'read some of the Sonnets of shakspear which are great favourites of mine & lookd into the Poems of Chatterton to see what he says about flowers & have found that he speaks of the Lady smock [quotes from 'The Battle of Hastings'].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Clare Print: Book
Read 'Double Falshood' a play of Shakespear's never acted till this winter. I think it a poor one for his. Bed 12.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
[Marginalia by Macaulay on the first page of his copy of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"]: 'An admirable opening scene, whatever the French critics may say. It at once puts us thoroughly in possession of the state of the two families.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Marginalia by Macaulay by the passage about the biting of the thumbs in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"]: 'This is not what would be commonly called fine; but I would give any six plays of Rowe for it.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Marginalia by Macaulay by the scene in the street beginning with Mercutio's lines: 'Where the devil should this Romeo be? / Came he not home to- night?' in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"]: 'This is the free conversation of lively, high-spirited young gentlemen.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Marginalia by Macaulay by the commencement of the third act in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"]: 'Mercutio, here, is beyond the reach of anybody but Shakespeare.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Marginalia by Macaulay by the the lines 'Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, / Shall bitterly begin his fearful date / With this night's revels'in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"]: 'This is as fine an instance of presentiment as I remember in poetry. It throws a sadness over all the gaiety that follows, and prepares us for the catastrophe.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Marginalia by Macaulay at the close of the Third Act of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"]: 'Very fine is the way in which Juliet at once withdraws her whole confidence from the nurse without disclosing her feelings'.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Editorial commentary on Macaulay's marginalia]: 'When [...] the poor child commits her life to the hands of Friar Lawrence, Macaulay remarks on the wonderful genius with which the poet delineates a timid, delicate girl of fourteen excited and exalted to an act of desperate courage.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
'There is a pencil note in his copy of "Paradise Lost": "Had to write 500 lines of this for being caught reading "King Lear" in class."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Tom Thomas Print: Book
'We spent a whole term on the first two scenes of "The Tempest".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Vivian (Molly) Hughes Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia, by the lines 'Now, afore God, this reverend holy friar/ All our whole city is much bound to him' in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: "Warburton proposed to read 'hymn' for 'him'; - the most ludicrous emendation ever suggested".
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia by the speech about Queen Mab in Romeo and Juliet: "This speech, - full of matter, of thought, of fancy, as it is, - seems to me, like much of this play, to be not in Shakspeare's [sic] very best manner. It is stuck on like one of Horace's 'purple patches'. It does not seem to spring naturally out of the conversation. This is a fault which, in his finest works, Shakspeare [sic] never commits."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia by the lines 'Hath Romeo slain himself' to 'Of those eyes shut, that make thee answer "I"' : "If this had been in Cibber, Cibber would never have heard the last of it."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia by the point where Balthazar brings the evil tidings to Mantua in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: "Here begins a noble series of scenes. I know nothing grander than the way in which Romeo hears the news. It moves me even more than Lear's agonies."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in the scene in the vault of death in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: "The desperate calmness of Romeo is sublime beyond expression; and the manner in which he is softened into tenderness when he sees the body of Juliet is perhaps the most affecting touch in all poetry."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Hamlet, by the opening dialogue: "beyond praise".
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Hamlet, by the lines 'that season comes/ Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated" : "Sweet writing".
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Hamlet, "The long story about Fortinbras, and all that follows from it, seems to me to be a clumsy addition to the plot".
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Hamlet, in the scene of the royal audience in the room of state: "The silence of Hamlet during the earlier part of this scene is very fine, but not equal to the silence of Prometheus and Cassandra in the Prometheus and Agammemnon of Aeschylus."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Hamlet, by the scene with the strolling player's declamation about Pyrrhus: "the only thing deserving of much admiration in the speech is the manner in which it is raised above the ordinary diction which surrounds it. It is poetry within poetry, - a play within a play. It was therefore proper to make its language bear the same relation to the language, in which Hamlet and Horatio talk, which the language of Hamlet and Horatio bears to the common style of conversation among gentlemen. This is a sufficient defence of the style, which is undoubtedly in itself far too turgid for dramatic, or even for lyric, composition."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Hamlet, at the opening of Act 1, Scene 4: "Nothing can be finer than this specimen of Hamlet's peculiar character. His intellect is out of all proportion to his will or his passions. Under the most exciting circumstances, while expecting every moment to see the ghost of his father rise before him, he goes on discussing questions of morals, manners, or politics, as if he were in the schools of Wittenberg."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Hamlet, by the lines 'Dost thou hear?/ Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,/ And could of men distinguish, her election/ Hath sealed thee for herself, - ' : "An exquisitely beautiful scene. It always moved me more than any other in the play. There is something very striking in the way in which Hamlet, a man of a gentle nature, quick in speculation, morbidly sluggish in action, unfit to struggle with the real evils of life, and finding himself plunged into the midst of them, - delights to repose on the strong mind of a man who had been severely tried, and who had learned stoicism from experience. There is wonderful truth in this."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Hamlet, by the conversation between Hamlet and the courtier, in Act 5: "This is a most admirable scene. The fooling of Osric is nothing; but it is most striking to see how completely Hamlet forgets his father, his mistress, the terrible duty imposed upon him, the imminent danger which he has to run, as soon as a subject of observation comes before him; - as soon as a good butt is offered to his wit."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia. By an editorial note by Dr Johnson, to the lines, 'Who would fardels bear, / To groan and sweat under a weary life'. Johnson wrote, "All the old copies have to 'grunt and sweat'. It is undoubtedly the true reading, but can scarcely be borne by modern ears." Macaulay writes: "We want Shakespeare, not your fine modern English."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia. By the editorial notes in his copy of Hamlet: "It is a noble emendation. Had Warburton often hit off such corrections, he would be entitled to the first place among critics."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia by the editorial notes in his copy of Hamlet in the scene where Hamlet declines to kill his uncle in the act of praying. Johnson comments that the speech in which, "not content with taking blood for blood, he contrived damnation for his enemy, was too horrible to be read or uttered." Macaulay responds: "Johnson does not understand the character. Hamlet is irresolute; and he makes the first excuse that suggests itself for not striking. If he had met the King drunk, he would have refrained from avenging himself lest he should kill both soul and body."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of King Lear, in Act 1, Scene 3: "Here begins the finest of all human performances."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of King Lear, in Act 2, Scene 2, opposite Cornwall's description of the fellow who has been praised for bluntness: "Excellent! It is worth while to compare these moral speeches of Shakspeare [sic] with those which are so much admired in Euripides. The superiority of Shakspeare's [sic] observations is immense. But the dramatic art with which they are introduced, - always in the right place, - always from the right person, - is still more admirable."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of King Lear, by the lines 'Now i pr'ythee, daughter, do not make me mad!/ I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell!' : "This last struggle between rage and tenderness is, I think, unequalled in poetry."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of King Lear, by the apostrophe commencing, 'O, let not women's weapons, water-drops...' : "Where is there anything like this in the world"?
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of King Lear, by opening of the play: "Idolising Shakspeare [sic] as I do, I cannot but feel that the whole scene is very unnatural. He took it, to be sure, from an old story. What miracles his genius has brought out from materials so unpromising!"
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of King Lear, by the quarrel between Kent and Cornwall's steward: "It is rather a fault in the play, to my thinking, that Kent should behave so very insolently in this scene. A man of his rank and sense would have had more self-command and dignity even in his anger. One can hardly blame Cornwall for putting him in the stocks."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of King Lear, in Act 3, Scene 4: "The softening of Lear's nature and manners, under the discipline of severe sorrow, is mot happily marked in several places."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in response to a note by Dr Johnson at the end of King Lear. Johnson protested against the unpleasing character of a story, "in which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry." Macaulay responds: "There is nothing like this last scene in the world. Johnson talks nonsense. Torn to pieces as Lear's heart had been, was he to live happily ever after, as the story-books say? Wonderful as the whole play is, this last passage is the triumph of Shakspeare's [sic] genius. Every character is perfectly supported."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Antony and Cleopatra. A response to an editorial note by Steevens. "Solemn nonsense! Had Shakspeare [ sic] no eyes to see the sky with?"
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Henry V, by the Prologue. Macaulay responds to an editorial note by Dr Johnson, who remarks that to call a circle an O was a very mean metaphor. Macaulay responds: "Surely, if O were really the usual name of a circle there would be nothing mean in it, any more than in the Delta of the Nile."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream, by Warburton's editorial note to the lines 'Now the hungry lions roar, / And the wolf beholds the moon'. Macaulay writes: "In my opinion, this is one of Warburton's very best corrections."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream, by the lines 'the rattling tongue / Of saucy and audacious eloquence': This is Shakspeare's [sic] manly sense and knowledge of the world, introduced with perfect dramatic propriety. How different from Euripides's lectures on such subjects."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream, by the lines 'Be, as thou wast wont to be' to 'Hath such force and blessed power": "Beautiful and easy beyond expression".
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream, on the last page: "A glorious play. The love-scenes Fletcher might perhaps have written. The fairy scenes no man but one since the world began could have written."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
We [Barrett and Hugh Stuart Boyd] talked comparatively about Homer, Aeschylus & Shakespeare: and positively about Aeschylus's Prometheus ? Praises of the speech in the Medea.
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'After tea...[on a Sunday, my father]...liked to read aloud to us from books that sounded quite well, but afforded some chance of frivolity.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Molly Vivian Print: Book
'Circuit preacher Joseph Barker found that theology simply could not compete with Shakespeare:
"What pleased me most was the simplicity and beauty of his style. He had always a meaning in what he said, and you could easily see his meaning. He never talked at random or lost himself in a mist. I had at this time been so accustomed to meet dull, mysterious and unmeaning stuff in many religious books as they are called, that I felt quite delighted to read something that was rational, plain, stirring, and straightforward".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Barker Print: Book
'Though one former ploughboy extolled Shakespeare for possessing a deep sense of the pure morality of the Gospel" and quoted from him on most of the 440 pages of his autobiography, he was anxious to insist that "Shakespeare can be far more appreciated and better understood in the closet than in a public theater".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Westcott Tilke Print: Book
'While he read little but the Bible and religious periodicals, his son was working his way through the Rhymney Workmen's Institute Library and Cassell's National Library of 3d paperbacks. MacAulay's essays, Goldsmith's History of England, Far from the Madding Crowd, Self-Help, Josephus, Plutarch, Shakespeare, Pepys, Johnson's Lives of the Poets, and The Sorrows of Young Werther were among the books Jones read, often on his employer's time. (He hid them under the ledger at the Rhymney Iron Works, where he worked a thirteen hour day as a timekeeper for 9s. a week.)'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Jones Print: Book
'As a circuit preacher Pyke introduced farm people to Milton, Carlyle, Ruskin and Tolstoy. His own reading ranged from Shakespeare and Boswell to Shelley's poems and George Henry Lewes's History of Philosophy. He was even prepared to acknowledge the "genius" of Jude the Obscure, though he would have preferred a happy ending'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Richard Pyke Print: Book
'Milton established a habit of serious reading, which brought Bamford to Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, the great poets, classic histories and voyages, and ultimately William Cobbett's Political Register'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'[Mary Smith] found emancipation in Shakespeare, Dryden, Goldsmith and other standard male authors, whom she extolled for their universality: "These authors wrote from their hearts for humanity, and I could follow them fully and with delight, though but a child. They awakened my young nature, and I found for the first time that my pondering heart was akin to that of the whole human race. And when I read the famous essays of Steele and Addison, I could realize much of their truth and beauty of expression... Pope's stanzas, which I read at school as an eight year- old child, showed me how far I felt and shared the sentiment that he wrote, when he says,
Thus let me live unseen, unknown
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world and not a stone
Tell where I lie".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Smith Print: Book
[Macaulay's marginalia by the conversation in the street between Brutus and Cassius, in the First Act of Julius Caesar] "These two or three pages are worth the whole French drama ten times over."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Macaulay's marginalia at the end of Julius Caesar] "The last scenes are huddled up, and affect me less than Plutarch's narrative. But the working up of Brutus by Cassius, the meeting of the conspirators, the stirring of the mob by Antony, and (above all,) the dispute and reconciliation of the two generals, are things far beyond the reach of any other poet that ever lived."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Macaulay's marginalia by the lines "Let me have men about me that are fat/ Sleek headed men, and such as sleep o' nights" in Julius Caesar] "Plutarch's hint is admirably expanded here".
