[Alice Foley] read some Morris and less Marx, but for her a liberal education for the proletariat was not merely a means of achieving socialism: it was socialism in fact. At night school she staged a personal revolution by writing a paper on Romeo and Juliet and thriling to the "new romantic world" of Jane Eyre. She joined a Socialist Sunday School where 'Hiawatha' was recited for its "prophetic idealism", and a foundry hammerman intoned Keats's 'Eve of St Agnes and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alice Foley Print: Book
'[J.M. Dent's] cultural contacts broadened when he became an apprentice bookbinder in London, discovering the work of William Morris, Cobden-Sanderson and the Arts and Crafts Movement'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Malaby Dent Print: Book
[analysis of a female respondent in Arnold Freeman's 1918 Sheffield Survey] 'Cutlery worker, age seventy-two...Fond of Longfellow, Stevenson, Ruskin, William Morris and Charles Dickens'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
'When Wilfrid Blunt joined [William] Morris and his daughter at Kelmscott in 1891, Morris "read us out several of his poems ... including The Haystack in the Floods, but his reading is without the graces of elocution."'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Morris
Letter H.96 (Beginning of June 1861)
?The Defence of Guenevere by Morris is published by Bell & Daldy.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
"Before she came into contact with Suffragism ... [Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence] felt her political outlook ... had been conditioned by reading Morris, Carpenter, and Whitman's poetry."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence Print: Unknown
'After a miserable Catholic school education...periodic unemployment allowed [Joseph Toole] to study in the Manchester Reference Library. There he discovered, Adam Smith, Ricardo, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Mill, Emerson, Dickens, Morris, Blatchford, Shaw and Wells, and of course John Ruskin..."Study always left me with a deep feeling that there was so much amiss with the world. It seemed that it had been started at the wrong end, and that it was everybody's business to put the matter right".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Toole Print: Book
'A.E. Coppard, a laundrywoman's son who grew up in dire poverty, left school at nine, ascended the ranks of clerkdom and became (at age forty) a professional author. At fourteen he was still enjoying "Deadeye Dick", by twenty he was reading Henry James...He secured a literary education at the Brighton Public Library, and as a professional runner he used prize money to buy Hardy's poems, Shakespeare, Mackail's translation of "The Odyssey", and William Morris's "The Earthly Paradise". In an undemanding job... he read on company time, though there was a row when his supervisor found "Jude the Obscure" on his desk'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Edgar Coppard Print: Book
'Before his departure for his native land he had read some of Dickens and Stevenson... and William Morris. John Masefield's debt to William Morris as a constructive thinker is considerable. It may be that Morris has been the formative influence, in his limitations as well as his liberations, on Masefield's view of life'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Masefield Print: Book
'Uncle Richard had adored Ruskin, and worshipped Morris, and had slept for years with a copy of "In Memoriam" under his pillow. He told me once how he and his friends used to wait outside the bookshops in the early morning, when they heard that a new volume of Tennyson was to come out. He had read all Browning too, and all Wordsworth, and Carlyle, in fact nearly everything contemporary; and he constantly re-read the Classics in their own classic tongues... a triumph of timing occurred once when he was listening to the Thunderstorm in the Pastoral Symphony, and reading the thunderstorm in "Oedipus at Colonus", and a real thunderstorm took place!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Richard Litchfield Print: Book
Henry James to Alice James, in letter begun 10 March 1869 (continued on 12 March), on evening spent at home of William Morris: "After dinner (we stayed to dinner, Miss Grace, Miss S. S. and I,) Morris read us one of his unpublished poems, from the second series of his 'un-Earthly Paradise,' and his wife having a bad toothache, lay on the sofa, with her handkerchief to her face."
