I came to this dreadful place a week
ago. The Medical Board gave me “light duty”—but
they don’t understand the term here. We get up at
5.30 a.m. and are still at it till tea time and
sometimes later. And all the time the same
monotonous work—shouting oneself hoarse … I’ve got
something you must read—Bernard Shaw’s preface to
Androcles and the Lion, just published. It is, I
think, the last word on Christianity, and one of
the best things Shaw has ever written … I get the
New Age every week …’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Edward Read Print: Book
‘Our work and routine is still the same as ever. We are like the fielder who
is put at long leg when a good batsman is at the wicket: not because the
batsman will ever hit the ball there, but because, if the fielder in question
were to be removed, he would. I have finished Horace Blake. It is a great
pity that the authoress did not spend more time on it, for except in one or
two chapters … the style is hardly equal to the theme. I found the book
intensely interesting …Thanks also for the books. There are now enough to
keep our Company Mess going for some time, as time for reading is nearly
as limited as time for writing—but by no means quite as much so, because
one is often free from duty but in a state in which output is an effort but
absorption easy and delightful.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Hamilton Sorley Print: Book
'I got out of the mine about 5-30 had my dinner at once & then read several
chapters in St Marks gospel ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Unknown
'Did not get up until 7A.M. as I lay in the bed reading ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams
'I rec'd a letter and some newspapers from J. P. Prout with a letter enclosed
from my wife. I read a good bit from the papers & then wrote this it is now
time to go to bed about 8 P.M.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'I read a sermon from the Christian Age, then had a cup of tea, now going to
bed about 9 P.M.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'After reading a good bit I went to bed about 10 A.M.'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams
'Got out of the mine about 6 A.M. had some tea & read the paper a bit & saw
in the list of deaths, the death of Mary Ann wife of Lot Brewer. I think it is my
old school-mistress from Trelowth, St Austell.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'I rose pretty early before break of day, it was a splendid morning. I read
several bits of the Christian Age before I went to mine.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'I read a good bit from my Bible and Christian Ages ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'I read a good bit from my Bible and Christian Ages ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Book
'After breakfast I went to see the sick folks & then read several chapters of
the bible & Testament, then did some S. Hind. P. Walker brought a can of
Lobster which we had for dinner, then we went up to his room & I read 100
pages of the Manuel of Devotion ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Book
'After breakfast I went to see the sick folks & then read several chapters of
the bible & Testament, then did some S. Hind. P. Walker brought a can of
Lobster which we had for dinner, then we went up to his room & I read 100
pages of the Manuel of Devotion.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Book
'I went in & read a good bit from the news-papers
then Bob his Wife & baby came in & we stayed
chatting for a good while.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'Got up about 7A.M. had some tea & commenced to read.
I read a Christian Age & some from a book by Thos
Guthrie, 'Man & the Gospel' which I enjoy very much.
I then went down & read a good while to Mr Bennett
who is still very sick. I did not go out very much
for the day. After dinner I read to him again went
to bed about 7-30.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'Got up about 7A.M. had some tea & commenced to read.
I read a Christian Age & some from a book by Thos
Guthrie, 'Man & the Gospel' which I enjoy very much.
I then went down & read a good while to Mr Bennett
who is still very sick. I did not go out very much
for the day. After dinner I read to him again went
to bed about 7-30.'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams
'I came back & read some extracts from the Christian
Age, am now going to bed about 8-30 P.M.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
' ... read some papers to the old man ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams
'I read a good bit to the old man then came in & had
my tea & off to bed about 8-30 P.M.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams
'Got up about 8 A.M. after I tidy'd up my house I had
a cup of tea then read a good bit in the Christian
Age ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'I wrote a letter and read some news to the old man ...'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams
'Had a good breakfast sent into the mine & a good
dinner. When I came out read a good bit of the
Cornwall Gazette. Went out to see the old man. I
then had my tea & went to my bedroom read a chapter
from my Bible & then to bed.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'Had a good breakfast sent into the mine & a good
dinner. When I came out read a good bit of the
Cornwall Gazette. Went out to see the old man. I
then had my tea & went to my bedroom read a chapter
from my Bible & then to bed.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Book
' ... went to see the old man and read the newspaper to
him ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'I had to close my door & light a candle, the dust
was blowing in clouds and the air was full of it, it
was like a mist, it obscured the Sun. I never saw
the like of it before. I read near 2 Christian Ages.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'... read a good bit from C Age ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
' ... had Roast Beef & Potatoes for dinner, then made some
stew for tomorrow, then read the Christian Age. Went
to bed about 8 P.M.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
' ... had my dinner and fixed some soup then read a good
bit from Christian Age ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'I read a good bit from C Age & done some writing am
now going to bed.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
' ... read a good deal from C Age - also some chapters in
the Book of Cronicles [sic] ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
' ... read a good deal from C Age - also some chapters in
the Book of Cronicles [sic] ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Book
'I went down to see Peter & stayed a good while until
breakfast then read 2 Sermons from C Age & Peter
came up here.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'this eve I read the Joyful News which I enjoyed very
much ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Serial / periodical
'I read some papers & then went to bed ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
' ... had my dinner & read the Newspaper & boiled a pot of
potatoes ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'Marshy Meadows by short cut and read Star Dreamer.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Vera Pennefather Print: Book
'After lunch sat in study read paper and "The
Sowers."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Vera Pennefather Print: Book
'Tidied room and read Outdoor World. Wrote to Sommy.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Vera Pennefather Print: Unknown
'Read "a Welsh Witch". Wrote to Claude, Maysie and
Mother.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Vera Pennefather Print: Book
'Read "A Welsh Witch". Walked to the church to meet
Miss Jenner.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Vera Pennefather Print: Book
'Read Arethusa'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Vera Pennefather Print: Book
'Thursday. rose at 8, O'Clock, came to Po [Agnes
Porter, governess], turned the Hour Glass and
played with it.- read my Journal of Sepr 5, 1805,
that you wrote for me. said my Prayers. hit my
chin against a Chair, cried a little. Betty put
some Pommade divine to it. told Po, my Journal.
did a Sum in Substraction, then ate my breakfast;
Tea and dried Toast, it was very good. - Po read
the Travelled Ant while we were at Breakfast.