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Henry Mayhew interviews a penny mouse-trap maker (cripple):
"I found books often lull my pain... I can't afford them no, for I have no wish to incur any extraneous expense, while the weight of the labour lies on my family more than it does on myself. Over and over again, when I have been in acute pain with my thigh, a scientific book, or a work on history, or a volume of travels, would carry my thoughts far away ...I always had love of solid works. For an hour's light reading, I have often turned to a work of imagination, such as Milton's Paradise Lost, and Shakespeare's plays; but I prefer science to poetry... I think it is solely due to my taste for mechanics and my love of reading scientific books that I am able to live so comfortably as I do in my affliction."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'Philip Inman conveyed a ... specific sense of the uses of literacy for an early Labour MP. The son of a widowed charwoman, he bought up all the cheap reprints he could afford and kept notes on fifty-eight of them... There were Emerson's essays, Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Lamb's Essays of Elia, classic biogaphies (Boswell on Johnson, Lockhart on Scott, Carlyle on Sterling), several Waverley novels, Wuthering Heights, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, The Imitation of Christ, Shakespeare's sonnets, Tennyson, Browning, William Morris and Palgrave's Golden Treasury.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Inman Print: Book
'Percy Wall, jailed for defying draft notices in the First World War, was inspired in part by a copy of Queen Mab owned by his father, a Marxist railway worker. But neither father nor son applied ideological tests to literature. In the prison library - with some guidance from a fellow conscientious objector who happened to be an important publishing executive - Percy discovered Emerson, Macaulay, Bacon, Shakespeare and Lamb. It was their style rather than their politics he found liberating: from them "I learned self-expression and acquired or strengthened standards of literature".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Wall Print: Book
'By age fourteen Durham collier Jack Lawson would find... emancipation at the Boldon Miners' Institute... "And didn't I follow the literary trail, once I found it. Like a Fenimore Cooper Indian I was tireless and silent once I started. Scott; Charles Reade, George Eliot; the Brontes; later on Hardy; Hugo; Dumas and scores of others. Then came Shakespeare; the Bible; Milton and the line of poets generally. I was hardly sixteen when I picked up James Thomson's Seasons, in Stead's 'Penny Poets'... I wept for the shepherd who died in the snow".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Jack Lawson Print: Book
[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
'[Chaim Lewis] enthusiastically embraced the literature of an alien culture - "the daffodils of Herrick and Wordsworth... the whimsey of Lamb and the stirring rhythmic tales of the Ballads" and, yes, "the wry eloquence of Shylock".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Chaim Lewis Print: Book
[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Antony and Cleopatra, by an editorial note by Steevens, which reminds the reader that Cleopatra's story of the salt fish on Antony's hook was taken from North's Plutarch]: "Yes, but how happily introduced, and with what skill and spirit worked up by Shakespeare!"
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Coriolanus, by a note by Warburton regarding the composition of the Senate] "Absurd! Who knows anything about the usages of the Senate, and the privileges of the Tribunes, in Coriolanus's time?"
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Coriolanus, by a note by Warburton regarding the history of the Roman Consular Government]: "Well! but there had certainly been elective magistracies in Rome before the expulsion of the kings, and there might have been canvassing. Shakspeare [sic] cared so little about historical accuracy that an editor who notices expressions, which really are not grossly inaccurate, is unpardonable."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Coriolanus, by a note by Warburton regarding the creation of the first Censor, which suggests that Shakespeare had misread his authorities]: "This undoubtedly was a mistake, and what DOES it matter?"
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Coriolanus, on the last page]: "A noble play. As usual, Shakspeare [sic] had thumbed his translation of Plutarch to rags."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
'In 1898 Armstrong organised the Ashington Debating and Literary Improvement Society, and his reading broadened out to Shakespeare, Burns, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Byron, Whitman, Wordsworth, Scott, Robert Browning, Darwin and T.H. Huxley. Robertson Nicoll's British Weekly had introduced him to a more liberal Nonconformity that was hospitable to contemporary literature. The difficulty was that the traditional Nonconformist commitment to freedom of conscience was propelling him beyond the confines of Primitive Methodism, as far as Unitarianism, the Rationalist Press Association and the Independent Labour Party. His tastes in literature evolved apace: Ibsen, Zola. Meredith, and Wilde by the 1890s; then on to Shaw, Wells, and Bennett; and ultimately Marxist economics and Brave New World'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Chester Armstrong Print: Book
[According to Flora Thompson], "Modern writers who speak of the booklessness of the poor at that time must mean books as possessions...there were always books to borrow"... One could borrow Pamela and the Waverley novels from a neighbour, Christies Old Organ from the Sunday School library. Her uncle, a shoemaker, had once carted home from a country-house auction a large collection of books that no-one would buy: novels, poetry, sermons, histories, dictionaries. She read him Cranford while he worked in his shop... Later she could borrow from her employer (the village postmistress) Shakespeare and Byron's Don Juan, as well as Jane Austen, Dickens and Trollope from the Mechanics' Institute library.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Flora Thompson Print: Book
'During this Spring read Shakspeare [sic] regularly through, and studied the characters of Hamlet, Douglas, Osman in 'Zara', Sir Charles Racket &c and purchased & read a great number of pieces of dramatic biography and theatrical criticisms.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Print: Book
'Shakespeare provided a political script for J.R. Clynes, the son of an Irish farm labourer, who rose from the textile mills of Oldham to become deputy leader of the House of Commons. In his youth he drew inspiration from the "strange truth" he found in Twelfth Night: "Be not afraid of greatness". ("What a creed! How it would upset the world if men lived up to it, I thought") Urged on by a Cooperative Society librarian, he worked through the plays and discovered they were about people who "had died for their beliefs. Wat Tyler and Jack Cade seemed heroes". Reading Julius Caesar, "the realisation came suddenly to me that it was a mighty political drama" about class struggle, "not just an entertainment"... Elected to Parliament in 1906, he read A Midsummer Night's Dream while awaiting the returns'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Robert Clynes Print: Book
'Shakespeare provided a political script for J.R. Clynes, the son of an Irish farm labourer, who rose from the textile mills of Oldham to become deputy leader of the House of Commons. In his youth he drew inspiration from the "strange truth" he found in Twelfth Night: "Be not afraid of greatness". ("What a creed! How it would upset the world if men lived up to it, I thought") Urged on by a Cooperative Society librarian, he worked through the plays and discovered they were about people who "had died for their beliefs. Wat Tyler and Jack Cade seemed heroes". Reading Julius Caesar, "the realisation came suddenly to me that it was a mighty political drama" about class struggle, "not just an entertainment"... Elected to Parliament in 1906, he read A Midsummer Night's Dream while awaiting the returns'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Robert Clynes Print: Book
'Shakespeare provided a political script for J.R. Clynes, the son of an Irish farm labourer, who rose from the textile mills of Oldham to become deputy leader of the House of Commons. In his youth he drew inspiration from the "strange truth" he found in Twelfth Night: "Be not afraid of greatness". ("What a creed! How it would upset the world if men lived up to it, I thought") Urged on by a Cooperative Society librarian, he worked through the plays and discovered they were about people who "had died for their beliefs. Wat Tyler and Jack Cade seemed heroes". Reading Julius Caesar, "the realisation came suddenly to me that it was a mighty political drama" about class struggle, "not just an entertainment"... Elected to Parliament in 1906, he read A Midsummer Night's Dream while awaiting the returns'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Robert Clynes Print: Book
'Later in the month (30 November), Grace writes that she is "reading Henry V to M. and R. [Margaret and Rose] in the evenings".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Grace Macaulay Print: Book
'Rose... remembers her father reading to them - Dickens, Scott, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Meredith, Tom Jones, The Three Musketeers, Don Quixote, and, curiously, The Origin of Species'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Macaulay Print: Book
'[J.M. Dent's] reading was marked by the autodidact's characteristic enthusiasm and spottiness. He knew Pilgrim's Progress, Milton, Cowper, Thomson's Seasons and Young's Night Thoughts; but...did not read Shakespeare seriously until he was nearly thirty'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Malaby Dent Print: Book
'"Thinking back, I am amazed at the amount of English literature we absorbed in those four years", recalled Ethel Clark, a Gloucester railway worker's daughter, "and I pay tribute to the man who made it possible... Scott, Thackeray, Shakespeare, Longfellow, Dickens, Matthew Arnold, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Rudyard Kipling were but a few authors we had at our fingertips. How he made the people live again for us!".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ethel Clark Print: Book
'H.M. Tomlinson, a successful author and dockworker's son, credited his East End Board school with encouraging free expression in composition classes and giving him a solid literary footing in the Bible, Shakespeare and Scott'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: H.M. Tomlinson Print: Book
'merchant seaman Lennox Kerr ditched overboard his early experiments in authorship:"... writing isn't for the working man. It sets him apart. He isn't such a toiler if he knows too much or does things like writing. Even reading Shakespeare and the Bible and my Cobbett's Grammar put me under suspicion."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lennox Kerr Print: Book
'Worked hard, and read Midsummer Night's Dream, [and] Ballads ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Monday 19 May 1800: 'Read Timon of Athens.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Sunday 25 May 1800: 'Read Macbeth in the morning ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Thursday 29 May 1800: 'In the morning worked in the garden a little, read King John.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Tuesday 3 June 1800: 'I worked in the garden before dinner. Read R[ichar]d Second -- was not well after dinner ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Wednesday 5 May 1802, 'I read The Lover's Complaint to Wm. in bed, and left him composed.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Saturday 8 May 1802, 'We sowed the Scarlet Beans in the orchard, and read Henry V. there.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William and Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Saturday 15 May 1802, 'It is now 1/2 past 10 ... A very cold and chearless morning ... I read in Shakespeare.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Tuesday 22 June 1802, 'I read the Midsummer Night's Dream, and began As You Like It.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Tuesday 22 June 1802, 'I read the Midsummer Night's Dream, and began As You Like It.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Wednesday 23 June 1802, 'It is now 20 minutes past 10 -- a sunshiny morning. I walked to the top of the hill and sate under a wall near John's Grove ... I read a scene or two in As You Like It.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Thursday 1 July 1802, 'In the evening ... we had a nice walk, and afterwards sate by a nice snug fire, and William read Spenser, and I read As You Like It.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Thursday 8 July 1802, 'In the afternoon ... I read the Winter's Tale ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Philip Gibbs in The Pageant of the Years (1946), on work as writer of series of articles under name "Self-Help" in early 1900s: "'All the reading I had done as a boy, all my youthful enthusiasm for Shakespeare, Milton, Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot, and Hardy ... was a great source of supply now when I sat down to write aout great books ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Gibbs Print: Book
' ... [Elizabeth and Alice Thompson] used to go for picnics at Porto Fino, loaded with books of verse, and Mrs Thompson and Mr [Alfred] Strettell would read aloud to them from Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and Tennyson.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Christiana Thompson Print: Book
' ... [Elizabeth and Alice Thompson] used to go for picnics at Porto Fino, loaded with books of verse, and Mrs Thompson and Mr [Alfred] Strettell would read aloud to them from Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and Tennyson.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Baker Strettell Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[analysis of a female respondent in Arnold Freeman's 1918 Sheffield Survey] 'Machinist in a shell factory, age twenty-four... Has read Shakespeare, Burns, Keats, Scott, Tennyson, Dickens, Vanity Fair, The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, biography and history'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
I had a look at 'In tune with the infinite'. I moved on to my father's single volume, India paper edition of 'Shakespeare's Complete Works' and started at the beginning with the 'Rape of Lucrece' and the sonnets and continued slowly through the plays during the coming year. For relief I took up Marie Corelli's 'Master Christain' which I found more moving than Shakespeare and more intelligible than 'Thanatopsis'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Sawdon Pritchett Print: Book
'Seventeen-year-old Ruth Bourne recorded disparaging remarks in her diary about the feeble renderings of Julius Caesar and Macbeth made by members of her [Shakespeare reading] circle in Worcestershire in 1883.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Shakespeare Reading Circle (local) Print: Book
'Seventeen-year-old Ruth Bourne recorded disparaging remarks in her diary about the feeble renderings of Julius Caesar and Macbeth made by members of her [Shakespeare reading] circle in Worcestershire in 1883.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Shakespeare Reading Circle (local) Print: Book
Ex-Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey in the Falloden Papers, on how he spent his time after being deposed from the Cabinet in 1916: ' ... I spent some weeks alone in the country. During that time I read, or re-read, several of Shakespeare's plays.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Edward Grey Print: Book
