[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
'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
'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 ... "]'.
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Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth
'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
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
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
'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
Transcription in Elizabeth Lyttelton's hand of John Donne, 'A Hymne to God the Father'.
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Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton
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
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
‘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