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Morris
'one day in Kirkwall my brother Johnnie, who had gone to work in a shop there, gave me three pennies to spend, and I went at once to the bookseller's which sold "The Penny Poets" and bought "As You Like It", "The Earthly Paradise", and a selection of Matthew Arnold's poems. ...I did not get much out of the selection of Arnold's poems... "As You Like It" delighted me, but it was "The Earthly Paradise" that I read over and over again.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Muir Print: Book
'These artless idealists had their favourite authors, which I now proceeded to read...Their piece de resistance was Sir Thomas More's "Utopia", closely followed by the prose works of William Morris, "The Story of the Unknown Church", and the like. There was quite a spate of novels with this ideology, but the only one that has come down to the present day is Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Stamper Print: Book
'These artless idealists had their favourite authors, which I now proceeded to read...Their piece de resistance was Sir Thomas More's "Utopia", closely followed by the prose works of William Morris, "The Story of the Unknown Church", and the like. There was quite a spate of novels with this ideology, but the only one that has come down to the present day is Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Stamper Print: Book
[Helen Roothman] 'brought Edith new poetry too - the French symbolists, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Baudelaire - to enlarge her own rapt readings of Swinburne, William Morris, Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, Yeats'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell Print: Book
'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
'Mr Morland then read a paper on Wm Morris & his writings & gave illustrative readings assisted by Mrs Morland'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harold J. Morland Print: Book
'Mr Morland then read a paper on Wm Morris & his writings & gave illustrative readings assisted by Mrs Morland'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Adelaide Morland Print: Book
'The consideration of the Life & work of Wm Morris was opened by the reading of a short account of the Life by Mrs Goadby in which his many activities were passed in review. After some comments Mrs Edminson read the opening verses to the Earthly Paradise the idle singer of an empty day. Miss Goadby followed with an excellent paper entitled "Some Illustrations of Wm Morris's love of nature" which showed a wide knowledge and keen appreciation of the author's works both in prose & verse. After some appreciative remarks Mrs Ridges read a paper on Wm Morris & Socialism in which it was pointed out that the socialism was the direct & logical outcome of his artistic attitude. [this argument is summarised] Some discussion folowed & was hardly concluded at ten o clock when the Chairman called upon A. Rawlings for some remarks on the art of Wm Morris. In two or three minutes a very incomplete statement of Morris's methods & aims was made & a very pleasant evening was brought to a close'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Edminson Print: Book
'The consideration of the Life & work of Wm Morris was opened by the reading of a short account of the Life by Mrs Goadby in which his many activities were passed in review. After some comments Mrs Edminson read the opening verses to the Earthly Paradise the idle singer of an empty day. Miss Goadby followed with an excellent paper entitled "Some Illustrations of Wm Morris's love of nature" which showed a wide knowledge and keen appreciation of the author's works both in prose & verse. After some appreciative remarks Mrs Ridges read a paper on Wm Morris & Socialism in which it was pointed out that the socialism was the direct & logical outcome of his artistic attitude. [this argument is summarised] Some discussion folowed & was hardly concluded at ten o clock when the Chairman called upon A. Rawlings for some remarks on the art of Wm Morris. In two or three minutes a very incomplete statement of Morris's methods & aims was made & a very pleasant evening was brought to a close'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Blanche Ridges Print: Book
'The consideration of the Life & work of Wm Morris was opened by the reading of a short account of the Life by Mrs Goadby in which his many activities were passed in review. After some comments Mrs Edminson read the opening verses to the Earthly Paradise the idle singer of an empty day. Miss Goadby followed with an excellent paper entitled "Some Illustrations of Wm Morris's love of nature" which showed a wide knowledge and keen appreciation of the author's works both in prose & verse. After some appreciative remarks Mrs Ridges read a paper on Wm Morris & Socialism in which it was pointed out that the socialism was the direct & logical outcome of his artistic attitude. [this argument is summarised] Some discussion folowed & was hardly concluded at ten o clock when the Chairman called upon A. Rawlings for some remarks on the art of Wm Morris. In two or three minutes a very incomplete statement of Morris's methods & aims was made & a very pleasant evening was brought to a close'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Goadby Print: Book