'[Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland was] an omnivorous reader -- "she could begin the day with reports on technical education in Prussia, continue it with Huxley's 'Life' and Shakespeare, and ... polish off seven love-stories at the same time ..."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland Print: Book
Letter 8/2/1863 - "I'm so thin and hard and metallic that I think sometimes I'm going to turn into the pin that Death bores through the King's crowns - and 'farewell King'."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
I always have a profound impression that human beings have been much more like each other than we fancy since they got rid of their tails & that the great outbursts of speculation or art imply some special excitement more than a radical difference in people themselves. I have even a belief that if Browning had lived 200 years ago he would have been a small Shakespeare & perhaps Tennyson a second rate Milton, though I agree that poor old Alfred has not quite the stuff in him.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
'Then I woke up, switched on the light, & began to read Venus & Adonis. It's pretty stuff - rather like the Death of Procris'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'[R. L. Stevenson] ... nominated ["The Egoist"], together with a couple of Scott's novels, a Dumas, Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Moliere, as one of that handful of books which ... he read repeatedly -- four or five times in the case of "The Egoist", he declared in 1887.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'Britain was a mainly urban society...and soon an expanding range of sexual literature became available in the cities. Mark Grossek, the son of a Jewish immigrant tailor in Southwark, acquired his knowledge from grafitti, scandalous stories in the local press, 'Lloyd's Weekly News', 'Measure for Measure', the Song of Solomon, some old plays a fellow student had dug out of his father's library, General Booth's 'In Darkest England', Tobias Smollett, Quain's 'Dictionary of Medicine', as well as Leviticus ("For myself, the most subtle aura of enticement was wafted from the verb 'begat' and the noun 'concubine'")There was also Ovid, but unfortunately the popular translation published by Bohn "had left all the tasty chunks in Latin".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mark Grossek Print: Book
"It was in my fifteenth year that I became again, this time intelligently, aquainted with Shakespeare. I got hold of a single play, The Tempest, in a school edition, prepared I suppose, for one of the university examinations which were then being instituted in the provinces...This book was my own hoarded possession; the rest of Shakespeare's works were beyond my hopes. But gradually I contrived to borrow a volume here and a volume there. I completed The Merchant of Venice, read Cymbeline, Julius Caesar, and Much Ado; most of the others, I think, remained closed to me for a long time. But these were enough to steep my horizon with all the colours of sunrise."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Gosse Print: Book
" It was in my fifteenth year that I became again, this time intelligently, aquainted with Shakespeare. I got hold of a single play, The Tempest, in a school edition, prepared, I suppose, for one of the university examinations which were then being instituted in the provinces... This book was my own hoarded possession; the rest of Shakespeare's works were beyond my hopes. But gradually I contrived to borrow a volume here and a volume there. I completed The Merchant of Venice, read Cymbeline, Julius Caesar, and Much Ado; most of the others, I think, remained closed to me for a long time. But these were enough to steep my horizon with all the colours of sunrise."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Gosse Print: Book
" But I read with unchecked voracity, and in several curious directions. Shakespeare now passed into my possession entire, in the shape of a reprint more hideous and more offensive to the eyesight than would in these days appear conceivable..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Gosse Print: Book
'Dear Mr Gosse, I hope that I am not impertinent in telling you how heartily I have enjoyed your Gray. I think it one of the most charming biographies I ever read; & I would gladly subscribe to nearly all your criticism, if I had not a feeling that in some points wh. you touch, I am too much of an outsider for any subscription to have much value. The only criticism wh. I might cavil a bit would concern the Bard. I never could feel that the old gentleman ought to derive so much satisfaction from the advent of the Tudor destiny; & Gray?s desire to administer that bit of consolation seems to me to miss the point & rather spoil his design. Still I am fond of the Bard as one is fond of what one has already known by heart.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
"If it was not enough to have all the Catholic theology suddenly discharged upon one, I have suddenly taken a fancy to read some of the old dramatists, being prompted by Furnivall's society & to puzzle my head about 'stopt lines' as F. J. F. calls them & the share of Fletcher in Henry VIII and the Two Noble Kinsmen.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
'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
'... [Dorothea Beale] learnt to love Shakespeare through her father reading it aloud ...'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Miles Beale Print: Book
'Lucy Cavendish's diary, kept both before and after her marriage, provides one of the fullest accounts we have of the day-to-day reading of a Victorian girl and woman. It ranges from gift books ... bowdlerized Shakespeare, Longfellow, and Scott when she was still in the schoolroom, to the combination of religious debate, historical studies, and modern novels which characterised the literary consumption of her adult life.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Lyttelton Print: Unknown
'Mary Paley Marshall ... one of Newnham's first students, recalls her father in the 1860s reading aloud "The Arabian Nights", "Gulliver's Travels", the "Iliad" and "Odyssey", Shakespeare, and, above all, Scott's novels ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Paley Print: Book
'H. M. Swanwick, in the late 1870s, absorbed what she could from any available scientific books and medical journals, and puzzled over the Bible, Shakespeare, Chaucer, La Fontaine.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Helena Maria Lucy Swanwick Print: Book
"Prior to ... [her] marriage [in 1911], [Marie Stopes's] only sexual knowledge came from reading Browning, Swinburne, and -- ignoring her mother's advice -- Shakespeare's sonnets and 'Venus and Adonis', with the addition of novels, and ... Edward Carpenter's Love's Coming of Age."
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Marie Stopes Print: Book
"Prior to ... [her] marriage [in 1911], [Marie Stopes's] only sexual knowledge came from reading Browning, Swinburne, and -- ignoring her mother's advice -- Shakespeare's sonnets and 'Venus and Adonis', with the addition of novels, and ... Edward Carpenter's Love's Coming of Age."
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Marie Stopes Print: Book
"Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence wrote of having read Shakespeare's history plays whilst in prison [as suffragette] ..."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence Print: Book
'Though miners' MP Robert Smillie surreptitiously gorged on Dick Turpin and Three Fingered Jack as a boy, they... "led to better things": by fourteen he had seen RIchard III, read some of the Sonnets, discovered Burns, Scott and Dickens.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Smillie Print: Book
'"[Penny dreadfuls] were thrilling, absolutely without sex interest, and of a high moral standard", explained London hatmaker Frederick Willis. "No boy would be any the worse for reading them and in many cases they encouraged and developed a love of reading that led him onwards and upwards on the fascinating path of literature. It was the beloved 'bloods' that first stimulated my love of reading, and from them I set out on the road to Shaw and Wells, Thackeray and Dickens, Fielding, Shakespeare and Chaucer".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Willis Print: Book
" ... [Sir John] Suckling, coming across what he called 'an imperfect Copy' of [Shakespeare's The Rape of] Lucrece, decided to compose his own 'Supplement.'"
Unknown
Century: 1500-1599 / 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir John Suckling
'Growing up in Lyndhurst after the First World War, R.L. Wild regularly read aloud to his marginally literate grandmother and his completely illiterate grandfather - and it was his grandparents who selected the books... "I shall never understand how this choice was made. Until I started reading to them they had no more knowledge of English literature than a Malay Aborigine... I suppose it was their very lack of knowledge that made the choice, from "Quo Vadis" at eight, Rider Haggard's "She" at nine. By the time I was twelve they had come to know, intimately, a list of authors ranging from Shakespeare to D.H. Lawrence. All was grist to the mill (including Elinor Glyn). The classics, poetry, essays, belles lettres. We took them all in MY stride. At times we stumbled on gems that guided us to further riches. I well remember the Saturday night they brought home "The Essays of Elia". For months afterwards we used it as our roadmap...".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: R.L. Wild Print: Book
'George Howell, bricklayer and trade unionist..."read promiscuously. How could it be otherwise? I had no real guide, was obliged to feel my way into light. Yet perhaps there was a guidance, although indefinite and without distinctive aim". Howell groped his way through literature "on the principle that one poet's works suggested another, or the criticisms on one led to comparisons with another. Thus: Milton - Shakespeare; Pope-Dryden; Byron-Shelley; Burns-Scott; Coleridge-Wordsworth and Southey, and later on Spenser-Chaucer, Bryant-Longfellow, and so on". By following these intertextual links, autodidacts could reconstruct the literary canon on their own'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Howell Print: Book
'I have been with a nice little party of college friends, to see King John, and for a week after, I could do nothing but read Shakespear.' [Siddings was performing in Covent Garden between 12.05.1810 and 21.06.1810]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
Rupert Brooke to Jacques Raverat, April 1909: "'I have done no 'work' for ages: and my tripos is in a few weeks ... Ths holidays I fled from my family for long ... in a hut by a waterfall on Dartmoor, a strange fat Johnian and I 'worked' for three weeks. He read -- oh! Aristotle, I think! And I read the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission; and books on Metre (I'm a poet, you know!); and Shakespere! It was a great time.'"
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rupert Brooke Print: Book
"[in November 1803, when Coleridge was thirty-one] Wordsworth had been reading Shakespeare's sonnets in Coleridge's copy of a set of the Works of the British Poets, in which both he and Coleridge's brother-in-law Robert Southey had made manuscript notes."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
'Lancashire journalist Allen Clarke (b.1863), the son of a Bolton textile worker, avidly read his father's paperback editions of Shakespeare and ploughed through the literature section (Chaucer, Marlowe, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Milton, Pope, Chatterton, Goldsmith, Byron, Shelley, Burns, Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt) of the public library. With that preparation, he was winning prizes for poems in London papers by age thirteen...[he] went on to found and edit several Lancashire journals'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Allen Clarke 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
'Catharine MacAulay's daughter shared her mother's republican views, and read Shakespeare for her own purposes, confessing that far from being delighted by King John, she "never read the Kings".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Macaulay Print: Book, Unknown
'she read much Shakespeare.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington Print: Book
'Bernard Kops, the son of an immigrant leather worker, had a special understanding of the transition from from autodidact culture to Bohemia to youth culture, because he experienced all three. He grew up in the ferment of the Jewish East End... read "The Tempest" at school, and cried over "The Foresaken Merman". At fifteen he became a cook at a hotel, where the staff gave him Karl Marx, Henry Miller and "Ten Days that Shook the World". A neighbor presented him with the poems of Rupert Brooke, and "Grantchester" so resonated with the Jewish slum boy that he went to the library to find another volume from the same publisher, Faber and Faber. Thus he stumbled upon T.S. Eliot. "This book changed my life", he remembered. "It struck me straight in the eye like a bolt of lightning... I had no preconceived ideas about poetry and read 'The Waste Land' and 'Prufrock' as if they were the most acceptable and common forms in existence. The poems spoke to me directly, for they were bound up with the wasteland of the East End, and the desolation and lonelines of people and landscape. Accidentally I had entered the mainstream of literature".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Bernard Kops Print: Book
'There were some problems which I never solved in all my youth. For instance, there was Gloucester's Natural Son in King Lear. For if bad Edmund was a Natural Son, presumably Good Edgar must have been an Un-natural son; and what on earth could that be?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gwen Raverat Print: Book
'After supper read the "Tragedy of Macbeth", which I like very well.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'Read "The Merry Wives of Windsor" wherein I think the genius of the author shows itself in a very conspicuous manner as to humour. But I cannot find in my heart to say I think there is one good moral character.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'The books [Uncle George] read to us were all in the romantic vein: Shakespeare's "Histories", Chaucer, Percy's "Reliques", Scott's novels'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Darwin Print: Book
Henry James to William James, 8 January 1873, on meeting with Mrs Kemble on previous evening: "She is very magnificent, and was very gracious, and being draped (for an evening call) in lavender satin lavishly decollete, reminded me strangely, in her talk and manner, of the time when as infants, in St. John's Wood, we heard her read the Midsummer Night's Dream."
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Anne Kemble
'In the evening wrote my London letters and read Shakespeare's "As you Like It" and "Taming a Shrew", both of which I think good comedies.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'In the evening wrote my London letters and read Shakespeare's "As you Like It" and "Taming a Shrew", both of which I think good comedies.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'After the fatigue of the day was over, I read part of Shakespeare's "Works".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'In the even read part of Shakespeare's "Works", which I think extreme good in their kind.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'1943 My Favourite:
Books: "How Green Was my Valley", "Witch in the Wood".