liked it very much. went down with Po to the
Breakfast Room. went up stairs to Aunt Mary, gave
her a kiss and told her that Breakfast was getting
cold.- I forget the Answer. came down again, ate a
Finger and some Currants. My Uncle gave me the
Finger and Aunt Mary the Currants. read in the
Evening at Home.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Fox Talbot Print: Book
'After lunch read the Paper & wrote some letters.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Newspaper
'Babs better kept him quiet in bed all day & read
King Solomon's Mines to him & Dick.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'Kept Dick in bed all day. Read "King Solomon's
Mines" to him & worked with Tub at the Dutch garden.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'Read "She" to Roley after tea.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'Roley back from school about 4. Told him to come
early, as I was afraid of his being out late with
his chill. Read "She" to him.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'Read "Abbess of Vlaye" to Babs in the garden after
tea.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'Worked at nightdress and wrote some letters. Read
"Abbess of Vlaye" to Babs.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'Babs home for lunch. Finished "Abbess of Vlaye" to
him after lunch. Cut out and stuffed a pillow for
the cot.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'Roley back for lunch, first swimming lesson this
term. Read him Eric Brighteyes after lunch, then he
went up to swimming.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'Went through the books, sat on deckchairs and worked
at Evie's undie set. Indications of baby coming
after lunch. Nurse went for a walk. I sat on lawn &
worked. Tea in garden, wrote to Tottie & postcard to
Harrods, then read Eric Brighteyes to Babs till Tub
came home, while nurses prepared room.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'Kept Babs at home as I was afraid he'd be too tired
in the morning for the early start. He watched Baby
have her bath, then had his hair cut & bought cakes
while Nurses washed me. Read "Eric Brighteyes" to
him till D.R came.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'Very hot day. Tub played tennis with the Malonys in
the afternoon. I read Eric Brighteyes to Babs. Mrs
Salter came to see me about 7 oclock.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'Very hot again, but more breeze. Washed my hair
after my bath and dried it in the garden. Roley home
for lunch. Finished "Eric Brighteyes" to him in the
garden after lunch.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'Reading "Ordeal of War"—Oliver most
interesting & instructive, also Report of committee
on Belgian atrocities[.] Dined with Richmond at the
Club.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Kenneth Gilbert Balmain Dewar Print: Book
'Spectator of Aug 7th 1915 contains an interesting
article which illustrates the thoroughness of German
organization for war.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Kenneth Gilbert Balmain Dewar Print: Serial / periodical
'Started raining at 6.0, so returned on board.
Reading & writing in gun room till 10.0, when we
turned in.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'12 pm A new English submarine came in. By morning
papers the French had won a great victory, Belgium
was still holding out, while we had seized German
West Africa. Wrote home after lunch. Went to
Navigator's cabin ... 3.15 terrific stomach ache.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer Print: Newspaper
'Lunch 12.0, & afterwards went on leave, while hands
washed up the decks. Had a tremendous blow out at
Swiss Cafe, & purchased many items ... Went & read
at room at the disposal of the Cadets at Tower's
House. Returned on board at 7.45.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'General Quarters till 10.30. Went to Navigator's
cabin to write up log. When I finished I couldn't
find any cadets, so went back to Navigator's cabin &
eat chocolate, then went down to gun room & read.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'Fog did not lift, so we did not begin [patrol].
Spent afternoon in writing, reading etc. Leave for
Officers from 4.30-6.15. Went ashore ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'Came down and had breakfast at 8.0. Divisions at
9.45 & no General Quarters but physical training
from 11.15 till 12.0 ... Lunch at 12.0, & afterwards
I retired to the Comforts cabin, & had a ripping hot
bath. Smoked a pipe & then came up to Gun Room &
read a thrilling book.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer Print: Book
'Church at 10.30. Stopped a large & lusty ship at
12.0, but it turned out to be a false alarm as
usual. Lunch at 12.0. I read all the afternoon, &
got the PMO's gramophone during the evening.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer Print: Book
'Hoped to have 1" aiming rifle practice, but after
getting up ammunition & lots of fuss we cleared off
to lunch. Read during the afternoon & tea at 3.30.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'Sketched till 10.45, & then went to the Captain's
Cabin, where the P.M.O. gave us a long lecture on
diseases. Lunch at 12.0, & afterwards I read in the
Gun Room till tea time. No history lessons.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'... nothing much to do all morning, except for a
fairly short stay at General Quarters. There was
nothing for me to do at all in the afternoon, so I
simply sat in the Gun Room & read.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
' ... foul morning ... altogether rotten. I came up
for breakfast to find everyone feeling sick, &
nothing to eat. After some time I partook of a
frugal meal, in the middle of which Control Parties
was sounded off ... Frightfully thrilling. I had
nothing at all to do during the afternoon so I sat
in the Gun Room & read.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'... frightfully dull ... During the afternoon I
went out to the after superstructure for a time &
then came down to the Gun Room & read.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'I woke up feeling extremely bored with life ... it
was a foul day, like yesterday. I did exactly the
same things ... During the forenoon the sea gave
signs of going down much to my disgust, as I am
enjoying myself immensely as I am. We had lunch at
12.0, & I started another magazine in the afternoon.
I really must remember to send home for some books.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer Print: Serial / periodical
'Has thou read John Foster's Life and Correspondence? It is deeply interesting; generally speaking,
I am not addicted to the reading of correspondence, but his is no perfectly original and illustrates
the failings and sentiments of so fine a mind that is possesses peculiar attraction.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Ellis Print: Book
'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
'There is a short review of Professor Ansted's work in the Chambers's Journal of this month; from
the specimen they give, it must be exceedingly interesting, and I should like to see it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Ellis Print: Serial / periodical
'I have just been reading a second time Dr. Mantell's 'Medals of Creation', and do so admire the
spirit in which it is written exceedingly; this, and his 'Wonders of Geology', are two of the most
interesting works I have read on the subject.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Ellis Print: Book
'I have just been reading a second time Dr. Mantell's 'Medals of Creation', and do so admire the
spirit in which it is written exceedingly; this, and his 'Wonders of Geology', are two of the most
interesting works I have read on the subject.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Ellis Print: Book
'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
'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
'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
'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
We visited the church of San Pietro on the brow of the hill on which Perugia is situated; it contains many interesting pictures,.... I remarked a lovely little picture in the corner of the sacristy which none present seemed to know anything about, but I have since found it thus described in Passavant's life of Raffaelle by whom it was painted when he was still in the School of Perugino.[followed by long
quotation from Passavant's Life of Raphael, Vol 2. p.4]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Susan Horner Print: Book
'Read Noel Coward's Present Indicative . . . very interesting.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vere Hodgson Print: Book
'Tuesday visited a little girl in University College Hospital. . . . She
was in a bomb-proof basement and looked blooming and happy,
reading Angela Brazil.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Anon Anon Print: Book
'Just reading a book called Us and the Americans ... what they do not understand, and what they
like. Our gardens impress everyone.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vere Hodgson Print: Book
'At Radlett over the week-end. Read some of Maurois' The Fall of France. I remember poor Maurois
making his way to England and giving that last despairing broadcast. He asked us to send our last
plane and last gun to France. A nice mess we should have been in if we had.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vere Hodgson Print: Book
'In the afternoon came Barishnikov with his daughter Alexandra.... He has lent me a book called I
Married a Russian. ' [538] 'I Married a Russian has charmed us all. An educated English girl fell in
love with a Russian scientist at Cambridge Cavendish Lab. She married him and arrived in time to
enjoy bugs and lack of every comfort!' [540]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vere Hodgson Print: Book
'The writer [Ford Madox Ford] never saw Conrad read any book of memoirs except
those of Maxime Ducamp and the Correspondence of Flaubert; those we read daily
together over a space of years. But somewhere in the past Conrad had read every
imaginable and unimaginable volume of politician's memoirs, Mme de Campan, the
Duc d'Audiffret Pasquier, Benjamin Constant, Karoline Bauer, Sir Horace Rumbold,
Napoleon the Great, Napoleon III, Benjamin Franklin, Assheton Smith, Pitt, Chatham,
Palmerston, Parnell,the late Queen Victoria, Dilke, Morley [...] There was no memoir
of all these that he had missed or forgotten—down to "Il Principe" or the letters of
Thomas Cromwell. He could sugddenly produce an incident from the life of Lord
Shaftesbury and work it into "Nostromo" [...].'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The writer [Ford Madox Ford] never saw Conrad read any book of memoirs except
those of Maxime Ducamp and the Correspondence of Flaubert; those we read daily
together over a space of years. But somewhere in the past Conrad had read every
imaginable and unimaginable volume of politician's memoirs, Mme de Campan, the
Duc d'Audiffret Pasquier, Benjamin Constant, Karoline Bauer, Sir Horace Rumbold,
Napoleon the Great, Napoleon III, Benjamin Franklin, Assheton Smith, Pitt, Chatham,
Palmerston, Parnell,the late Queen Victoria, Dilke, Morley [...] There was no memoir
of all these that he had missed or forgotten—down to "Il Principe" or the letters of
Thomas Cromwell. He could suddenly produce an incident from the life of Lord
Shaftesbury and work it into "Nostromo" [...].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Do you know this modern six-shilling mummer of
"life," called Galsworthy? You may be aware that
he has recently published, among other novels, a
creation, "Beyond," and doubtless is now reaping
the fat royalty, for everyone in England reads
these false prophets now, and, of course, no-one
ever reads a war book. They are, indeed, rather
rotten form, and behind British masked convention
there rests a much deeper, sadder reason—but
this Galsworthy is positively jolly-well rottener!
