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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:  

Matthew Lewis

  

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Matthew Gregory Lewis : The Monk

Byron's Journal (14 November 1813-19 April 1814), 6 December 1813: "Redde a good deal, but desultorily ... It is odd that when I do read, I can only bear the chicken broth of - any thing but Novels. It is many a year since I looked into one, (though they are sometimes ordered, by way of experiment, but never taken) till I looked yesterday at the worst parts of the Monk. These descriptions .. are forced - the philtred ideas of a jaded voluptuary."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron      Print: Book

  

Matthew Gregory Lewis : [unknown]

'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

  

Matthew Gregory Lewis : The Monk

?The most extraordinary production of this period was the powerful and wicked romance of The Monk.?

Century:      Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Maturin      Print: Book

  

Matthew G. Lewis : The Monk

'The evening until one was [frittered?] away in reading the 'Monk' for the fourth time at least.... In the second volume are some beautiful lines that often delights one ...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Upcott      Print: Book

  

Matthew Lewis : The Monk

'On Monday the 30th we went in the coach with... Mr Norman, with whom we dined at the Bolt & Tun, where John & I spent the evening & slept, in the course of which evening I began reading the popular novel of the "Monk".'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh      Print: Book

  

Matthew Lewis : The Monk

'For three years I continued a regular subscriber to the circulating library, during which time I read various works, including Milton's, Shakespeare's, Sterne's, Dr Johnson's, and many others. It was a usual practice for me to sit up to read after the family had retired for the night. I remember it was on one of these occasions that I read Lewis's "Monk". On rising from my seat to go to bed, I was so impressed with dongeon horror, that I took the candle and stole up stairs, not daring to look either right or left, lest some Lady Angela should plunge a dagger into me!'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Christopher Thomson      Print: Book

  

Matthew Gregory Lewis : The Monk: a romance

'Shelley draws & Mary reads the monk all evening.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin      Print: Book

  

Matthew Lewis : The Monk

'The other night I sat up till four o'clock, reading Matthew Lewis's "Monk". It is the most stupid & villainous novel that I have read for a great while. Considerable portions of it are grossly indecent[,] not to say brutish - one does not care a straw about one of the characters - and tho' "little Mat" has legions of ghosts & devils at his bidding - one views their movements with profound indifference.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle      Print: Book

  

Matthew Lewis : Tales of Terror

[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      

  

Matthew Gregory Lewis : The Monk

'Thursday Sept. 22nd. [...] Return [from walking] at [...] 4. Read Greek [...] Sit up till one reading the Monk.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont      Print: Book

  

Matthew Gregory Lewis : The Monk

'Friday Sept. 23rd. Finish the Monk [...] Buy a Greek Anacreon [...] Read Greek [...] Shelley reads Thalaba aloud in the evening. Write a little Gre[ek] & learn four tenses of the Verb to strike'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont      Print: Book

  

Matthew Gregory Lewis : Tales of Wonder

'Saturday Sept. 24th. [...] Read Lewis Tales of Wonder and Delight. Shelley reads aloud Thalaba in the Evening finishes it. Write Greek -- Read Smellie.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont      Print: Book

  

Matthew Lewis : The Monk

'This evening I have been reading a good deal in the "Monk". I don't know whether it hurts the mind or not, it certainly shows the passions in a very fascinating light. I think we are more apt to be impressed with that part than the morality of it. I think it loss of time and ... I should not go on reading it, but yet as I have begun it I think it better to go on.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Gurney      Print: Book

  

Matthew ("Monk") Lewis : The Monk

Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 29-30 August 1796: 'I have now read the Monk — & admire the delicacy of Lewis in criticising the Bible. there is genius in the book — but no good can possibly be produced by it. I would not have men distrust themselves...'

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

  

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