Authors: T.H.White, Hugh Walpole
Poems: "Christabel", "Lotus Eaters"
Writers: Shaw, Shakespeare'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'I have nothing to say in favour or disfavour of the Shakespeare illustrated. Some pieces are not calculated for more than the present Age, or Time, I should rather say. But this, endeavouring to rob Shakespeare of his Invention, proposes possibly a more durable Existence. Yet, I would not wish to be the Author of so invidious a Piece.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Richardson Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
?I now read for the first time "The Tempest", "Measure for Measure", "Love?s Labour?s Lost", and many other of Shakespeare?s comedies, besides the supreme tragedies, among [them] the greatest creations of the human intellect ? "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "Othello" and "Lear". From no "edition de luxe" did I read. The plays were published by Dick, cost me one penny each, a sum well suited to my means. No matter that the price was small and the paper poor; no matter that there were neither theatre nor stage, neither actors or orchestra. All the more scope was given to fancy and imagination.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burt Print: Book
?I now read for the first time "The Tempest", "Measure for Measure", "Love?s Labour?s Lost", and many other of Shakespeare?s comedies, besides the supreme tragedies, among [them] the greatest creations of the human intellect ? "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "Othello" and "Lear". From no "edition de luxe" did I read. The plays were published by Dick, cost me one penny each, a sum well suited to my means. No matter that the price was small and the paper poor; no matter that there were neither theatre nor stage, neither actors or orchestra. All the more scope was given to fancy and imagination.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burt Print: Book
?I now read for the first time "The Tempest", "Measure for Measure", "Love?s Labour?s Lost", and many other of Shakespeare?s comedies, besides the supreme tragedies, among [them] the greatest creations of the human intellect ? "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "Othello" and "Lear". From no "edition de luxe" did I read. The plays were published by Dick, cost me one penny each, a sum well suited to my means. No matter that the price was small and the paper poor; no matter that there were neither theatre nor stage, neither actors or orchestra. All the more scope was given to fancy and imagination.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burt Print: Book
?I now read for the first time "The Tempest", "Measure for Measure", "Love?s Labour?s Lost", and many other of Shakespeare?s comedies, besides the supreme tragedies, among [them] the greatest creations of the human intellect ? "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "Othello" and "Lear". From no "edition de luxe" did I read. The plays were published by Dick, cost me one penny each, a sum well suited to my means. No matter that the price was small and the paper poor; no matter that there were neither the theatre nor stage, neither actors or orchestra. All the more scope was given to fancy and imagination.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burt Print: Book
?I now read for the first time "The Tempest", "Measure for Measure", "Love?s Labour?s Lost", and many other of Shakespeare?s comedies, besides the supreme tragedies, among [them] the greatest creations of the human intellect ? "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "Othello" and "Lear". From no "edition de luxe" did I read. The plays were published by Dick, cost me one penny each, a sum well suited to my means. No matter that the price was small and the paper poor; no matter that there were neither theatre nor stage, neither actors or orchestra. All the more scope was given to fancy and imagination.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burt Print: Book
?I now read for the first time "The Tempest", "Measure for Measure", "Love?s Labour?s Lost", and many other of Shakespeare?s comedies, besides the supreme tragedies, among [them] the greatest creations of the human intellect ? "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "Othello" and "Lear". From no "edition de luxe" did I read. The plays were published by Dick, cost me one penny each, a sum well suited to my means. No matter that the price was small and the paper poor; no matter that there were neither theatre nor stage, neither actors or orchestra. All the more scope was given to fancy and imagination.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burt Print: Book
[Sunday, on a bike picnic] 'It began to pour down just as B [unidentified] and I reached a barn... so we stayed there to eat, and curled up on rugs on mouldy straw, and I read "Jerusalem under the High Priests"! Arrived in at 6:30 totally soaked! Maccy [later the cookery writer Jane Grigson] has a tiny book of Shakespeare's Sonnets which I must try and get - they are most lovely and very interesting and soothing.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'I revised "Pericles" [for Elocution exam] and wrote notes on it. It's a horrid play, completely unlikely but quite fast moving.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'I read Wilhelm Meister aloud, and then G. read part of the Merchant of Venice'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Ill all day and unable to go out. G. finished Romeo and Juliet'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'G. read Julius Caesar aloud, as far as Caesar's appearance in the senate house. Very much struck with the masculine style of this play and its vigorous moderation compared with Romeo and Juliet'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
''Finished Minna von Barnhelm... G. began Antony and Cleopatra'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Spent afternoon reading "Twelfth Night"... read more of "England their England" which is a scream.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'Read Italianische Reise - Residence in Naples. Pretty passage about a star seen through a chink in the ceiling as he lay in bed. G. read Henry IV'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Had a really wizard lecture from [Prof.] Renwick on Milton, in which he read a good lot of Milton and Shakespeare to us, and he certainly can read.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'went to dine at the Hotel de l'Europe. I took Iphigenia to read. Italianische Reise until Dessoir came. He read us the opening of Richard the 3rd and the scene with Lady Anne. Then Shylock, which G. afterwards read... Finished 1st act of Iphigenia'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Dessoir Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'went to dine at the Hotel de l'Europe. I took Iphigenia to read. Italianische Reise until Dessoir came. He read us the opening of Richard the 3rd and the scene with Lady Anne. Then Shylock, which G. afterwards read... Finished 1st act of Iphigenia'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Hermann and Dorothea - 4 first books. G read 2nd Part of Henry IV'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Began Tasso aloud. G. read two acts of As You Like It'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read aloud Heine's "Gotter im Exil" and some of his poems. G. read aloud Lear'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Christmas day. Miserably wet... Taming of the Shrew'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Began Stahr's "Torso"... G read "Coriolanus". I read some of "Stahr" to him, but we found it too long wided a style for reading aloud'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'G. read some of "Twelfth Night", but his head got bad and he was obliged to leave off'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Goethe's "Maxims in the Wanderjahre". Then we compared several scenes of "Hamlet" in Schlegel's translation with the original. It is generally very close and often admirably done but Shakespeare's strong concrete language is almost always weakened'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Goethe's Maxims in the Wanderjahre. Then we compared several scenes of Hamlet in Schlegel's translation with the original. It is generally very close and often admirably done but Shakespear's strong concrete language is almost always weakened'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Staid at home this evening and read G's M.S. Book 3. Took a little walk under the Linden and afterwards read Twelfth Night'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Hamburgische Briefe at dinner about Voltaire's Merope. Read G's MS. Measure for Measure'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Not well. G began Midsummer Night's Dream. I went to bed early.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read the wondrously beautiful "Romische Elegien" again and some of the Venetian epigrams. G. began Winter's Tale'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'we went to hear the reading of Gruppe's Ferdusi. But the reading was bad and the room insufferably hot. So we came away and read Shakspeare (sic) at home'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'G. read Richard III'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Henry Lewes Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'In the evening Dessoir came and read Hamlet'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: [M.] Dessoir Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'read... Shakspeare's (sic) Venus and Adonis'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'I read Shakspeare's (sic) "Passionate Pilgrim" at breakfast and found a sonnet in which he expresses admiration of Spenser (Sonnet VIII)... I must send word of this to G. who has written in his Goethe that Shakspeare has left no line in praise of a contemporary. [inserted later: (G. writes that this sonnet is Barnwell's)]'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'After dinner read "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and some of the "Sonnets". That play disgusted me more than ever in the final scene where Valentine on Proteus' mere begging pardon where he has no longer any hope of gaining his ends, says: "All that was mine in Silvia I give the"! - Silvia standing by'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'After dinner read "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and some of the "Sonnets". That play disgusted me more than ever in the final scene where Valentine on Proteus' mere begging pardon where he has no longer any hope of gaining his ends, says: "All that was mine in Silvia I give the"! - Silvia standing by'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Shakspeare's (sic) Sonnets and part of "Tempest"'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read "Macbeth".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read "Romeo and Juliet"'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Henry V and Henry VIII'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Henry V and Henry VIII'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Still feverish and unable to fix my mind steadily on reading or writing. Read the 1st, 2nd and 3rd parts of Henry VI, and began Richard II'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Still feverish and unable to fix my mind steadily on reading or writing. Read the 1st, 2nd and 3rd parts of Henry VI, and began Richard II'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
?Whilst in Mr W?s employ, I combined my poetic readings at all leisure moments. I procured and read speedily a complete "Iliad" in English. Some of Shakespeare?s works having fallen in my way, I read them with avidity, as I did almost every other book, and though deeply interested by his historical characters and passages, I never either then or since relished his blank verse, or that of any other poet.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
?Great was our delight, too, when chance opportunities came in the way of such of us as could read. An opportunity of this kind arrived when a firm of printers in London brought out a penny Shakespeare ? a play of Shakespeare?s for a penny! Well do I remember this cheap treasure. It was my first introduction to the great bard. Gracious! How I devoured play after play as they came out. I was a poor errand boy at the time. When on my errands I used to steal odd moments to read my penny Shakespeare.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Edwin Adams Print: Book
'Despite his grandmother's strictures on reading, Davies read widely. His first attraction was to the penny dreadfuls of his day, which he read in secret... The school books he read contained poems that stirred him deeply. One of the school texts he used contained long passages from "The Lady of the Lake" with a prose commentary attached. And then there was a favourite schoolboy poem starting with the resounding line: "The Soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers", with a refrain that the boys loved to chant at play. There were extracts from Shakespeare, the usual lyrics, and a few heavily didactic poems intended to inculcate morality in the boyish heart'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Davies Print: Book
'In the [italics]Autobiography[end italics] he tells us of the impact of Byron on him and his friend Dave: "His influence on Dave was so great that it was publicly shown to all the boys and girls in the chapel's schoolroom... While we were playing kiss in the ring, singing and laughing... Dave would lean his figure... against a pillar, biting his lips and frowning at our merrymaking"... His friend soon tired of this Byronic posing, but Davies marks the occasion as the first time he was really attracted to poetry with enjoyment and serious purpose. He went on to read Shelley, Marlowe's plays, and some further Shakespeare. Wordsworth failed to attract him, though he later studied him very diligently'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Davies Print: Book
?In my leisure hours during this year, and the years 1838 and 1839, I read the whole of Shakespeare?s dramatic works, Mr. Sharon Turner?s ?Sacred History of the Creation?, the ?Memoirs of Mr. Samuel Drew? and Dr. Stilling?s ?Theory of Pneumatology?, together with same odd volumes of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
?I now read for the first time "The Tempest", "Measure for Measure", "Love?s Labour?s Lost", and many other of Shakespeare?s comedies, besides the supreme tragedies, among [them] the greatest creations of the human intellect ? "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "Othello" and "Lear". From no "edition de luxe" did I read. The plays were published by Dick, cost me one penny each, a sum well suited to my means. No matter that the price was small and the paper poor; no matter that there were neither theatre nor stage, neither actors or orchestra. All the more scope was given to fancy and imagination.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burt Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'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 ? 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
'the diverse collection of literature that Christopher Thomson, a sometime shipwright, actor and housepainter, worked his way through [...] included adventure stories such as "Robinson Crusoe" and the imitative "Philip Quarll", books of travel, such as Boyle's "Travels", some un-named religious tracts, a number of "classics" including Milton and Shakespeare, some radical newspapers, particularly Cobbett's "Register" and Wooller's "Black Dwarf", mechanics' magazines, and some occasional items of contemporary literature, including the novels of Scott and the poetry of Byron.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Christopher Thomson Print: Book
"As to what they read [at the Gower Street School in the 1880s] -- and [...] Lucy Harrison [headmistress] read aloud to them untiringly -- it must be what went deepest and lifted highest -- Shakespeare, Dante in Cary's translation, Blake, Wordsworth, and [...] [Miss Harrison's] own favourites, Emily Bronte, Christina Rossetti, the Brownings, Coventry Patmore [...] A reading which all [...] [Miss Harrison's] pupils heard often, and never forgot, was from Alice Meynell's "Preludes" of 1875 -- the sonnet "To a Daisy"'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Harrison, headmistress, Charlotte Mew, and other pupils at Gower Street school Print: Book
'Then we write a part of the romance and read some Shakespears [sic]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'We read Shakespeare'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Reading English History, Reign of George III. Shakespeare's King John.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'I have been keeping rather different hours--though the Priory is far from a late place [...] Wm. [Lady Caroline's husband William Lamb] & I get up about ten or 1/2 after or later [...] have our breakfasts, talk a little, read Newton on the Prophecies with the Bible--having finished Sherlock [...] he goes to eat & walk--I finish dressing & take a drive or little walk [...] then come up stairs where William meets me, & we read Hume with Shakespear till ye dressing bell, then hurry & hardly get dressed by dinner time'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb Print: Book
Henry Chorley, in Memorials of Mrs Hemans (1836): 'She [Felicia Hemans, nee Browne] was early a reader of Shakespeare; and, by way of securing shade and freedom from interruption, used to climb an apple tree, and there study his plays'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Felicia Browne Print: Book
'Yesterday, sitting in Thornie's room I read through all Shakespeare's sonnets'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'I have achieved little during the last week except reading on medical subjects - Encyclopaedia about the medical colleges - Cullen's life - Russell's Heroes of Medicine etc. I have also read Aristophaes Ecclesiazusae, and Macbeth'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
Mary Berry to Bertie Greathead, 2 August 1798, on having got to know Mrs Siddons the previous winter: 'She read "Hamlet" to us one evening, in N. Audley-street, which was to me a great treat.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Siddons Print: Book
'[Anna Seward's] training was not necessarily less rigorous for being informal and solitary. Seward scoffed at a male contemporary who claimed never to have read or studied poetry. "If Shakespeare's talents were miracles of uncultured intuition, we feel, that neither Milton's, Pope's, Akenside's, Gray's or Darwin's were such, but that poetic investigation, and long familiarity with the best writers in that line, cooperated to produce their excellence".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anna Seward Print: Book
'A Reverend Mr Darnell followed in this January of 1812. He too read Milton. This time it was Comus, and the whole party joined in, Annabella and her guests taking the various parts. They did the Trial-Scene from the Merchant of Venice too, and she "never heard anyone read with more discriminating judgment than Mr Darnell".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke, Rev. Darnell and other house guests Print: Book
'A Reverend Mr Darnell followed in this January of 1812. He too read Milton. This time it was Comus, and the whole party joined in, Annabella and her guests taking the various parts. They did the Trial-Scene from the Merchant of Venice too, and she "never heard anyone read with more discriminating judgment than Mr Darnell".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Rev. Darnell Print: Book
Mary Berry, Journal, 2 January 1822, during stay at Guy's Cliff: 'Mrs Siddons read "Othello," the two parts of Iago and Othello quite [italics]a merveille[end italics].'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Siddons Print: Book
'My beloved hour of the day was when the [table] cloth was drawn, and I stole away from the dessert, and read Shakspere by firelight in winter in the drawing-room. My mother was kind enough to allow this breach of good family manners; and again at a subsequent time when I took to newspaper reading very heartily [...] Our newspaper was the Globe'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'[Robert Owen] told me [Harriet Martineau] that he knew the Bible so well as to have been heartily sick of it in his early youth. He owned that he had never read it since. He promised to read the four Gospels carefeully, if I would read "Hamlet" with a running commentary of Necessarian doctrine in my own mind [...] I fulfilled the engagement'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'At other times we studied Shakespeare, Milton and some other English poets as well as some of the Italians. We took long walks and often drew from nature. We read with great attention the whole of the New Testament, Secker's lectures on the Catechism and several other books on the same important subjects.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Smith Print: Book
Harriet Martineau, Journal, 16 December 1837: 'Read Midsummer Night's Dream in the evening. Surprised to find how completely I remembered it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
?for Hamlet & the trifling of his favour
Hold it a fashion and a Toy in blood;
A violet in the youth of primy nature
Forward not permanent ? sweet not lasting
The perfume and suppliance of a minute
No more ?.. [Lamb?s own ellipses]
Rest not perturb?d spirit?