I this evening finished "Pendennis": likewise read
a latter instalment of ["Beyond"]. I have read
previous ones, but this capped it. Violently
plunged from the dear old tale of egotistical Pen,
ludicrous Foker, and good and saintly Helen and
Laura ... into this shrieking twentieth-century
sordidness of intrigue, seduction, and rampant
infidelity ... Gad, I am sickened and
everlastingly fed-up with this Galsworthy ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wainwight Merrill Print: Book
'I have spoken of his affection for Dickens. Trollope he liked. Thackeray I
think not over much, though he had a due regard for such creations as Major
Pendennis. Meredith's characters were to him "seven feet high," and his style
too inflated. He admired Hardy's poetry. He always spoke with appreciation
of Howells, especially of the admirable "Rise of Silas Lapham". His
affectionate admiration for Stephen Crane we know from his introduction to
Thomas Beer's biography of that gifted writer. Henry James in his middle
period--the Henry James of "Daisy Miller", "The Madonna of the Future",
"Greville Fane", "The Real Thing", "The Pension Beaurepas"--was precious to
him. But of his feeling for that delicate master, for Anatole France, de
Maupassant, Daudet, and Turgenev, he has written in his "Notes on Life and
Letters". I remember too that he had a great liking for those two very
different writers, Balzac and Mérimée. Of philosophy he had read a good
deal, but on the whole spoke little. Schopenhauer used to give him
satisfaction twenty years and more ago, and he liked both the personality
and the writings of William James.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Mr Joseph Conrad, the author, writes: I don’t remember any child’s book. I
don’t think I ever read any; the first book I remember distinctly is Hugo’s
"Travailleurs de la Mer" which I read at the age of seven. But within the last
two years I’ve participated in my son’s (age 5) course of reading, and I share
his tastes – in prose, Grimm and Andersen; in verse, Lear.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'The latest volume of M.Anatole France purports, by the declaration of its title-
page, to contain several profitable narratives. The story of Crainquebille's
encounter with human justice stands at the head of them; a tale of a well-
bestowed charity closes the book wih the touch of playful irony characteristic
of the writer ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'It's no end good to think you like the book ["The Dark Flower"].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'In the evenings we have cosy suppers in the
drawing-room, with little tables in front of the
fire. Sometimes we work, sometimes read and talk.
The other night Mrs. [McKendrick] read to us Like
English Gentlemen, the story of Scott's
expedition as told to his little son. Last Sunday we
had a great evening with Newbolt's poems, which I
introduced them to. They seem finer every time one
reads them.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Dunlop Smith Print: Book
'We are now on board ship and expect to have four or
five days of it. It does seem a pity to have got so
near home and be unable to get nearer. Still, I have
heard the pipes playing last night, some of their
tunes "Highland Laddie," the "Barren Rocks," etc.,
being most appropriate ... Have just read The
Right Stuff by Ian Hay. Excellent! I shall write
Bisset to send it to you as an advance Birthday
present!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Dunlop Smith Print: Book
'Since leaving Oxford I have had quite a little
opportunity for reading and have read all kinds of
things, some of the better books being: Conan
Doyle's "Micah Clarke" and part of "Martin
Chuzzlewit", one or two of Alexander Dumas' tales,
two humorous books by George Birmingham about small
Irish villages, and one or two of Bernard Shaw's
plays. I am still doing dual control on B.E. 2b
machines which are quite out of date for military
purpose and were obsolete even before the war ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roderick Ward Maclennan Print: Book
'Since leaving Oxford I have had quite a little
opportunity for reading and have read all kinds of
things, some of the better books being: Conan
Doyle's "Micah Clarke" and part of "Martin
Chuzzlewit", one or two of Alexander Dumas' tales,
two humorous books by George Birmingham about small
Irish villages, and one or two of Bernard Shaw's
plays. I am still doing dual control on B.E. 2b
machines which are quite out of date for military
purpose and were obsolete even before the war ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roderick Ward Maclennan Print: Book
'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
'For lighter reading we had the Shah's Diary, a
work whose child-like simplicity admitted of but
one interpretation. I never got through very much
of it, but I did read far enough to see that the
royal author did not consider himself to be bound
by the ordinary rules of literary production. He
was accustomed in particular to pass from one
subject to another with a rapidity which was
almost breathless. The book began somewhat after
this fashion: "In the month of Sha'ban, God looked
with extraordinary clemency upon the world; the
crops stood high in the fields, and plenty was
showered upon his fortunate people by the hand of
Allah. I mounted my horse and proceeded to the
review..."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Ahmed and I talked together and read the Quran,
when he would put on his tarbush, put out his
cigarette, and be careful that the Book should not
be touched except with clean hands nor laid aside
under any other book.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Doreen Ingrams Print: Book, Read in Arabic
'We set off early along a dry river-bed green with
date palms on either bank, pursued by thousands of
flies which we could not get rid off until we
reached the colder climate of the plateaux [...]
we halted for lunch while it was still quite
early, and their beduin spread out carpets on the
sandy river bed in the shade of a large rock, and
placed cushions for our backs. I realized then
that the Hadhramis had a better idea about travel
comfort than cluttered-up safari-minded Europeans,
for it was all so simple and yet so adequate.
