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

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Listings for Author:  

John Donne

  

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John Donne : LXXX Sermons

[Marginalia]

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge      Print: Book

  

John Donne : LXXX Sermons

[Marginalia]

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge      Print: Book

  

John Donne : 

'In 1926 [Catherine McMullen] was herself a workhouse laundress, struggling to improve her mind by reading T.P. and Cassell's Weekly. The magazine was full of literary gossip that made her aspire to be a writer, but she had no idea which books to read until she came across Elinor Glyn's The Career of Catherine Bush. In this story of a romance between a duke and a secretary, the secretary is advised to read the Letters of Lord Chesterfield to his Son. Catherine McMullen visited a public library for the first time in her life and borrowed the book: "And here began my education. With Lord Chesterfield I read my first mythology. I learned my first history and geography. With Lord Chesterfield I went travelling the world. I would fall asleep reading the letters and awake around three o'clock in the morning my mind deep in the fascination of this new world, where people conversed, not just talked..." ... He launched her into a lifetime course of reading, beginning with Chaucer in Middle English, moving on to Erasmus, Donne, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and even Finnegan's Wake.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine McMullen      Print: Book

  

John Donne : Holy Sonnet 10

'W[ordsworth] copied a brief quotation from Donne's "Death be not proud" into D[ove] C[ottage] MS 16 ["Death be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful ... "]'.

Unknown
Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth      

  

John Donne : 

'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

  

John Donne : Poems

H. J. Jackson notes Coleridge's 1811 annotation of Charles Lamb's copy of Donne's Poems, in which he wrote "'N.B. Spite of Appearances, this Copy is better for the Mss. Notes. The Annotator himself says so.' (1:221)"

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge      Print: Book

  

John Donne : Poems

[Marginalia]

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge      Print: Book

  

John Donne : [poems complete works]

'I devoured poetry and nothing but poetry until I became insensible to poetry. Take an example; I happened upon some fat volumes of Campbell's "British Poets", the complete works of from four to eight poets in each volume which cost me 6d. apiece. They had shabby worn leather bindings, and the type was on the small side and closely set. But I ploughed through them, doggedly, as if reading for a bet, or an imposed task. One volume I remember contained the poetical works of Samuel Daniel, Browne, Giles and Phineas Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Drummond (of Ha[w]thornden), John Donne, and some more minor ones. Another contained along with "also rans" Cowley, Milton and "Hudibras" Butler. And, I repeat, I ploughed through them with a stout heart, but little sense, and a dwindling understanding.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas A. Jackson      Print: Book

  

John Donne : A Hymne to God the Father

Transcription in Elizabeth Lyttelton's hand of John Donne, 'A Hymne to God the Father'.

Unknown
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton      

  

John Donne : Satyre II

Robert Southey to John Horseman, 16-20 April 1794: 'How like you the gallant city of London? is it not an overgrown monster devouring its own children? a large sink of folly dissipation & iniquity? "Sir I do thank God for it, I do hate Most righteously the town" so said old Donne. & thank God I join with him heartily. four years residence there gave me experience. & I had rather dwell in the poorest hovel to which Monarchy & Aristocracy have condemnd honest labour, than in the proud palaces of London.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

John Donne : Satyre II

Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 25 September - 14 October, 1796: 'I wish I could give you a satisfactory answer to a very interesting question. I ardently wish for children — yet if God should bless me with any I shall be unhappy to see them poisoned by the air of London. "Sir I do thank God for it, I do hate Most heartily that city." so said John Donne. tis a favorite quotation of mine — my spirits always sunk when I approachd it. green fields are my delight — I am not only better in health, but even in heart in the country — a fine day exhilarates my heart — if it rains I behold the grass assume a richer verdure as it drinks the moisture — every thing that I behold is “very good" except Man — & in London I see nothing but Man & his works.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

John Donne : Poems

‘I am still in the hospital and expect to be for at least two days more … Just now I don’t know where I can keep books. I have with me Donne’s poems and Brown’s “Religion De Medici” and must carry both in my pocket. I have drawn some of the chaps in the hospital and can see heaps of subject matter all over. If you could send me any small books or news that might interest me I think I could find a place for them. A small box of watercolours would be handy. I cannot get one in this town. I can only get Sundays off so have no chance of finding out as the evenings are pitch black and no shops are visible. Cigarettes or any small eatables also help to make things pleasanter.’

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Isaac Rosenberg      Print: Book

  

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