[writing in another direction on the other half of the sheet she continues]
?O dear Ophelia wherefore doubt me
--I have not art to win thee but
this I know I love thee best O
most best ? believe it adieu.
Hamlet?
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb
'I did not move from my chair but reached for a book. Picked up a Shakespeare and
read the closing scene, "Othello".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
'I do not care for a First Folio ofShakespeare. I rather prefer the common editions of Rowe and Tonson, without notes, and with plates, which, being so execrably bad, serve as maps, or modest remembrancers, to the text; and without pretending to any supposable emulation with it, are so much better than the Shakespeare gallery engravings, which did. [...] Winter evenings-the world shut out-with less of ceremony the gentle Shakespeare. At such a season, the Tempest, or his own Winter's Tale- These two poets [Shakespeare and Milton] youcannot avoid reading aloud-to your-self or (as it chances) to some single person listening. More than one-and it degenerates into an audience.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Lamb Print: Book
'Read in Shakspear "The Midsummer Nights Dream" for the first time - I have still got 3 parts out of 4 plays to read yet and hope I shall not leave the world without reading them'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Clare Print: Book
'read Shakspears "Henry The Fifth" of which I have always been very fond from almost a boy I first met with it in an odd vol which I got for 6d [...] I can never lay it down till I see the end of it'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Clare Print: Book
'Read "Macbeth" what a soul thrilling power hovers about this tragedy I have read it over about twenty times'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Clare Print: Book
'read some pages in Shakspear - turnd over a few leaves of knoxes essays'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Clare Print: Book
'Accordingly, it was announced that the reading of Shakespeare would be one of our lessons, and on the following afternoon we began "The Merchant of Venice". There was one large volume, and it was handed about the class; I was permitted to read the part of Bassanio, and I set forth, with ecstatic pipe ... I was in the seventh heaven of delight, but alas! We had only reached the second act of the play, when the readings mysteriously stopped. I never knew the cause, but I suspect it was at my Father's desire. He prided himself on never having read a page of Shakespeare...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Gosse Print: Book
'It was in my fifteenth year that I became again, this time intelligently, aquainted with Shakespeare. I got hold of a single play, "The Tempest", in a school edition, prepared, I suppose, for one of the university examinations which were then being instituted in the provinces. This I read through and through, not disdaining the help of the notes, and revelling in the glossary. I studied "The Tempest" as I had hitherto studied no classic work, and it filled my whole being with music and romance. This book was my own hoarded possession; the rest of Shakespeare's works were beyond my hopes.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Gosse Print: Book
'It was in my fifteenth year that I became again, this time intelligently, aquainted with Shakespeare. I got hold of a single play, "The Tempest", in a school edition, prepared, I suppose, for one of the university examinations which were then being instituted in the provinces...This book was my own hoarded possession; the rest of Shakespeare's works were beyond my hopes. But gradually I contrived to borrow a volume here and there. I completed "The Merchant of Venice", read "Cymbeline", "Julius Caesar", and "Much Ado"; most of the others, I think, remained closed to me for a long time. But these were enough to steep my horizon with all the colours of sunrise.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Gosse Print: Book
'It was in my fifteenth year that I became again, this time intelligently, aquainted with Shakespeare. I got hold of a single play, "The Tempest", in a school edition, prepared, I suppose, for one of the university examinations which were then being instituted in the provinces...This book was my own hoarded possession; the rest of Shakespeare's works were beyond my hopes. But gradually I contrived to borrow a volume there. I completed "The Merchant of Venice", read "Cymbeline", "Julius Caesar", and "Much Ado"; most of the others, I think, remained closed to me for a long time. But these were enough to steep my horizon with all the colours of sunrise.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Gosse Print: Book
'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
'When, a year or two later, we read "Julius Caesar" at school, I recognised the scene immediately... I did not find it very funny, but I recognised its authenticity. Shakespeare knew what he was talking about: he had met people like my Uncle Tom.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Norman Nicholson Print: Book
'Our syllabus was large, covering at least twelve set books: two plays of Shakespeare's, two volumes of Milton and two of Keats; Chaucer, Sheridan, Lamb, Scott's "Old Mortality" and the first book of "The Golden Treasury", with its marvellous pickings of Coleridge, Shelly, Byron and, especially, Wordsworth, which excited me, at that age, more than any other poetry written.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Norman Nicholson Print: Book
'It [central London] was truly a wonder world, for I seeing it not merely with my eyes of flesh but with the eyes of heightened imagination; -seeing it not only through spectacles manufactured by an optician, but through glasses supplied by magicians names Charles Dickens, Walter Scott, William Makepeace Thackeray, Joseph Addison, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Toby Smollett, Sam Johnson and Will Shakespeare himself. Had I scraped an acquaintance with all these before I was fifteen? I knew them well! -and that was the trouble. I was book hungry, and I found a land where books were accessible in a quantity and variety sufficient to satisfy even my uncontrolled voracity.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas A. Jackson Print: Book
'Later on I found at the bottom of a cupboard some of volumes -Addison's "Spectator", Pope's "Homer", and a few other things. My grandmother -who also devoured books in great gulps -gave me a "Robinson Crusoe", and lent me volumes containing four "Waverley Novels" apiece. Much about the same time my father got bound up a set of Dickens's novels he had bought in weekly parts. They were in the popular quarto edition with drawings by Fred Barnard, John Mahony and others. These were a real treasure -and all the more so as my father was an ardent Dickens "fan" who rather despised Scott as a "romantic" and a "Tory". His mother (born in 1815, so old enough to have read the "Waverley Novels" when they were still comparatively new things) rather sniffed at Dickens, and definitely preferred both Scott and Thackeray. She gave me "Vanity Fair" as an antidote to "David Copperfield" and added a Shakespeare, and a bundle of "paperback" editions -Fielding, Smollett, Fennimore Cooper and Captain Marryatt.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas A. Jackson Print: Book
'Finished the "Epicurean" by Moore, it is a sad story but very prettily written; began to read the play of "Julius Caesar" by Shakespeare as I had all night, I was able to stay up till late - learning by heart "Paradise & the Peri"'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Battiscombe Print: Book
"Been reading Shakespeare's plays. viz "Measure for Measure" "Much Ado About Nothing" -'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Battiscombe Print: Book
'Been reading Shakespeare's plays. viz "Measure for Measure" "Much Ado About Nothing" -'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert Battiscombe Print: Book
'January 18. No letters: strike still on. A fine day. But what is that to me? I am an invalid. I spend my life in bed. Read Shakespeare in the morning. I feel I cannot bear this silence to-day. I am haunted by thoughts.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'Shakespeare Notes. All's Well that Ends Well. The First Lord is worth attending to.... Hamlet: ...But I could write a thousand pages about Hamlet...Miranda and Juliet: To say that Juliet and Miranda might very well be one seems to me to show a lamentable want of perception... Romeo and Juliet ...When the old nurse cackles of leaning against the dove-house wall it's just as though a beam of sunlight struck through the curtains and discovered her sitting there in the warmth with a tiny staggerer...Twelfth Night...Oh, doesn't that reveal the thoughts of all those strange creatures who attend upon the lives of others! Antony and Cleopatra...Marvellous words!...A creature like Cleopatra always expects to be paid for things.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'Shakespeare Notes. All's Well that Ends Well. The First Lord is worth attending to.... Hamlet: ...But I could write a thousand pages about Hamlet...Miranda and Juliet: To say that Juliet and Miranda might very well be one seems to me to show a lamentable want of perception... Romeo and Juliet ...When the old nurse cackles of leaning against the dove-house wall it's just as though a beam of sunlight struck through the curtains and discovered her sitting there in the warmth with a tiny staggerer...Twelfth Night...Oh, doesn't that reveal the thoughts of all those strange creatures who attend upon the lives of others! Antony and Cleopatra...Marvellous words!...A creature like Cleopatra always expects to be paid for things.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'Shakespeare Notes. All's Well that Ends Well. The First Lord is worth attending to.... Hamlet: ...But I could write a thousand pages about Hamlet...Miranda and Juliet: To say that Juliet and Miranda might very well be one seems to me to show a lamentable want of perception... Romeo and Juliet ...When the old nurse cackles of leaning against the dove-house wall it's just as though a beam of sunlight struck through the curtains and discovered her sitting there in the warmth with a tiny staggerer...Twelfth Night...Oh, doesn't that reveal the thoughts of all those strange creatures who attend upon the lives of others! Antony and Cleopatra...Marvellous words!...A creature like Cleopatra always expects to be paid for things.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'Shakespeare Notes. All's Well that Ends Well. The First Lord is worth attending to.... Hamlet: ...But I could write a thousand pages about Hamlet...Miranda and Juliet: To say that Juliet and Miranda might very well be one seems to me to show a lamentable want of perception... Romeo and Juliet ...When the old nurse cackles of leaning against the dove-house wall it's just as though a beam of sunlight struck through the curtains and discovered her sitting there in the warmth with a tiny staggerer...Twelfth Night...Oh, doesn't that reveal the thoughts of all those strange creatures who attend upon the lives of others! Antony and Cleopatra...Marvellous words!...A creature like Cleopatra always expects to be paid for things.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'Shakespeare Notes. All's Well that Ends Well. The First Lord is worth attending to.... Hamlet: ...But I could write a thousand pages about Hamlet...Miranda and Juliet: To say that Juliet and Miranda might very well be one seems to me to show a lamentable want of perception... Romeo and Juliet ...When the old nurse cackles of leaning against the dove-house wall it's just as though a beam of sunlight struck through the curtains and discovered her sitting there in the warmth with a tiny staggerer...Twelfth Night...Oh, doesn't that reveal the thoughts of all those strange creatures who attend upon the lives of others! Antony and Cleopatra...Marvellous words!...A creature like Cleopatra always expects to be paid for things.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'Shakespeare Notes. All's Well that Ends Well. The First Lord is worth attending to.... Hamlet: ...But I could write a thousand pages about Hamlet...Miranda and Juliet: To say that Juliet and Miranda might very well be one seems to me to show a lamentable want of perception... Romeo and Juliet ...When the old nurse cackles of leaning against the dove-house wall it's just as though a beam of sunlight struck through the curtains and discovered her sitting there in the warmth with a tiny staggerer...Twelfth Night...Oh, doesn't that reveal the thoughts of all those strange creatures who attend upon the lives of others! Antony and Cleopatra...Marvellous words!...A creature like Cleopatra always expects to be paid for things.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'January 3...I read "The Tempest". The papers came. I over-read them. Tell the truth. I did no work. In fact I was more idle and hateful than ever..."The Tempest" seems to me astonishing this time. When one reads the same play again, it is never the same play.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'January 4...I have read a good deal of "Cosmic Anatomy" and understood it far better. Yes, such a book does fascinate me. Why does J. [Middleton Murry] hate it so? To get a glimpse of the relation of things - to follow that relation and find it remains true through the ages enlarges my little mind as nothing else does. It's only a greater view of psychology....Read Shakespeare.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'January 6... Read Shakespeare, read "Cosmic Anatomy", read The Oxford Dictionary.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'January 7... I read "Cosmic Anatomy", Shakespeare and the Bible. Jonah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'February 5. Wrote at my story, read Shakespeare, Read Goethe, thought, prayed.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Mansfield Print: Book
'I was repelled at home, rather than encouraged to read, and I never remember to have seen a book in my elders' hands. Literature was limited to the "Daily Telegraph". To read in secret I escaped to the washhouse, and I well remember during my early apprentice days at Spitalfields, my grandfather, catching a sight of me reading there a copy of Dicks's shilling edition of Shakespeare - the whole, a marvellous feat of cheap publishing -sternly reproachful, exclaimed: "Ah, Tom, that'll never bring you bread and cheese!"'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Okey Print: Book
'Sunday, 14th March,
Discussion Group ? ?Stunt? rehearsal. Also 1st rehearsal of ?Good Friday? which will draw half our members.