Seiyid Salim inhaled long puffs from the hubble-
bubble while Seiyid Hamid read aloud an ode to a
railway train from a book of poems, and so the
time passed pleasantly until our lunch of rice and
dried shark was ready. This was followed by green
tea.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Doreen Ingrams Print: Book, Read in Arabic
'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
'We continued riding towards Leijun over the flat,
stony plateau with scarcely a shrub to break the
monotony. It was so monotonous that I read an
"Argosy" Magazine to pass the time as I rode along
on my camel.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Doreen Ingrams Print: Serial / periodical
'An imaginative aunt who, for my ninth birthday,
sent a copy of the "Arabian Nights", was, I
suppose, the original cause of trouble. Unfostered
and unnoticed, the little flame so kindled fed me
secretly on dreams. Chance, such as the existence
of a Syrian missionary near my home, nourished it;
and Fate, with long months of illness and leisure,
blew it to a blaze bright enough to light my way
through labyrinths of Arabic, and eventually to
land me on the coast of Syria at the end of 1927.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
'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
'Here, owing to the fact that I had not yet
discovered the depths of my Philosopher's
incompetence, and we spent three weary days,
relieved only by "The Pilgrim's Progress" which I
happened to have with me and by visits from the
village notables.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
'As we sat waiting for dinner and discussing
religion, our first hostile impressions were
gradually smoothed away. I recited the opening
chapter of the Quran and proved myself less
ignorant than had been supposed: a translation of
the Lord's Prayer established the essential unity
of religion, to the satisfaction even of the thin
little Mirza from Medina: and a short discussion
on history produced out of the bottom of a chest a
Persian translation of Sir John Malcolm's 'History
of Persia', which the Agha studies on winter
evenings.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
'As we sat waiting for dinner and discussing
religion, our first hostile impressions were
gradually smoothed away. I recited the opening
chapter of the Quran and proved myself less
ignorant than had been supposed: a translation of
the Lord's Prayer established the essential unity
of religion, to the satisfaction even of the thin
little Mirza from Medina: and a short discussion
on history produced out of the bottom of a chest a
Persian translation of Sir John Malcolm's 'History
of Persia', which the Agha studies on winter
evenings.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
'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
'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
'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
'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
'Then Yusuf, who is ten, read out the Gospel. He
stood straight with the lighted candle in his hand,
his face full of seriousness, an impressive little
figure under the stars [...] In the childish
Arabic, the old story came with a new and homely
grace; and we listened, moved and silent, standing
like living altars, holding our lighted candles.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
'When we had looked over the crumbling edge, the
population took us to their mosque, in whose ruin
a wooden minbar with date carved upon it gave the
presumable age of Sanahiye's prosperity. It
belonged to the year AH 693 (1293 AD). The script
was not completely clear and the schoolmaster came
to help, an ancient man nearly blind and all grey
to his sparse chisel beard and formless shirt, and
the agate bead or Sawwama he wore round his neck
against toothache. The population looked at him
with affectionate veneration while he pronounced
the words after me, pretending to read them
himself: indeed, he was almost too blind to read
anything at all, but doubtless knew enough of the
Quran by heart to keep his flock in their
appointed ways.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
'In the evening I would take one or the other of my
companions [...] to the harims I knew, to meet
again the sayyid's lovely wife, and the singers
from Ghurfa, and the Learned Sherifa, affectionate
as ever and very pretty with her full red lips and
dark eyebrows, in spite of enormous black-rimmed
spectacles on the very tip of her nose. Her plump
little hands still waived about in explanation of
such exciting things as the difference between a
noun and a verb, or the relations of the heart to
the five senses [...] in her own house she showed
us, reverently and without touching it, for she
had not washed her hands, a page from the Quran
copied on parchment ("the skin of a gazelle") in
beautiful Cufic, written - and who would
contradict here? - by the hand of 'Ali Abu Talib
himself, and sent as a present to her brother by
the Imam Iahya of Yemen.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Manuscript: Sheet, Parchment
'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
'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
'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: Gertrude Caton-Thompson Print: Serial / periodical, weekly magazine
'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: Gertrude Caton-Thompson Print: Serial / periodical, weekly magazine
'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
'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
'I enjoy this peaceful interval of sickness and read
the works of Jane Austen, released from a fear of
death which, ever present in this land of unknown
diseases, seemed for a day or two to be creeping
near.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
'Hasan, smoking wisps of paper filled with green
tobacco, walked on reciting poems composed by his
father about Harold and the R.A.F. and chucked his
long brown fingers to explain the verses to us and
to the donkey behind him [12 lines of verse are
translated and quoted by Stark, with an
interruption from her midway, showing this is a
reactive listening experience]'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
When I reached home I found a man with a qasida in
praise of Harold in his hand. 'He has broken the
horns of the wicked', it says. I wonder if this has
any relationship with the Bible phrase: 'His horn
shall be exalted?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Manuscript: Sheet
I have spent a meandering day taking last pictures
in the town with the Qadhi, who read out the carved
inscriptions of the tombs, and standing with
upturned palms while he chanted his prayer for the
dead, smiled in his gentle way as I said 'Amen'.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
It is a huge citadel, nearly a mile in length I
should guess, on a low and stony ridge going east
and west [...] the inscription is inside the
southern gateway and tells how the governor of the
fortress rebuilt the wall with stone and wood and
binding (mortar), and calls it by the name of
Meifa'a, which has not changed. I sat and copied
and kept a running flow of conversation to hold my
crowd in hand, telling them the Arabic names of the
letters as I wrote them down.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
Great black blocks, roughly cut, show the seawall
protecting the citadel's approach; and on a ledge
east of the causeway the two inscriptions in the
rock are clear as on the day that they were cut
[...] as through a rift in clouds, they show for a
moment the history of Cana in the past. The
citadel itself was called Mawiya, and the Governor
of Cana here, in the shorter inscription, recorded
his presence. The longer one was dated and tells
how the tribes of Himyar, having made an
expedition into Abyssinia, were harassed by the
Abyssinians in their turn; with their lands
invaded, their king killed, they shut themselves
up in this fortress, and restored its single
gateway, its cisterns and walls in the year A.D.
625 or thereabout, many centuries after the
Periplus speaks of the ancient harbour [...] these
things I turned idly over while copying out the
inscriptions through the quiet solitary hours of
the afternoon.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
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
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
'Thanks ever so much for the book ["Father Archangel of Scotland, and Other
Essays"]. I have read it once so far. The more I read you the more I admire. This is a
strong word but not a bit too strong for the sensation it is supposed to describe.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Thanks for Cyrano. I haven't read it yet but will do so before the sun rises again.'
[A week later Conrad wrote: 'Je ne suis bon qu'à lire Cyrano and such like coglionerie']
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
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
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
Last night M. Besse read Anatole France—the
charming tale of Celestin and Amicus, the hermit
and the fawn.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
Last night M. Besse read Anatole France—the
charming tale of Celestin and Amicus, the hermit
and the fawn.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Antonin Besse Print: Book
'As you say, Mother, the war does not look like
ending for a long time yet. You never want to read
the Daily Mail. It is almost a pro German paper.
