'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
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