Reading ?Hamlet" ? the first time I have read it with any attempt at real comprehension.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Monday, 5th April,
I am cast for Amieus in ?As you like it?. I was looking over my script today. Not very much but nice. ?Under the Greenwood Tree? and ?Blow, blow thou Winter Wind? are my songs. I shall enjoy it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Saturday 10th July
?Henry IV? ? (Shakespeare ? bought it yesterday, Temple 2 vols)'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'In 1835, [James] Edwards [Sewell, reader's brother] [...] had the curacy of Hursley. Mr. Gilbert Heathcote held the living, and Ellen [reader's sister] and I were sent to Hursley [...] whilst Lucy [reader's friend] was ill. We were at the old vicarage [...] [Mr. Heathcote's books] were very kindly left for our use, and I made an acquaintance with Sir Walter Scott's "Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk", and read Shakespeare to Ellen, and led a quiet life, seeing no one.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Sewell Print: Book
'I have read the whole of Shakespeare several times and the character with whom I have most sympathy is poor Hamlet, the introvert, the dreamer!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Stuart Wood [pseud?] Print: Book
'Drew my chair to the door, sat down in the sun, and spent an hour or two in reading the "Merry Wives of Windsor". Thank God for Shakespeare at any rate. Baron Lefroy cannot sentence Shakespeare to death, nor so much as mulct him for damages, though I am told he deserves it for defamation of character, in the case of Sir John Falstaff.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel Print: Book
'With Shakespeare also I hold much gay and serious intercourse; and I have read, since coming here, three or four dialogues of Plato, with the critical diligence of a junior sophister. The "Politeia", indeed, as a gentle exercise of my mind, I am writing out in literal bald English; which I do chiefly with a view to compel myself to read Greek accurately, and not to gobble it, bones and all.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel Print: Book
'Read "Antony and Cleopatra".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel Print: Book
'Sat alone all the evening and read two Shakespeare's plays, "Measure for Measure" and "Henry the 6th".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Fremantle Print: Unknown
'Sat alone all the evening and read two Shakespeare's plays, "Measure for Measure" and "Henry the 6th".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Fremantle Print: Unknown
'Have you read Shakespear? If you have not, then I desire you, read it directly, and tell me what you think of him -which is his masterpiece. He is always excellent'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Serial / periodical, Unknown
Quotes Shakespeare throughout work:V.1 p.55,p.62,p.86, p.105,p.126; V.2 p.55,p.89,p.199; V.3 p.176 eg. V.1. p.105 Letter XIII to Miss Reid, Fort William May 24 1773 '?He was like Brutus among conspirators, whom you used to admire in the play: "The rest did what they did in envy of the great Caesar/ He only, in general honest thought," ?'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
'read a scene or two out of "As You Like It" - go upstairs to talk with Shelley - Read Ovid (54 lines only) Shelley finishes the 3d canto of Ariosto'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
[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 - only those not mentioned in journal entries are indicated separately in the database]
'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 Metamo[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
x 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 [sic]
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: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'He and I have read the same books, and discuss Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Fletcher, Webster, and all the old authors.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'read Locke and the Edinburgh review and two odes of Horace - S. reads Political Justice & Shakespeare and the 23rd Chap. of Gibbon'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Up and to Deptford by water, reading "Othello, Moore of Venice", which I ever heretofore esteemed a mighty good play; but having so lately read "The Adventures of five houres", it seems a mean thing.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'In the evening S. finishes reading MacBeth'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Finish the 11th book of Tacitus - Read some of Beaumont & X Fletchers plays - work - S. write - reads some of the plays of Sophocles - & Antony & Cleopatra of Shakespeare and Othello aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Finish the 11th book of Tacitus - Read some of Beaumont & X Fletchers plays - work - S. write - reads some of the plays of Sophocles - & Antony & Cleopatra of Shakespeare and Othello aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S reads Berkeley and part of "Much ado about nothing["] aloud; read XI XII XIII Essays of Hume.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S reads Hamlet'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read 42nd Canto - Livy - Anacharsis. Horace - and Shakespears Coriolanus - S. translates the Symposium & reads Philaster'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Wednesday Aug. 17th. [...] We [Claire Clairmont, P. B. Shelley, and Mary Godwin] fled away
[from dirty hotel at village of Mort] & climbed some wild rocks -- & sat there reading till the sun
laid down to rest -- I read As you like it [&] found the wild & romantic touches of this Play very
accordant with the scene befor[e] me & my feeling'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday August 27th. Reach Lucerne about half after twelve [p.m.] -- Go to the Cheval. Read
King Richard III. & King Lear. Quite Horrified -- [I] can't describe my feelings for [th]e moment
-- when Cornwall tears [ou]t the eyes of the Duke of Gloster -- This Play is the most melancholy
& produces almost stupendous despair on the reader -- Such refinement in wickedness &
cruelty'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday August 27th. Reach Lucerne about half after twelve -- Go to the Cheval. Read
King Richard III. & King Lear. Quite Horrified -- [I] can't describe my feelings for [th]e moment
-- when Cornwall tears [ou]t the eyes of the Duke of Gloster -- This Play is the most melancholy
& produces almost stupendous despair on the reader -- Such refinement in wickedness &
cruelty'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
From Claire Clairmont's account of voyage back from Switzerland to England with P. B. Shelley
and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin:
'Wednesday August 31st. [...] Shelley reads aloud Letters from Norway -- Read King Lear a
second time -- Reach Strasburg about eleven [pm]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday Nov. 6th. Rise at nine [...] Read Prince Alexy Haimatoff & King Richard III [...] Dine at
four.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday Nov. 7th. Rise at nine -- Work. Read Political Justice -- Mary [Wollstonecraft
Godwin] dines at one & goes to Shelley. Read King Richard the Third -- Dine by myself at four.
Mary returns at six -- Talk with her. & read some miscellaneous poetry.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday April 18. [...] Shelley reads aloud Hamlet. Read Lear.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday April 18. [...] Shelley reads aloud Hamlet. Read Lear.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Thursday Jany. 20th. [...] Work all day. S. reads Henry 4th to us.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Richard III in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read a part of the 7 canto of Tasso - Livy - Montaigne and Eustace -S. reads Theocritus and Richard III aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Theocritus - & Henry VIII aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Theocritus and Virgil's Georgics - after tea he reads aloud and finishes the play of Henry VIII'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read 12 Canto of Tasso & two acts of Troilus and Cressida'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish Troilus and Cressida - read 3 books of Pope's Homer'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 7 Canto's of Dante - Begin to translate A.[lfieri] - Read Cajo Graccho of Monti & Measure for Measure'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Left Black's and fell in with Wm Lotherington and Perrot this was about eleven o clock they came home with me, and we drank Brandy and Water and read Falstaff till one o clock or past.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'finish the trajedies of Alfieri - Walk out with S. He reads Malthus & Cymbeline aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy - The Tempest & two gentlemen of Verona - S finishes Ma[l]thus - & reads Cymbeline aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy - The Tempest & two gentlemen of Verona - S finishes Ma[l]thus - & reads Cymbeline aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy - The Tempest & two gentlemen of Verona - S finishes Ma[l]thus - & reads Cymbeline aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Vita di Alfieri & Livy - S. reads Winter's tale aloud to me'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Vita di Alfieri - half the 9th book of Virgil - S reads Winters tale aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Finish Vita di Tasso - Read Timon of Athens - work - S finishes the Winter's Tale'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Timon of Athens'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Arrive at Venise at 2 o'clock - Read alls well that ends well'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Hamlet'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Romeo & Juliet - S. reads the Hipolitus of Euripides'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read King Lear'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Othello'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Julius Caesar'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read King John - & Livy'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy - & the merry Wives of Windsor'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Metastasio - S. reads the Hist. P.[lay]s of Shakespeare'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Sunday Dec 2nd. [...] Read Julius Caesar of Shakespeare.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday Dec. 30th. [...] Read Cymbeline Titus Andronicus and 1st. and 2nd. part of Henry IV.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday Dec. 30th. [...] Read Cymbeline Titus Andronicus and 1st. and 2nd. part of Henry IV.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday Dec. 30th. [...] Read Cymbeline Titus Andronicus and 1st. and 2nd. part of Henry IV.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday Dec. 30th. [...] Read Cymbeline Titus Andronicus and 1st. and 2nd. part of Henry IV.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Thursday Jany. 17th. [...] Read King Lear.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday March 3rd. [...] Read Hamlet.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday March 10th. [...] Read Romeo and Juliet.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Uvedale Price, 30 December 1826, in response to his remarks on the description of a storm in George Robert Greig's The Subaltern:
'There is undoubtedly a new combination of striking circumstances in your Capture of St Sebastian [...] I cannot however allow that sulphur is only mentioned in [italics]Homer[end italics] when I find this expressive passage in Petronius Arbiter [slightly misquotes two lines from the Satyricon, followed by further relevant quotes from William Chamberlayne, Pharonnida (III canto 3); Beattie, The Minstrel, I v.54, and Shakespeare's Tempest I.2.203-204]
[...]