There are things in it today which are misleading.
It says the Germans are brave and worthy fighters
and that our men say so. Most of the men who I
have spoken to, and they are a good many, say the
opposite. It would be foolish to say none of them
are brave. The paper is always down on the
Government. All Governments make mistakes.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Newspaper
'Thanks for sending the socks and gloves
received yesterday, and for the letter which
came the day before. The socks are quite the
thing, and the gloves came in good time, for I
was glad of them last night and today ... This
morning I was on Parade as usual with the
others at 6.30. We were dismissed till 8.30. In
the meantime I had my wash, shave and breakfast
and a sharp walk with a pal. At 8.30 me and
another were told off to clear out our wash
house, which is done every morning. The basins
and boards were frozen ... Then with another
oldish chap I was given a room to scrub and
also the skirting boards, cupboards and doors.
There was a big black stove to black lead too
... There was a lot to do and it was nearing
dinner time before it was finished ... At three
we were sent to our "apartments" but I went to
the Church Institute and read the "Weekly News"
and "Sunday Pictorial" which had just arrived.
What do you think of this Sunday's occupation?
We are doing this sort of thing every day now.
I am getting an expert scrubber, but like the
rest I am "fed up" with the sort of thing.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Newspaper
'Thanks for sending the socks and gloves
received yesterday, and for the letter which
came the day before. The socks are quite the
thing, and the gloves came in good time, for I
was glad of them last night and today ... This
morning I was on Parade as usual with the
others at 6.30. We were dismissed till 8.30. In
the meantime I had my wash, shave and breakfast
and a sharp walk with a pal. At 8.30 me and
another were told off to clear out our wash
house, which is done every morning. The basins
and boards were frozen ... Then with another
oldish chap I was given a room to scrub and
also the skirting boards, cupboards and doors.
There was a big black stove to black lead too
... There was a lot to do and it was nearing
dinner time before it was finished ... At three
we were sent to our "apartments" but I went to
the Church Institute and read the "Weekly News"
and "Sunday Pictorial" which had just arrived.
What do you think of this Sunday's occupation?
We are doing this sort of thing every day now.
I am getting an expert scrubber, but like the
rest I am "fed up" with the sort of thing.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Newspaper
'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: Thomas Wainwright Print: Newspaper
'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
'You will be wondering why I am not writing. I
have not found the time for several days to
write letters. Other things have taken my spare
hours, or I have felt tired or lazy ... On
Friday night last there was a splendid concert
in the hut. It was absolutely fine, and we were
laughing nearly all the way through. It was
given by men from the Convalescent Camp. They
had painted their own scenery ... The
Advertisers have arrived alright. Mr Long's
articles were very interesting to me. I can't
think who that Tompkins was, who was drowned.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Newspaper
'It is now about 2am. Yesterday evening when I got up I discovered a parcel waiting for me. I
opened it in semi darkness and was not able to make out all the contents, but there is an awful
lot of good things ... I have read one of the Advertisers, and noticed the death of Mr Hodnett's son. What part was he in? Probably there have been a few deaths of people round about that I do
not know of, but the Advertisers have given me a lot of news.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Newspaper
'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
'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
'Young Corbishley's letter in the Advertiser was
interesting about his march into Palestine. I
wrote to Mr Corbishley a week or so back for the
address of the ones out there. I must write to Mrs
Davies the baker! I will send a PC of the place I
now work in. We are allowed to do so, I believe.
Have this last few days been reading a splendid
book by Baroness Orczy, called "The Tangled
Skein." If you come across it, read it. The boy at
the piano is now playing an old Dreamy Waltz ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Newspaper
'This afternoon I was off duty, so went to the
cliffs on the other side of the village. Got down
behind a hedge in the shade and read "Cycling".
Many German and Chinese workmen were not far
away.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Serial / periodical
'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
'Am feeling in a happier frame of mind than I
have been for a long time, for a letter from
Nora came at tea telling me the best news that
I could possibly hear, that your Doctor says
that you will really get well ... I wonder if
you wile away much time by reading. You should
do, for there are lovely books which I have had
some happy hours with, even out here. Whatever
you do, don't get thinking hard, unless those
thoughts are happy ones. I have this evening
finished a beautiful book called "A Welsh
Singer" by Allen Raine. I feel that I must get
hold of more of her books. Most of Baroness
Orczy's are fine too. If you come across an
extra good story, just tell me the name of the
Author. Perhaps I can get it here ... It is now
late and I must go to bed. Have had a nice
basin of soup.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Book
'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
' ... this is being written in a cellar which
is my present billet. The house which stood
overhead was rendered a ruin a long time ago
and the bricks etc make a thick covering
through which a shell would hardly penetrate
... There are many houses round here, but all
ruins, and not a civilian anywhere, with one
exception, a French boy has just come at 1.30
with the Continental Daily Mail of yesterday,
printed in Paris. It gives the war news up to
the previous night ... Thanks for the papers, I
have read them all ... Have had a good deal of
time to myself since leaving the Hospital, and
would not care to go back again but I have not
been through anything yet. The grass is long
and rough all round these ruined houses, and in
the old shell holes, and it is alive with
grasshoppers ... The electric light has just
gone off, but I've a candle. Have nothing to do
this afternoon, so I will go and read my 2
½ paper and then perhaps have a nap.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Newspaper
'In literature it is only in Vaughan, Traherne, and
other mystics, that I find any adequate expression
of that perpetual rapturous delight in nature and
my own existence that I experienced at that period.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
'Prayer meeting 9 am. Litany & Sermon 10 am. Child
of Boranzina died at 1 pm. Read "A God of
Deliverance" by Saunders. It filled my eyes with
tears & humbled me greatly. Heard that fighting is
going on in the west of the colony now.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Buchanan Reginald Westgate Print: Book
'St Patrick's Day. Read An Algonquin Bride by Alan
Wetherall.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Buchanan Reginald Westgate Print: 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
'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
'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
'One of the books I read then for the first time
was White's "Selborne", given to me by an old
friend of the family, a merchant in Buenos Ayres
[sic], who had been accustomed to stay a week or
two with us with us once a year when he took his
holiday. He had been on a visit to Europe, and one
day, he told me, when in London on the eve of his
departure, he was in a bookshop, and seeing this
book on the counter and glancing at a page or two,
it occurred to him that it was just the right
thing to get for that bird-loving boy out on the
pampas. I read and re-read it many times, for
nothing so good of its kind had ever come to me,
but it did not reveal to me the secret of my own
feeling for Nature [...] I found it in other
works: in Brown's "Philosophy" — another of the
ancient tomes on our shelves, and in an old volume
containing appreciations of the early nineteenth
century; also in other works.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
'I had to confess [to his recently returned elder
brother] that I had not read a line of his
[Darwin's] work, that with the exception of
Draper's "History of Civilisation" which had come
by chance in my way, I had, during all those five
years, read nothing but the old books which had
always been on our shelves. He said he knew
Draper's "History" and that it was not the sort of
book for me to read at present. I wanted a
different history, with animals as well as men in
it. He had a store of books with him, and would
lend me "The Origin of Species" to begin with.