'Morris's Sigurd is a grrrrreat poem; that is so.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'C.I. Evans described the Earthly Paradise & Mrs Evans & R.H. Robson gave readings therefrom. H.M. Wallis read [superscript 'recited'] some parts of Sigurd the Volsung & described the extraordinary conditions under which many of the poems were written. Some little discussion upon his poetical works followed but lack of time prevented the reading of further poems'. [the 'crowded' tendency of the meetings is then commented on]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'C.I. Evans described the Earthly Paradise & Mrs Evans & R.H. Robson gave readings therefrom. H.M. Wallis read [superscript 'recited'] some parts of Sigurd the Volsung & described the extraordinary conditions under which many of the poems were written. Some little discussion upon his poetical works followed but lack of time prevented the reading of further poems'. [the 'crowded' tendency of the meetings is then commented on]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'C.I. Evans described the Earthly Paradise & Mrs Evans & R.H. Robson gave readings therefrom. H.M. Wallis read [superscript 'recited'] some parts of Sigurd the Volsung & described the extraordinary conditions under which many of the poems were written. Some little discussion upon his poetical works followed but lack of time prevented the reading of further poems'. [the 'crowded' tendency of the meetings is then commented on]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Evans Print: Book
'C.I. Evans described the Earthly Paradise & Mrs Evans & R.H. Robson gave readings therefrom. H.M. Wallis read [superscript 'recited'] some parts of Sigurd the Volsung & described the extraordinary conditions under which many of the poems were written. Some little discussion upon his poetical works followed but lack of time prevented the reading of further poems'. [the 'crowded' tendency of the meetings is then commented on]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson Print: Book
'C.I. Evans described the Earthly Paradise & Mrs Evans & R.H. Robson gave readings therefrom. H.M. Wallis read [superscript 'recited'] some parts of Sigurd the Volsung & described the extraordinary conditions under which many of the poems were written. Some little discussion upon his poetical works followed but lack of time prevented the reading of further poems'. [the 'crowded' tendency of the meetings is then commented on]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'Meeting held at Hillsborough, Glebe Road: 15. V. 34.
Reginald H. Robson in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
6. And so we turned, a little wistfully maybe, to Charles Stansfield reading from the “Earthy
Paradise”, & its rather pathetic refrain “The idle singer of an empty day”. The word pictures of the
Greek and Norse myths came vividly before our minds, and their beauty drew us very pleasantly.
7. Frank Pollard then gave us a general survey of Morris and his work, & Mary Pollard read a short
poem. Those who had some familiarity with Morris’s writings compared their impressions & the rest
of us caught something of Morris’s desire to present a different world from the unpleasant one he
lived in, and also of the joy we have in praising great men and how we turn their stories over. The
contribution of Morris, we gathered, was not so much the foregoing of life in order to live in some
deeper sense, but the happier if less heroic creation of a life in some considerable accordance with
his own ideals.
8. Howard Smith then talked to us of William Morris’s Prose Romances and read us extracts from
them. These romances were turned off, we were told, during his leisure evenings in a thoroughly
matter of fact manner reminding us perhaps of Trollope. But they were crammed full of the fanciful
& even the fantastic. Not only did the author draw upon his imagination for quaint names like
Utterhay, Evilshore, Bindalone: he also freely indulged his fancy for archaic expressions — hard by,
whilom, Child (with capital C), dight, gayass[?], hight (for named) are a few examples.
9. Finally we heard from Reginald Robson an extract from “News from Nowhere.” In this ideal world
of the poet’s dreaming there was no meanness and no money, no jarring jangle of train or tram
with rolling smoke or strident screech, nothing more disturbing than the quiet plash of the oar upon
the tranquil surface of the Thames. It may be that the the rowing boat was once itself anathema to
the aesthetes of an earlier age, but for Morris its very antiquity had hallowed its shapely curves. Is
it as well that he did not live to see the vermillion sports car [...]?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield Print: Book
'Meeting held at Hillsborough, Glebe Road: 15. V. 34.
Reginald H. Robson in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
6. And so we turned, a little wistfully maybe, to Charles Stansfield reading from the “Earthy
Paradise”, & its rather pathetic refrain “The idle singer of an empty day”. The word pictures of the
Greek and Norse myths came vividly before our minds, and their beauty drew us very pleasantly.
7. Frank Pollard then gave us a general survey of Morris and his work, & Mary Pollard read a short
poem. Those who had some familiarity with Morris’s writings compared their impressions & the rest
of us caught something of Morris’s desire to present a different world from the unpleasant one he
lived in, and also of the joy we have in praising great men and how we turn their stories over. The
contribution of Morris, we gathered, was not so much the foregoing of life in order to live in some
deeper sense, but the happier if less heroic creation of a life in some considerable accordance with
his own ideals.