'After some searching, I have only found "the alarming impression of the storm, while yet collecting, on all animals" mentioned in Chatterton's Excellent Balade of Charitie, -- which I am sure you must think poetically excellent [quotes line from verse 5] [...] but here the cattle have had a more ordinary indication of the aproaching storm [i.e. falling rain] than your awful circumstances of close oppressive heat, praeternatural stillness & silence'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Do you remember the knocking in Macbeth? ...The porter is a man I have a great respect for. He had a great command of language. All that he says, curiously enough, my mother left out when she read Macbeth to me ... I remember the day my mother read Macbeth to me.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mrs Stevenson Print: Book
'At 7 [...] I read the History of England and Rome -- at 8 I perused the History of Greece and
it was at this age that I first found real delight in poetry -- "The Minstrel" Popes "Iliad"[,]
some parts of the "Odyssey" passages from "Paradise lost" selected by my dearest Mama and
some of Shakespeares plays among which were "The Tempest," "Othello," and a few historical
dramatic pieces constituted my studies!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'At 7 [...] I read the History of England and Rome -- at 8 I perused the History of Greece and
it was at this age that I first found real delight in poetry -- "The Minstrel" Popes "Iliad"[,]
some parts of the "Odyssey" passages from "Paradise lost" selected by my dearest Mama and
some of Shakespeares plays among which were "The Tempest," "Othello," and a few historical
dramatic pieces constituted my studies!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'This year [when aged twelve] I read Milton for the first time [italics]thro[end italics] together
with Shakespeare & Pope's Homer [...] I now read to gain idea's [sic] not to indulge my fancy and I
studied the works of those critics whose attention was directed to my favorite authors.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Shelley reads the Tempest alout [sic] - & the Bible & Sophocles to himself'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Finish the book of Proverbs. S. reads the Bible & Sophocles - Finishes the Tempest aloud to me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Translate S...a [Spinoza] with Shelley - He read [sic] Sophocles and the Bible - & King John & First Part Henry IV aloud. - Finish 31st book of Livy - Finish Proverbs, Ecclesiastes & Solomon's Song'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Translate S...a [Spinoza] with Shelley - He read [sic] Sophocles and the Bible - & King John & First Part Henry IV aloud. - Finish 31st book of Livy - Finish Proverbs, Ecclesiastes & Solomon's Song'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Henry IV aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Henry V'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Henry VI aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read the Utopia - Write - S reads Henry VI aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Troilus & Cressid [sic] in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. begins King Lear in the evening.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Benjamin Robert Haydon, in his Autobiography, mentions 'Liz', 'An attractive girl on the second
floor of a house full of young men ... [who] attached herself to the party, made tea for them,
marketed with them, carved for them, went to the lay with them, read Shakespeare with them,'
going on to remark, 'Her position was anomalous, but I firmly believe it was innocent ... She
was a girl with a man's mind ... as interesting a girl as you would wish to see'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Liz Print: Book
'We were at the old vicarage, which had then only one sitting room, or at least only one which we could use, for the floor of the other room was covered with Mr Heathcote's books. They were very kindly left for our use, and I made an acquaintance with Sir Walter Scott's "Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk", and read Shakespeare to Ellen, and led a quiet life, seeing no one'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
'I have been with a nice little party of College friends, to see King John, and for a week after, I could do nothing but read Shakespear. Mrs Siddons was Magnificent-'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
Virginia Stephen to Thoby Stephen, 2 November 1901:
'I have been reading Marlow [sic], and I was so much more impressed by him than I should
be, that I read Cymbeline just to see if there mightnt be more in the great William than I
supposed. And I was quite upset! Really and truly I am now let in to [the] company of
worshippers -- though I still feel a little oppressed by his -- greatness I suppose [...] I read Dr
Faustus, and Edward II -- I thought them very near the great man -- with more humanity I
should say -- not all on such a grand tragic scale [comments further on points of comparison
and contrast between Shakespeare and Marlowe].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Stephen Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Saxon Sydney-Turner, 25 February 1918:
'I daresay you share my feeling that Asheham is the best place in the world for reading
Shakespeare. Asheham is very lovely at the moment [...] I've been sitting in the garden all
the afternoon, reading Measure for Measure, looking at the trees, and thinking as much of you
as of anything.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 10 December 1931:
'I read As you like it the other day and was almost sending you a wire to ask what is the truth
about Jacques -- What is it? His last speech reads so very odd.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'You talk of reading "a very old book": Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides. Why that's a [underlined] chickn [sic, underlined] compared to my present reading. I am reduced to a perusal of my own little library, and am solacing myself with Plutarch's Lives, and Robertson's History of Charles V. and vary my sport occasionally with an Historical Play of Shakespear, or a good Sunday Book.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I return your Italian volumes, my dear friend, with many thanks, owning honestly, that I have never looked into them; for the thread of my interest in Botta's History having been interrupted by my leaving Florence, I could not for the life of me connect it again; and I got hold of other books - read no Italian for ages - and, at last, pounced one fine day upon a good, clear edition of Ariosto, and have been and am reading him with even more delight than when he first fell into my hands. Here and there, he is a bad boy, and as the book is my own, & I do not like indecency, I cut out whole pages that annoy me, & burn them before the Author's face, which stands at the beginning of the first volume, and I hope feels properly ashamed. Next to Ariosto, by way of something new, I treat myself now and then with a play of one Wm Shakespear, and I am reading Robertson's Charles Vth which comes in well after that part of Botta's History at which I left off - viz: just about the time of the council of Trent. And, as I love modern reading, I was glad to find myself possessed of a very tidy edition of a Biographical work you may perhaps have heard tell of - Plutarch's Lives. If you should ever meet with it, I think I might venture to say you would not dislike it'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
2 March 1918: '[On 19 February] we went to Asheham [...] I saw no-one; for 5 days I wasn't in a state for reading [due to influenza]; but I did finally read Morley & other books; but reading when done to kill time has a kind of drudgy look in it [...] One day I sat in the garden reading Shakespeare; I remember the ecstacy'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'As soon as I have done, I shall begin my ?Pastoral Drama? business; I have so many nice things to say about "Midsummer Night?s Dream"[?]'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson 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
Tuesday 24 April 1928: 'I was reading Othello last night, & was impressed by the volley & volume & tumble of his words: too many I should say, were I reviewing for the Times [goes on to comment further on Shakespeare] [...] I've read only French for 4 weeks.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'I sat in my rickety camp chair which had been artfully and ingeniously repaired by [Sherpa] Wangdi to prevent it falling to pieces, and read Shakespeare's sonnets.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frank Smythe Print: Book
Monday 26 June 1933: 'The present moment. 7 o'clock on June 26th: [...] I after reading Henry 4 Pt one saying whats the use of writing; reading, imperfectly, a poem by Leopardi'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Saturday 21 July 1934: 'I am reading Sh[akespea]re plays the fag end of the morning. Have read, Pericles, Titus Andronicus, & Coriolanus.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Saturday 21 July 1934: 'I am reading Sh[akespea]re plays the fag end of the morning. Have read, Pericles, Titus Andronicus, & Coriolanus.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Saturday 21 July 1934: 'I am reading Sh[akespea]re plays the fag end of the morning. Have read, Pericles, Titus Andronicus, & Coriolanus.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Tuesday 2 October 1934:
'Books read or in reading [over summer 1934]:
Sh[akespea]re. Troilus.
Pericles.
Taming of Shrew.
Cymbeline.
Maupassant.
de Vigny. only scraps [the four French authors grouped by bracket in MS]
St Simon.
Gide.
Library books: Powys
Wells
Lady Brooke.
Prose. Dobree.
Alice James.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Tuesday 2 October 1934:
'Books read or in reading [over summer 1934]:
Sh[akespea]re. Troilus.
Pericles.
Taming of Shrew.
Cymbeline.
Maupassant.
de Vigny. only scraps [the four French authors grouped by bracket in MS]
St Simon.
Gide.
Library books: Powys
Wells
Lady Brooke.
Prose. Dobree.
Alice James.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Tuesday 2 October 1934:
'Books read or in reading [over summer 1934]:
Sh[akespea]re. Troilus.
Pericles.
Taming of Shrew.
Cymbeline.
Maupassant.
de Vigny. only scraps [the four French authors grouped by bracket in MS]
St Simon.
Gide.
Library books: Powys
Wells
Lady Brooke.
Prose. Dobree.
Alice James.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Tuesday 2 October 1934:
'Books read or in reading [over summer 1934]:
Sh[akespea]re. Troilus.
Pericles.
Taming of Shrew.
Cymbeline.
Maupassant.
de Vigny. only scraps [the four French authors grouped by bracket in MS]
St Simon.
Gide.
Library books: Powys
Wells
Lady Brooke.
Prose. Dobree.
Alice James.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Friday 27 November 1936, following lunch at Claridges with others including Sir Ronald Storrs: 'Sir R. Storrs. [...] stolid, second rate, a snob, & very vain [...] Reads seasonally: Dante: Homer: Shakespeare.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Ronald Storrs Print: Book
Sunday 17 December 1939: 'We ate too much hare pie last night; & I read Freud on Groups [...] I'm reading Ricketts diary -- all about the war the last war; & the Herbert diaries & ... yes, Dadie's Shakespeare, & notes overflow into my 2 books.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'Several of the officers [participating in military review at Wilmingtown] came up to dine, amongst others Coll: Howe, who with less ceremony than might have been expected from his general politeness stept into an apartment adjoining the hall, and took up a book I had been reading, which he brought open in his hand into the company. I was piqued at his freedom, and reproved him with a half compliment to his general good breeding. He owned his fault and with much gallantry promised to submit to whatever punishment I would inflict. You shall only, said I, read aloud a few pages which I will point out, and I am sure you will do Shakespear justice. He bowed and took up the book, but no sooner observed that I had turned up for him, that part of Henry the fourth, where Falstaff describes his company, than he coloured like Scarlet. I saw he made the application instantly; however he read it thro', tho' not with the vivacity he generally speaks; however he recovered himself and coming close up to me, whispered, you will certainly get yourself tarred and feathered; shall I apply to be executioner?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Janet Schaw Print: Book
'Several of the officers [participating in military review at Wilmingtown] came up to dine, amongst others Coll: Howe, who with less ceremony than might have been expected from his general politeness stept into an apartment adjoining the hall, and took up a book I had been reading, which he brought open in his hand into the company. I was piqued at his freedom, and reproved him with a half compliment to his general good breeding. He owned his fault and with much gallantry promised to submit to whatever punishment I would inflict. You shall only, said I, read aloud a few pages which I will point out, and I am sure you will do Shakespear justice. He bowed and took up the book, but no sooner observed that I had turned up for him, that part of Henry the fourth, where Falstaff describes his company, than he coloured like Scarlet. I saw he made the application instantly; however he read it thro', tho' not with the vivacity he generally speaks; however he recovered himself and coming close up to me, whispered, you will certainly get yourself tarred and feathered; shall I apply to be executioner?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Howe Print: Book
'I have been reading Marlow, and I was so much more impressed by him than I thought I should be, that I read Cymbeline just to see if there mightn't be more in the great William than I supposed. And I was quite upset! Really and truly I am now let in to [the] company of worshippers-though I still feel a little oppressed by his-greatness I suppose. I shall want a lecture when I see you; to clear up some points about the Plays. I mean about the characters. Why aren't they more human? Imogen and Posthumous and Cymbeline-I find them beyond me-Is this my feminine weakness in the upper region?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Stephen Print: Book
'I felt rather lonely this Morning at breakfast so I went and unbox'd a Shakspeare - "There's my Comfort".
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Keats Print: Book
In a long letter to Edward Garnett, in which Conrad outlines some aspects of his family history, he writes that his father Apollonius N. Korzeniowski translated into Polish Victor Hugo's "La Légende des Siècles", "Travailleurs de la Mer" and " Hernani", Alfred de Vigny's " Chatterton", Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing", "As You Like It", "Two Gentlemen of Verona", "A Comedy of Errors" and "Othello" .
'These I remember seeing in proofs when sent for his correction.[...] Some of these I've read when I could be no more than eight or nine years old.' [See also additional comments.]
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Codex, Sheet, One page of his father's translation into Polish.
'I am to act Orsino (the Duke) in "Twelfth Night" at the Jenkins’. I could not resist that; it is such a delightful part; and I got them to put off my rehearsals to the last moment, so that I may get a fortnight with you in London and a fortnight with Bob in France: for that must be done this time, [italics]couteque coute [end italics]. I am not altogether satisfied that I shall do Orsino [italics]comme il faut[end italics]; but the Jenkins are pleased, and that is the great affair.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 2 January 1903:
'I don't think my December list of books read equals yours. It includes however Bernard Shaw, Schopenhauer, Barry Pain, Browning, D'Aurevilly, Oscar Wilde, Flaubert, A Manual of Ethics & Shakespeare [...] I don't see how anyone, after reading Madame Bovary, can doubt which is the supremest of all novels -- though I now remember writing the same to you about Le Pere Goriot.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Desmond MacCarthy, 26 February 1905:
'The books you gave me were a godsend at once. I had to travel for two nights & a day in a bullock waggon through the jungle in order to reach this place [Jaffna]. For discomfort it was simply hell. I had to lie on my back on the hard floor of the waggon & was battered & jolted along for 36 hours but I took one of the small Shakespeare volumes with me in my pocket, & it helped me to forget my aching bones.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Saxon Sydney-Turner, 24 June 1906:
'Here an enterprising female has started a Shakespeare Reading Society. We read As You Like It on Friday. It was not quite as bad as it might have been & I had expected the worst. There was considerable difficulty over the word copulation "I press in here, Sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives" was allowed to pass, because no one was quite sure whether it referred to grammar or sexual intercourse. It was only the weight of my assurance that it referred to the former that induced Touchstone not to leave it out. I was Jaques.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Shakespeare Reading Society Print: Book
[Pilkington having annoyed Swift by remembering one of his poems and reciting it to others, he decided to test her memory. She told him] 'I could repeat not only all his Works, but all [italics] Shakespear[end italics]'s, which I put to this Trial; I desir'd him to open any Part of it and read a Line, and I would engage to go on with the whole Speech; as we were in his Library, he directly made the Experiment: The Line he first gave me, he had purposely picked out for its singular Oddness:
[italics] Put rancours in the Vessel of my Peace [end italics] MacBeth
I readily went on with the whole Speech, and did so several times, that he try'd me with different Plays. The Dean then took down [italics] Hudibras [end italics], and order'd me to examine him in it, as he had done me in [italics] Shakespear [end itaics]; and, to my great Surprize, I found he remember'd every Line, from Beginning to End of it. I say, it surpriz'd me, because I had been misled by Mr [italics] Pope [end italics]'s Remark, That
[italics] Where beams of warm Imagination play
The Memory's soft Figures melt away [end italics] Essay on Criticism'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington Print: Book
[Pilkington having annoyed Swift by remembering one of his poems and reciting it to others, he decided to test her memory. She told him] 'I could repeat not only all his Works, but all [italics] Shakespear[end italics]'s, which I put to this Trial; I desir'd him to open any Part of it and read a Line, and I would engage to go on with the whole Speech; as we were in his Library, he directly made the Experiment: The Line he first gave me, he had purposely picked out for its singular Oddness:
[italics] Put rancours in the Vessel of my Peace [end italics] MacBeth
I readily went on with the whole Speech, and did so several times, that he try'd me with different Plays. The Dean then took down [italics] Hudibras [end italics], and order'd me to examine him in it, as he had done me in [italics] Shakespear [end itaics]; and, to my great Surprize, I found he remember'd every Line, from Beginning to End of it. I say, it surpriz'd me, because I had been misled by Mr [italics] Pope [end italics]'s Remark, That
[italics] Where beams of warm Imagination play
The Memory's soft Figures melt away [end italics] Essay on Criticism'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington Print: Book
'Whoever reads the Part of the Fairies in the [italics] Midsummer Night's Dream [end italics] may easily perceive how many beautiful Images [italics] Milton [end italics] has borrowed thence to adorn his Masque of [italics] Comus [end italics].'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington Print: Book
'She comments, with discrimination, on Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, Rousseau and Cervantes, "Tom Jones", "Emma", "A Man of Feeling", Coleridge, Mrs Shelley, and Crabbe'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
[Signature] R.L.H. Stevenson
'You don’t know what H. means, ha? I have been reading Nym; and that’s the humour of it.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'My real object in writing is to make a confession-which is to take back a whole cartload of goatisms which I used at Fritham and elsewhere in speaking of a certain great English writer-the greatest: I have been reading Marlow, and I was so much more impressed by him than I thought I should be, that I read Cymbeline just to see if there mightnt be more in the great William than I supposed.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'[editor's words] Previous to her arrival in Stirlingshire she had learnt to read with distinctness and propriety; and, under the tuition of Mrs Marshall, became an adept in this rare accomplishment. In books she soon discovered a substitute even for a playmate: her first hero was Wallace, with whom she became enamoured, by learning to recite Blind Harry's Lays. Two or three of Shakespeare's historical plays came in her way; the history of England followed. She happened to meet with Ogilvie's translation of Homer's Iliad, and soon learnt to idolize Achilles, and almost to dream of Hector'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Hamilton Print: Book
Under heading 'Invocation of Poetry by Rhetoric':
'A mass of dead words is set spinning, then kindles. [italics]Or[end italics]: one's taste and critical faculties, thoroughly roused at first, are lulled unaccountably, and one heaves "gorgeous" er "splendid".