When I read and returned the book, and he was
eager to hear my opinion, I said it had not hurt
me in the least, since Darwin had, to my mind,
only succeeded in disproving his own theory with
his argument from artificial selection [...] He
advised me to read it again, to read and consider
it carefully with the sole purpose of getting at
the truth.[...]"as a naturalist". I read it again
in the way he had counselled and then refused to
think any more on the subject.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
'During my sojourn on the Rio Negro letters and
papers reached me only at rare intervals. On one
occasion I passed nearly two months without seeing
a newspaper. I remember, when at the end of that
time one was put before me, I snatched it up
eagerly, and began hastily scanning the columns,
or column-headings rather, in search of startling
items from abroad, and that after a couple of
minutes I laid it down again to listen to someone
talking in the room and that eventually I left the
room without reading the paper at all [...]. I was
conscious on quitting the room, where I had cast
aside the unread newspaper, that the old interest
in the affairs of the world at large had in a
great measure forsaken me[...]'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Newspaper
'We read little; my companion has never learnt
letters, and I, less fortunate in that respect,
having only been able to discover one book in the
house, a Spanish "Libro de Misa", beautifully
printed in red and black letters, and bound in
scarlet morocco. I take this book and read, until
he, tired of listening to prayers, however
beautiful, challenges me to a game of cards.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
‘...the Court Journal (which by the way, seems to be very good – for nothing – )...The Court
Journal must pay uncommon well, before I will rank myself among its familiars. It seems to be a
mere repository of vulgar tattle and fifth-rate gentility. [Thomas] Hood is seldom to be
recognized in its pages. In short, I would as soon have nothing to do with it.’
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Serial / periodical
‘You probably have little time for literary labours or I should advise you to write for the
Quarterly Theological. It is a very staunch, orthodox work – not ultra in politics, and seldom or
never contains any thing which your character would suffer from having imputed to you. I know
no other periodical, in which as a Clergyman you ought to dabble’.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Serial / periodical
‘I am sorry for the delay which doubtless is owing to the confounded Politics that they stuff the
Magazine with, to the great annoyance of Ladies and Liberals; and not much to the satisfaction
of sensible Tories, for they are often so coarse, abusive, and inconsistent, that they cannot do
much good to the cause they profess to support. This is justified on the plea that the So call’d
liberals are worse – but they forget that the democratic publications are calculated for the
Tap-room, while contrary opinions will be read or listened to only in the parlour. Aristocracy
without gentility is an insult to the People.’
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Serial / periodical
‘Thanks for Swing and the Athenaeum which is very welcome, and well worth Two-pence’.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Serial / periodical
‘You probably saw the Tea-table in B[lackwood's Magazine]. but it does not look so well in print
as it sounded when Elizabeth Warde listen’d to it. Ladies praise makes one overrate one’s
nothings sadly. However, it was not too bad to keep company with Delta and other periodic
rhimers in the same luminous miscellany. One cannot select one’s company in a stage-coach.’
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Serial / periodical
‘I am sorry that the Athenaeum is no longer publish’d in such a shape that I can get it, for it is
well worth two-pence. I can hardly say as much for the Carlisle Patriot, which is a dear two-
penny worth of waste-paper at a fortnight old, seeing it is nothing but waste-paper “in its newest
days.” Still it is pleasant to receive any thing which you have handled.’
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Newspaper, Serial / periodical
‘I have an opportunity of seeing papers enough at Mr. Withington’s, the present occupant of Allan
Bank, a most worthy Englishman and Tory of Falstaffian dimensions, who has been extremely
kind and hospitable to your humble servant.’
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Newspaper
‘I know very few people in Leeds. ... The walls of course now plastered with Election puffs and
squibs, the newspapers rancorous against one another, but, as far as I can see, the business
does not create half so much private dissension, as did the far-famed Westmorland Election.’
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Poster
‘The Poems [Hartley’s 1833 Poems], I believe, have not done so far amiss. The Review in the
Quarterly I must thank you for. It is far too laudatory for my stomach, and I have pretty strong
digestion. But why, in the Devil’s name cannot they review my book, gentle or semple [sic],
without a fling at poor Wordsworth...’.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Serial / periodical
‘I received the Quarterly [Review] from Mr. Murray. If praise could do me any good, there is
enough of it: but I know nothing of that “overweening worship of Wordsworth” which I am
warned against. I admire, nay revere, what is great, excellent and beautiful. And excellent in
Wordsworth - that is five sixths of his works - but I am not, and never was a convert to his
peculiar sect of poetry. ...’
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Serial / periodical
'You have not perhaps seen the new "Gentleman’s
Magazine" since it resumed publication. This is the first number—it was sent to me by the Editor
Mr Bullen, who asks me to contribute. I rather like it, and think you will be interested in the
history of
the magazine, by the Editor perhaps. There is also
a good article on our old friend Samuel Pepys his
library.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Serial / periodical
'Very many thanks for the book ["The Country
House"] and its dedication—it makes me very
proud. I received it on Friday and began reading
it straight off, but it was too long to finish at
one sitting so went on till Saturday morning. I
should have liked it better if there had been a
second volume of three hundred pages to have kept
me over Sunday in "A Country House". Some day when
the weather grows warmer and longer days give one
more leisure I hope to read it again in slower
fashion as the better to enjoy your writing. The
manner is very charming and is your own: this is
like "The Man of Property", a Galsworthy book—a
curiously refreshing harmonious piece of work.' [
hence follow 20 lines about certain characters in
"The Country House".]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
'Many thanks for your Hill book. ["On Cambrian and
Cumbrian Hills"] I had meant to thank you
verbally on the evening of your annual meeting
last Friday but it came about on that very day I
was compelled by aches to have some teeth
extracted and did not feel fit to go out that
evening in consequence. I have meanwhile kept your
book and others on the country lately sent to me,
to read when I get back [i.e. to the country] very
soon. I have glanced though the chapter on wild
life: of course you are right about the Raven and
I was wrong in saying what I did about its
rarity. But there is one thing in that charming
chapter with which I am not in agreement with you
and you know what that is. I do not want to see
the large rapacious birds and beasts removed.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
'I owe you my best thanks for the gift of Mrs
Cornford’s book of poems which I am delighted to
have. I have been away in Wiltshire or would have
thanked you sooner. I have just seen in today’s
"Morning Post" a highly appreciative notice of the
poems and I hear from Edward Thomas that he has
sent a good review of the book to the
"Chronicle", and if there should be more notices as
good the poems will have a first rate send off. I
was glad because from my first sight of Mrs
Cornford’s poems I was convinced that she had an
original and beautiful note, and I should not like
to hear from the professional poetry-teachers that
I was mistaken.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Newspaper
'Many thanks for your new book: I see that there are
many things that I have read before, and shall be
glad to read again in book form. Last evening I read
your poignant incident—revolution in the "Nation"—those poor devils!’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book, Serial / periodical
'Many thanks for your new book: I see that there are
many things that I have read before, and shall be
glad to read again in book form. Last evening I read
your poignant incident—revolution in the "Nation"—those poor devils!’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Serial / periodical
'Tell Sylvia that when I came back [from Norfolk a
week before] I read the rest of "Uncle Paul’s
Education" and that though there are beautiful
things in it and a beautiful idea running through
the whole of it I don’t altogether like it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
The Daily Telegraph interview with Mussolini makes
me sick. What fools they are. Every word M. said
was just vague nonsense: anyone who knows Italians
can see how he just thinks us fools to be diddled
till Sanctions are got rid of and then he has a
clear hand - and one can read it in every line:
and the D.T. distorts it all into all sorts of
peaceful promises.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Newspaper
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
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
I have just been reading a rather nice version of
Genesis in Arabic. It says that Gabriel was sent
to the Earth to bring a bit of clay for the making
of Adam: but the Earth refused to give any: and
then Michael was sent, with the same result: then
Allah sent the angel of death who snatched the
clay without asking, and brought it back in three
different colours from which the human races are
derived.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
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
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
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
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
Meanwhile I have been enjoying myself reading
Anatole France and the philosophy of M. Jérôme
Coignard. What a charming creation. 'Il meprise
les hommes avec tendresse'. It is all full of
wisdom and human kindness — and does one good to
read. What I like about Anatole France is that
with all his biting wit he always recognizes and
loves real goodness when he sees it and I don't
think anyone has more endearing simple good
people.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
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
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
‘I have read [Henry] Taylor’s Philip Van Artevelde. It is admirable.’