8. Howard Smith then talked to us of William Morris’s Prose Romances and read us extracts from
them. These romances were turned off, we were told, during his leisure evenings in a thoroughly
matter of fact manner reminding us perhaps of Trollope. But they were crammed full of the fanciful
& even the fantastic. Not only did the author draw upon his imagination for quaint names like
Utterhay, Evilshore, Bindalone: he also freely indulged his fancy for archaic expressions — hard by,
whilom, Child (with capital C), dight, gayass[?], hight (for named) are a few examples.
9. Finally we heard from Reginald Robson an extract from “News from Nowhere.” In this ideal world
of the poet’s dreaming there was no meanness and no money, no jarring jangle of train or tram
with rolling smoke or strident screech, nothing more disturbing than the quiet plash of the oar upon
the tranquil surface of the Thames. It may be that the the rowing boat was once itself anathema to
the aesthetes of an earlier age, but for Morris its very antiquity had hallowed its shapely curves. Is
it as well that he did not live to see the vermillion sports car [...]?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard
'Meeting held at Hillsborough, Glebe Road: 15. V. 34.
Reginald H. Robson in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
6. And so we turned, a little wistfully maybe, to Charles Stansfield reading from the “Earthy
Paradise”, & its rather pathetic refrain “The idle singer of an empty day”. The word pictures of the
Greek and Norse myths came vividly before our minds, and their beauty drew us very pleasantly.
7. Frank Pollard then gave us a general survey of Morris and his work, & Mary Pollard read a short
poem. Those who had some familiarity with Morris’s writings compared their impressions & the rest
of us caught something of Morris’s desire to present a different world from the unpleasant one he
lived in, and also of the joy we have in praising great men and how we turn their stories over. The
contribution of Morris, we gathered, was not so much the foregoing of life in order to live in some
deeper sense, but the happier if less heroic creation of a life in some considerable accordance with
his own ideals.
8. Howard Smith then talked to us of William Morris’s Prose Romances and read us extracts from
them. These romances were turned off, we were told, during his leisure evenings in a thoroughly
matter of fact manner reminding us perhaps of Trollope. But they were crammed full of the fanciful
& even the fantastic. Not only did the author draw upon his imagination for quaint names like
Utterhay, Evilshore, Bindalone: he also freely indulged his fancy for archaic expressions — hard by,
whilom, Child (with capital C), dight, gayass[?], hight (for named) are a few examples.
9. Finally we heard from Reginald Robson an extract from “News from Nowhere.” In this ideal world
of the poet’s dreaming there was no meanness and no money, no jarring jangle of train or tram
with rolling smoke or strident screech, nothing more disturbing than the quiet plash of the oar upon
the tranquil surface of the Thames. It may be that the the rowing boat was once itself anathema to
the aesthetes of an earlier age, but for Morris its very antiquity had hallowed its shapely curves. Is
it as well that he did not live to see the vermillion sports car [...]?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
'Meeting held at Hillsborough, Glebe Road: 15. V. 34.
Reginald H. Robson in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
6. And so we turned, a little wistfully maybe, to Charles Stansfield reading from the “Earthy
Paradise”, & its rather pathetic refrain “The idle singer of an empty day”. The word pictures of the
Greek and Norse myths came vividly before our minds, and their beauty drew us very pleasantly.
7. Frank Pollard then gave us a general survey of Morris and his work, & Mary Pollard read a short
poem. Those who had some familiarity with Morris’s writings compared their impressions & the rest
of us caught something of Morris’s desire to present a different world from the unpleasant one he
lived in, and also of the joy we have in praising great men and how we turn their stories over. The
contribution of Morris, we gathered, was not so much the foregoing of life in order to live in some
deeper sense, but the happier if less heroic creation of a life in some considerable accordance with
his own ideals.
