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
"... but I do send by a carman two volumes of Alfieri's Life and Kirwan's Essay on Happiness, and the ... edition of Parent's Assistant, which with your leave, I present to your servant Richard."
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria Edgeworth Print: Book
Fanny Kemble, journal letter to Harriet St. Leger, 27 June 1835, listing 'the books just now lying on my table, all of which I have been reading lately':
'Alfieri's "Life", by himself, a curious and interesting work; Washington Irving's last book, "A Tour on the Prairies", rather an ordinary book, upon a not ordinary subject, but not without sufficiently interesting matter in it too; Dr. Combe's "Principles of Physiology"; and a volume of Marlowe's plays, containing "Dr. Faustus". I have just finished Hayward's Translation of Goethe's "Faust", and wanted to see the old English treatment of the subject. I have read Marlowe's play with more curiosity than pleasure. This is, after all, but a small sample of what I read, but if you remember the complexion of my studies when I was a girl at Heath Farm and read Jeremy Taylor and Byron together, I can only say that they are still apt to be of the same heterogenous quality. But my brain is kept in a certain state of activity by them, and that, I suppose, is one of the desirable results of reading.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Kemble Print: Book
'Read the life of Alfieri.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Print: Book
'Finish the life of Alfieri'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Print: Book
'Annabella was now reading Cowper's "Iliad" and annotating evey second line; she was studying Alfieri with the family-solicitor's daughter; for relaxation condescending to "Evelina". In "Evelina" she was disappointed, like a good many more of its readers - more perhaps than make the confession. There was study of Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge as well, for everyone was reading them... Annabella waded through "Madoc". She found some passages wearisome but was convinced that Southey would one day be ranked high "among the ancient poets".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke Print: Book
Mary Berry, Journal, 4 November 1811: 'In the evening Mrs. Damer and I read Alfieri in Italian -- but what Italian! so stuffed with Tuscanisms, so fraught with words immediately derived from the Latin, that it is hardly to be recognised as the language of Boccaccio, Machiavelli, and other Italian classics.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry and Anne Damer 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
'Thursday Oct -- 20th [...] After dinner read Political Justice [...] read Memoires of Voltaire -- &
the Life of Alfieri till late [...] I am much delighted with Alfieri -- He seems to have possessed
much genius & enthusiasm -- but certainly he was never very far from raving Mad -- the
anecdotes of his infancy are delightful'.
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
'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
'Read the Filippo of Alfieri'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Rosmunda - Polinice & Antigone of Alfieri'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Rosmunda - Polinice & Antigone of Alfieri'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Rosmunda - Polinice & Antigone of Alfieri'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy - & the Virginia of Alfieri - walk out in the evening - after tea S. reads L'Allegro and il penseroso to me'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'This is the Journal book of misfortunes - Read Livy - A great many of the plays of Alfieri - S writes - he reads Oedipus Tyrannos to me'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'read Saul - S. reads Malthus.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy - Alfieri's Agide - S. reads Malthus'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'finish the trajedies of Alfieri - Walk out with S. He reads Malthus & Cymbeline aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
[Mary's second reading list for 1818. Most volumes mentioned here are also mentioned in the journal so database entries are based on those references. An x denotes Percy Shelley having read the text too]
'M
Clarke's Travels
Hume's dissertation on the passions
Tristram Shandy - Sentimental Journey Letters & c
2 vols of Montaigne
Schlegel on the drama
Oeuvres de Moliere
Aristippes de Wieland
French trans. of Lucian
Mille et une nuits
Tragedies de Voltaire
Trajedies de Corneille
x Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
x Voyages du jeune Anacharsis
Ben Jonson's Comedies
Pope's Homer
Joseph Andrews - Gil Blas - x Corinne
Faublas
Italian
Pamela
x Aminta of Tasso
Monti's Tragedies
x Orlando Furioso
Giurusalemme [sic] Liberata
tragedies of Alfieri
x Inferno of Dante
Vita di Alfieri
Latin
x The Aenied [sic]
Terence's Comedies
2 books of Horace
10 books of Livy'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley 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
Wednesday 15 September 1920: 'Blessed with fine weather, I could look from my window, through the vine leaves, & see Lytton sitting in the deck chair reading Alfieri from a lovely vellum copy, dutifully looking out words. He wore a white felt hat, & the usual grey clothes; was long, & tapering as usual; looking so mild & so ironical, his beard just cut short [...] For my own encouragement, I may note that he praised the Voyage Out voluntarily; "[italics]extremely[end italics] good" it seemed to him on re-reading, especially the satire of the Dalloways.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lytton Strachey Print: Book
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
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
'Annabella was now [in 1812] reading Cowper's Iliad and annotating every second line; she was studying Alfieri with the family-solicitor's daughter; for relaxation condescending to Evelina. In Evelina she was disappointed [...] There was study of Southey, Wordsworth and Coleridge as well, for everyone was reading them'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella Milbanke and 'the family-solicitor's daughter' Print: Book