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Book
I meanwhile have been doing nothing except read
Jane Austen. I have stopped seeing people for a
week, as it hurts the voice to talk much, but had
one visit from the Ba Surra of Do'an, very
affectionate and inviting me for ten days or a
fortnight.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
I have read the whole of Jane Austen and think of
beginning over again. What a perfect woman - not
only a writer - and what a sham she makes all this
female emancipation seem! Nothing that is not
genuine can stand this primitive severity. But
Jane would have been quite at home and talked tea-
table gossip with the ladies of Huraidha.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
I have read the whole of Jane Austen and think of
beginning over again. What a perfect woman - not
only a writer - and what a sham she makes all this
female emancipation seem! Nothing that is not
genuine can stand this primitive severity. But
Jane would have been quite at home and talked tea-
table gossip with the ladies of Huraidha.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
I have read the whole of Jane Austen and think of
beginning over again. What a perfect woman - not
only a writer - and what a sham she makes all this
female emancipation seem! Nothing that is not
genuine can stand this primitive severity. But
Jane would have been quite at home and talked tea-
table gossip with the ladies of Huraidha.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
I have read the whole of Jane Austen and think of
beginning over again. What a perfect woman - not
only a writer - and what a sham she makes all this
female emancipation seem! Nothing that is not
genuine can stand this primitive severity. But
Jane would have been quite at home and talked tea-
table gossip with the ladies of Huraidha.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
I have read the whole of Jane Austen and think of
beginning over again. What a perfect woman - not
only a writer - and what a sham she makes all this
female emancipation seem! Nothing that is not
genuine can stand this primitive severity. But
Jane would have been quite at home and talked tea-
table gossip with the ladies of Huraidha.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
I have read the whole of Jane Austen and think of
beginning over again. What a perfect woman - not
only a writer - and what a sham she makes all this
female emancipation seem! Nothing that is not
genuine can stand this primitive severity. But
Jane would have been quite at home and talked tea-
table gossip with the ladies of Huraidha.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
I should like you to read the long article in
the December number of Blackwood’s Magazine
although it costs 2/6. It gives a very
excellent history of the pleasant war and pre-
war little habits of our friends the Bosches.
It is called “For Women” and is written by a
woman. If you do get it I should like you to
keep it for me as it is the best thing of its
kind I have read, and it will be a gentle
reminder of what we owe the Hun in the days
when some people will have forgotten there ever
was a war.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arthur Morris Print: Serial / periodical
'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
'When I took up the "[English] Review" I couldn't
help saying (with a sigh) "Yet another gorgeous
laudition of Francis Thompson—and by Austin
Harrison—too bad!" But I soon found it a perfect
contrast to all the others which had come in my way.
[...] your review is as good as ever, in spite of
the weak verse this month, one hungers for another
Masefield.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Serial / periodical
'I read the "Observer" one [a review of "My Life in
Sarawak"] on Saturday, and that I do like because it
confirms my own opinion of the book. I daresay it
was by Sir F. [Frank] S. [Swettenham].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Newspaper
'I have just come from seeing Dr. Tom. More
medicines! We had a very long talk and when we
came out to the waiting room there was an old
patient of his—Sister somebody, I didn't catch
the name, reading "My Life in Sarawak". "Oh what
an interesting book!" she said, and "I take a
particular interest in Sarawak because my parents
knew the first Rajah".
I have got the Blue Book with the full debate on
Plumage second reading, should you want to read
it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
'Humourous [sic] & Pathetic. Worth reading.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
'Charming'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
'Sept. Nov. Very interesting'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
'Read Betrand Russell all morning, wrote, ate
apples—applied more work NCCL [National Council
for Civil Liberties]. 2 o'clock met John
[Rodker]. Walked to Dorking. Told each other
classic stories. Tea & Home in evening, told
our confessions with as few lies as possible
... Supper together, went over to Trevelyans
... Emma & peace. Then a policeman to
see registration cards, especially John's. Mrs
Trevelyan saved us all, engaging him in light
conversation. Card given back without comment.
More Emma to sooth our nerves. Tried to
appear "calm and well-bred." Doubtful success.