8. Howard Smith then talked to us of William Morris’s Prose Romances and read us extracts from
them. These romances were turned off, we were told, during his leisure evenings in a thoroughly
matter of fact manner reminding us perhaps of Trollope. But they were crammed full of the fanciful
& even the fantastic. Not only did the author draw upon his imagination for quaint names like
Utterhay, Evilshore, Bindalone: he also freely indulged his fancy for archaic expressions — hard by,
whilom, Child (with capital C), dight, gayass[?], hight (for named) are a few examples.
9. Finally we heard from Reginald Robson an extract from “News from Nowhere.” In this ideal world
of the poet’s dreaming there was no meanness and no money, no jarring jangle of train or tram
with rolling smoke or strident screech, nothing more disturbing than the quiet plash of the oar upon
the tranquil surface of the Thames. It may be that the the rowing boat was once itself anathema to
the aesthetes of an earlier age, but for Morris its very antiquity had hallowed its shapely curves. Is
it as well that he did not live to see the vermillion sports car [...]?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald H. Robson Print: Book
'Meeting held at 70 Northcourt Avenue: 18. 6. 35.
Charles E. Stansfield in the Chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
2. The Secretary then read a letter from Marjorie C. Cole, expressing her interest in the Book
Club and offering us a book “Gone Rambling” by Cecil Roberts which she had recently read with
enjoyment. [...]
[...]
6. The large subject of London was then opened by Howard Smith. He spoke of the extraordinary
insistence of the divergent views as its origin, leaning to the opinion that it owed its beginnings
to to a variety of causes.
[...]
7. Extracts from Defoe’s Journal of the Great Plague were then read by Victor Alexander.
[...]
8. From Defoe we turned to Pepys, and Reginald Robson described the Great Fire.
[...]
9. We next enjoyed a delightful picture of old London which Edith Goadby gave us, making the
acquaintance of Gabriel Bardon the locksmith, his pretty daughter Dolly and Simon the
apprentice. It was all too short, but at least we left them happily seated before their jolly round
of beef, their Yorkshire cake and quaintly shaped jug of ale.
10. A further scene was depicted for us by Ethel Stevens, old Crosby Hall, Chelsea Hospital,
Cheyne walk as it used to be, and Carlyle’s house, where he entertained Tennyson in the
kitchen. We were introduced to John Stuart Mill and his great concern over the loss of his fiend’s
manuscript of the French Revolution, and we took glimpses at William de Morgan + Sir Thomas
More.
11. Finally Charles Stansfield read us Wordsworth’s Sonnet composed on Westminster Bridge,
and Henry Marriage Wallis quoted happily ten lines from William Morris.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis
'...your criticism of the"Well". I quite see your point, and, of course, agree that the interests
of
the tale reach their climax in the great scene at the World's End: my reply is that the interest
of
the journey home is of quite a different nature. it is pleasant to pick up all the familiar
places....The Battle-piece at the end is very fine....The only part that I found really tedious
was
Roger's historical survey of the Burg & the Scaur. In fact, Roger was only a lay-figure brought
in
to conduct the Ladye's machinations with Ralph, and why he was not allowed to drop into
oblivion when they were over, I cannot imagine.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'"The Roots of the Mountains" is the chief cause of my silence. It is not, however, in spite of
this,
nearly as good as the first volume of "The Well at the World's End", although the interest is
better sustained throughout. To begin with , I was desperately disappointed to find that there
is
nothing supernatural....It is still utterly different from any novel you ever read. Apart from the
quaint and beautiful old English, which means so much to me, the supernatural... yet hovers
on
the margin all the time.... Another thing I like about it is that the characters are not mediaeval
knights but Norse mountain tribes.... well worth reading, I don't know if it's really worth
buying.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'I have been reading again "The Well at the World's End", and it has completely ravished me.
There is something awfully nice about reading a book again, with all the half-unconscious
memories it brings back. "The Well" always brings to mind our lovely hill-walk in the frost and
fog - you remember - because I was reading it then. The very names of chapters and places
make me happy.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'I am very glad to hear that you are getting to like Jason: I agree with you that the whole
description of Medea — glorious character — going out by night, and of her sorceries in the wood
is absolutely wonderful, and there are other bits later on, such as the description of the "Winter
by the Northern River" and the garden of the Hesperides, which I think quite as good.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'I have also re-read for the thousandth time "Rapunzel" and some other favourite bits of
Morris...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