Walked home with him along the cypress road.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Franeis Butts Print: Book
'Dec. Not finished.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
'June (-July with Winnie and Edith)'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
'...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'
'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
'"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
'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
'Tell Arnie [brother] that at Kidwelly I stayed at the Pelican
Hotel, where the prices charged me were only 2/3 of those
given in the C.T.C. handbook'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edward Lawrence Print: Serial / periodical, Handbook/Gazette
'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
'Will you if you write to Carcassonne tell me what is happening
in Turkey: the rubbish here that they call newspapers say one
day that movements are taking place among the people, & a
revolution is taking place, or that all is calm and the sultan
drank tea as usual at 6 o'clock on the terrace: I see today he's
proclaimed a constitution and his intention to withdraw it: do
let me have some solid fact if there is anything in it: it might
well be important.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edward Lawrence Print: Newspaper
'To my joy there was a book-case in the room and soon I was
engrossed in a book which I later found was Ian Hay's "The
First Hundred Thousand" a fictionalised account of the
formation of the Expeditionary Force which went to France in
the 1914-18 war. I was all too soon interrupted, however, and
taken out and put in the hearse beside the coffin, since there
was no room in the carriages, and the insertion of my small
bottom would have made it less comfortable for the occupants
of one side of the carriage. Mother, who had waited outside to
see the funeral depart, was horrified to see this done, but I
didn't mind.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hymie Fagan Print: Book
'In Aunt-Judy 1885'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
'Essays on Pitt, E. [sic] of Chatham'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
'Agatha's Husband'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
'Gold Else'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
'Essay on Addison'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
'Lanoe Falconer, Cecilia de Noel'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
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
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
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
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
Except Shakespeare, who grew from childhood as
part of myself, nearly every classic has come with
this same shock of almost intolerable enthusiasm:
Virgil, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Dante, Chaucer
and Milton and Goethe, Leopardi and Racine, Plato
and Pascal and St Augustine, they have appeared,
widely scattered through the years, every one like
a 'rock in a thirsty land', that makes the world
look different in its shadow.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Unknown
One can say of the more reticent British that, as
you come to know them, some are discovered and
some are found out. My father was of those who
are discovered. 'The Times' came to him
regularly, and he had a small shelf of books
which he read over and over, admitting a newcomer
now and then, after much deliberation. The whole
of George Borrow and of Charles Darwin, Hodson of
Hodson's Horse, Buckle's 'History of
Civilization', White's 'Selborne', Benvenuto
Cellini, and Sismondi's Italian Republics are
what I remember.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Stark Print: Newspaper
In London too the usual life with Viva Jeyes in
Grove End Road was mixed with mornings in the
British Museum, reading 'Brunow and Dussaud' on
Roman roads in Moab and Edom; I spent time with
Joan Ker buying a prismatic compass; and became
aware of archaeology from the air, the discovery
of sand-buried sites in Iraq and Transjordan.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
'dear hemingway, (i have cut off the top of thumb with a sickle and so cannot put down the capital
stop) thank you very much for the book on bull rings i have been absorbing instruction from it
ever since last night when I got it and shall shortly be able to talk like an aficionado'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford Print: Book
'I have now had your manuscript for some days and have read it with a great deal of interest.'
Thence follows a page and a half of constructive and gentle criticism to this unidentified writer, and
an invitation to visit if on holiday in France.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford Manuscript: Unknown
'But if you wanted to please me you could do what you could to log roll René Béhaine who, in the
eyes of Léon Daudet and myself and other worthy people , passes for the greatest living novelist in
the world—who also has been writing one masterpiece for upwards of twenty years and who,
heaven help us, is quite as unpopular as either you or I.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford Print: Book
'I read both of your novels with pleasure and admiration for the handling—particularly the one
about the castle which I have lent to an appreciative American so that I can't remember—oh yes,
THEY CAME TO THE CASTLE. That seemed to me to be extremely skilfully worked out.' Thence
follow a few lines of comment on Bertram's subject matter.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford Print: Book
'I have now read—but indeed I did a week or so ago—"Men Adrift" with a great deal of pleasure
—pleasure because it was fun reading it and being able to think that you have found a form that
is really suited to you and have managed your subject with a great deal of skill. It is certainly a
great advance on anything else you have ever done and I really congratulate you. The book is
full of good things, moving steadily forward altogether—and, if that progression of effect doesn't
end in final illumination that is, I suppose, because there is no illumination to be found in the
state of being adrift.' Hence follows a page of constructive criticism.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford Print: Book
'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
'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
'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
'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
'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
'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
'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
'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
'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
'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
'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 Manuscript: Unknown
'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 Manuscript: Unknown
'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
'A New Antigone'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
'Notes on Colossians'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Unknown
'Notes on Thessalonians'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Unknown
'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
'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
'Then went to Ismal’s house. The woman with whom he is living (and who wants to be baptized),
though very unwell under the effects of fever, came out of her house and sat in the yard to hear
us. I read to her and to Narramsamy, (a man living in Ismal’s house) the first ten verses of the
fifth chapter of Matthew and spoke to them for more than half-an-hour.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: David Fenn Print: Book
'In the evening, went to Chimatomby's shop. He read the 19th Chapter of the Gospel of Luke to
me.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Patrick Beaton Print: Book
'In the evening, went to Chimatomby's shop. He
read the 19th chapter of the Gospel of Luke to
me, and I spoke on the parable of the talents.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Chimatomby Print: Book
'Then went to Ismal's house. The woman with whom he
is living (and who wants to be baptized), though
very unwell under the effects of a fever, came out
of her house and sat in the yard to hear us. I
read to her and to Narramsamy (a man living in
Ismal's house), the first ten verses of the Fifth
Chapter of Matthew, and spoke to them for more
than half-an-hour.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Narramsamy Print: Book
'Then went to Ismal's house. The woman with
whom he is living (and who wants to be baptized),
though very unwell under the effects of a fever, came
out of her house and sat in the yard to hear us. I
read to her and to Narramsamy (a man living in
Ismal's house), the first ten verses of the
Fifth
Chapter of Matthew, and spoke to them for more
than half-an-hour.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: [Woman living with Ismal] Print: Book
'This weeke I saw ye Directory, and an Ordinance of Parliamt [sic] to take away ye heavy burden of
ye booke of Common prayer in all ye parts of ye same'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Ralph Josselin
'I've been frightfully lazy today: it's been
too hot to do anything. Pater was a gem: he
brought my breakfast up about 9.30 and I didn't
get up until eleven. I read "Getting Together",
a pro-American little book by Ian Hay—he
has been out to America for the Government to
establish a feeling of goodwill and the book is
what he has discovered about the Yankees. Have
been reading Bulwer-Lytton's "Last Days of
Pompeii" this afternoon. It is awfully
interesting, especially as I have seen
Pompeii.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dora Willatt Print: Book
'I received your two letters on Wednesday and
Thursday mornings. I had not thought that your
love for me is as great as it is and that you
have loved me ever since you were at
Rydal—it is very beautiful to me, Cecil,
that you have loved me all these years ... No
dear, I won't leave it over till after the war.
I know that at the bottom of your heart you
don't want to. Do you remember in "The Knight
on Wheels" that Philip wanted to be Peg's
knight and to do something for his lady
love—won't it help you to think you are
fighting for me—I want to look upon you
as my knight.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dora Willatt Print: Book
'Every child was given a little volume called King
Edward's Realm, bound in imitation crimson
leather, which I found slow going. The fate of
books is strange. Perhaps it would be hard to get
a copy of it now though an immense number must
have been distributed through infant Britain. As
for reading, there was Little Folks, the Boy's Own
Paper, The Children of the New Forest, Fighting
the Flames, and plenty besides; but the book
appetite grew later.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Blunden Print: Serial / periodical
'Every child was given a little volume called King
Edward's Realm, bound in imitation crimson
leather, which I found slow going. The fate of
books is strange. Perhaps it would be hard to get
a copy of it now though an immense number must
have been distributed through infant Britain. As
for reading, there was Little Folks, the Boy's Own
Paper, The Children of the New Forest, Fighting
the Flames, and plenty besides; but the book
appetite grew later.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Blunden Print: Serial / periodical
'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