'Instances in Romeo & Juliet [Yet now I cannot find them, though they suggested this note and I have been looking at the play most of the evening] [goes on to comment further on topic]'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'After dinner our conversation first turned upon Pope. Johnson said, his characters of men were admirably drawn, those of women not so well. He repeated to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the concluding lines of the "Dunciad". While he was talking loudly in praise of those lines, one of the company ventured to say, "Too fine for such a poem:— a poem on what?" Johnson, (with a disdainful look,) "Why, on [italics] dunces [italics]. It was worth while being a dunce then. Ah, Sir, hadst [italics] thou [italics] lived in those days! It is not worth while being a dunce now, when there are no wits." Bickerstaff observed, as a peculiar circumstance, that Pope's fame was higher when he was alive, than it was then. Johnson said, his Pastorals were poor things, though the versification was fine. He told us, with high satisfaction, the anecdote of Pope's enquiring who was the author of his "London," and saying, he will be soon [italics] deterré [italics]. He observed, that in Dryden's poetry there were passages drawn from a profundity which Pope could never reach. He repeated some fine lines on love, by the former, (which I have now forgotten,) and gave great applause to the character of Zimri. Goldsmith said, that Pope's character of Addison shewed a deep knowledge of the human heart. Johnson said, that the description of the temple, in "The Mourning Bride," was the finest poetical passage he had ever read; he recollected none in Shakspeare equal to it'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Johnson proceeded :— "The Scotchman has taken the right method in his 'Elements of Criticism.' I do not mean that he has taught us any thing; but he has told us old things in a new way." Murphy. "He seems to have read a great deal of French criticism, and wants to make it his own; as if he had been for years anatomizing the heart of man, and peeping into every cranny of it." Goldsmith. "It is easier to write that book, than to read it." Johnson. "We have an example of true criticism in Burke's 'Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful'; and, if I recollect, there is also Du Bos; and Bouhours, who shews all beauty to depend on truth. There is no great merit in telling how many plays have ghosts in them, and how this Ghost is better than that. You must shew how terrour is impressed on the human heart.— In the description of night in Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness,—inspissated gloom".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'The [Tennyson] boys had one great advantage [as home-educated pupils], the run of their father's excellent library. Amongst the authors most read by them were Shakespeare, Milton, Burke, Goldsmith, Rabelais, Sir William Jones, Addison, Swift, Defoe, Cervantes, Bunyan and Buffon.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Tennyson children (boys) Print: Book
'Many friends of Somersby days have told me of the exceeding consideration and love which my father showed his mother [...] and how he might often be found in her room reading aloud, with his flexible voice, Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Spenser, and Campbell's patriotic ballads.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'On his [Tennyson's] return [to Farringford] the evening books were Milton, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Thackeray's Humourists, some of Hallam's History and of Carlyle's Cromwell.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred and Emily Tennyson Print: Book
'I observed the great defect of the tragedy of "Othello" was, that it had not a moral; for that no man could resist the circumstances of suspicion which were artfully suggested to Othello's mind. JOHNSON. "In the first place, Sir, we learn from "Othello" this very useful moral, not to make an unequal match; in the second place, we learn not to yield too readily to suspicion. The handkerchief is merely a trick, though a very pretty trick; but there are no other circumstances of reasonable suspicion, except what is related by Iago of Cassio's warm expressions concerning Desdemona in his sleep; and that depended entirely upon the assertion of one man. No, Sir, I think "Othello" has more moral than almost any play".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'I observed the great defect of the tragedy of "Othello" was, that it had not a moral; for that no man could resist the circumstances of suspicion which were artfully suggested to Othello's mind. JOHNSON. "In the first place, Sir, we learn from "Othello" this very useful moral, not to make an unequal match; in the second place, we learn not to yield too readily to suspicion. The handkerchief is merely a trick, though a very pretty trick; but there are no other circumstances of reasonable suspicion, except what is related by Iago of Cassio's warm expressions concerning Desdemona in his sleep; and that depended entirely upon the assertion of one man. No, Sir, I think "Othello" has more moral than almost any play".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'He was certainly a keen student of literature, as can be seen from some 1907-8 exercise books which show him working on the "Faerie Queene", at least ten Shakespeare plays and many other texts that were to be of use to him later'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
From William Allingham's 'Reminiscences' of Tennyson (1863-64):
'Oct. 4th [1863] I walked over alone to Farringford [...] Tennyson at luncheon [...]we went down and walked about the grounds [...] We went down the garden [...] and so to the farmyard. "Have you a particular feeling about a farmyard?" he asked, "a special delight in it? I have. The first time I read Shakespeare was on a hay-stack, Othello. I said, 'This man's over-rated.' Boys can't understand Shakespeare."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
From Emily Tennyson's Journal, 1872:
'June 22nd. Farringford. Every night A. has read Shakespeare, or Pascal, or Montesquieu (Decadence des Romains).'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'During our Oxford years the works to which she turned most frequently were Shakepeare's "Richard II", Raleigh's "Discovery of Guiana", Milton's "Areopagitica", the writings of John Wyclif, Blake's "Minor Prophecies", and the plays of Bernard Shaw.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Winifred Holtby Print: Book
'He [Johnson] was just nine Years old when having got the play of Hamlet to read in his Father's Kitchen, he read on very qu[i]etly till he came to the Ghost scene, when he hurried up to the Shop Door that he might see folks about him'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
From Hallam Tennyson's survey of his father's 'Criticisms on Poets and Poetry':
'After reading Pericles, Act v. aloud:
'"That is glorious Shakespeare: most of the rest of the play is poor, and not by Shakespeare, but in that act the conception of Marina's character is exquisite."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
From Hallam Tennyson's account of his father's last days:
'On Sept. 3rd [1892] he complained of weakness and of pain in his jaw [...]
'On Wednesday the 29th we telegraphed for Sir Andrew Clark [?physician] [...]
'He read Job, and St Matthew, and Miss Swanwick's new book on Poets as the Interpreters of the Age. Sir Andrew arrived, and did not think so badly of him as I did. He and my father fell to discussing Gray's "Elegy" [...]
'On Friday my wife read him an article in the Times on the colonization of Uganda, for which he asked [...]
'On Monday morning at eight o'clock he sent me for his Shakespeare. I took him Steevens's edition, Lear, Cymbeline, and Troilus and Cressida, three plays which he loved dearly.
'He read two or three lines, and told Dr Dabbs that he should never get well again. We asked him later whether he felt better: he answered, "The doctor says I am." At his request I read some Shakespeare to him'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
From Hallam Tennyson's account of his father's last days:
'On Sept. 3rd [1892] he complained of weakness and of pain in his jaw [...]
'On Wednesday the 29th we telegraphed for Sir Andrew Clark [?physician] [...]
'He read Job, and St Matthew, and Miss Swanwick's new book on Poets as the Interpreters of the Age. Sir Andrew arrived, and did not think so badly of him as I did. He and my father fell to discussing Gray's "Elegy" [...]
'On Friday my wife read him an article in the Times on the colonization of Uganda, for which he asked [...]
'On Monday morning at eight o'clock he sent me for his Shakespeare. I took him Steevens's edition, Lear, Cymbeline, and Troilus and Cressida, three plays which he loved dearly.
'He read two or three lines, and told Dr Dabbs that he should never get well again. We asked him later whether he felt better: he answered, "The doctor says I am." At his request I read some Shakespeare to him'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Hallam Tennyson Print: Book
From Hallam Tennyson's account of his father's last day:
'At 2 o'clock [p.m., on Wednesday 5 October 1892] he again asked for his Shakespeare and lay with his hand resting on it open, and tried to read it [...] His last food was taken at a quarter to four, and he tried to read, but could not.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
From Hallam Tennyson's account of his father's last day:
'At 2 o'clock [p.m., on Wednesday 5 October 1892] he again asked for his Shakespeare and lay with his hand resting on it open, and tried to read it [...] His last food was taken at a quarter to four, and he tried to read, but could not.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'I was reading Congreve's Way of the World two Evenings ago, the character of Petulant is borrowed from Shakespear's Nym in Henry V: and the Expressions are in no few Passages literally copied. [italics] neither [end italics] Character strikes me much, Nym is so little known, he might safely be pilfer'd, but it seems not worth the while.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'What a strange Book is Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy"! & how it has been plunder'd! Milton took his Allegro and Penseroso from the Verses at the beginning, Savage his Speech of Suicide in the Wanderer from Page 216. Swift his Tale of the Woman that held water in her Mouth to regain her Husband's Love by Silence - 'tis printed in the Tatler; Johnson got his Story of the Magnet that detects unchaste Wives from the same Farrago, & even Shakespear I believe the Trick put on the Tinker Christopher Sly in the taming of the Shrew. See page 277 of Burton.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'While their [her daughters'] Father's Life preserv'd my Authority entire, I used it [italics] all & only [end italics] for their Improvement; & since it expired with him, & my Influence perished by my Connection with Piozzi - I have read to them what I could not force or perswade them to read for themselves. The English & Roman Histories, the Bible; - not Extracts, but the whole from End to End - Milton, Shakespeare, Pope's Iliad, Odyssey & other Works, some Travels through the well-known Parts of Europe; some elegant Novels as Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, Voltaire's Zadig &c. Young & Addison's works, Plays out of Number, Rollin's Belles Lettres - and hundreds of Things now forgot, have filled our Time up since we left London for Bath.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale and her daughters Hester, Susanna and Sophia Print: Book
'Reading aloud meant group recitation, which Dylan hated. Chanting a poem in unison one afternoon, he put his hands over his ears and burst out, 'I can't stand it, I can't stand it.' Subsequently he and his fellow pupils were allowed to recite poems of their choice. Standing alongside Mrs Hole, the seven-year-old Dylan annouced he was going to do 'my grave poem', and started to intone:
'Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Mark sorrow on the bosom of the earth...'
He ended in stunned silence. His class had no idea he had been quoting Shakespeare's "Richard II".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dylan Thomas Print: Book
'I wrote endless imitations, though I never thought them to be imitations but, rather wonderfully original things, like eggs laid by tigers. They were imitations of anything I happened to be reading at the time: Sir Thomas Brown, de Quincey, Henry Newbolt, the Ballads, Blake, Baroness Orczy, Marlowe, Chums, the Imagists, the Bible, Poe, Keats, Lawrence, Anon., and Shakespeare. A mixed lot as you see, and randomly remembered'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dylan Thomas Print: Book
'Let me say that the things that first made me love language and want to work [italics] in [end italics] it and [italics] for [end italics] it were nursery rhymes and folk tales, the Scottish Ballads, a few lines of hymns, the most famous Bible stories and the rhythms of the Bible, Blake's "Songs of Innocence", and the quite incomprehensible magical majesty and nonsense of Shakespeare heard, read, and near murdered in the first forms of my school'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dylan Thomas Print: Book
'He read to-night Mark Antony's Oration very fairly indeed for a boy of his age'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harry Castieau Print: Book
'I read a story in the evening to the youngsters & then heard Harry read for marks. We were engaged in a dialogue from the Merchant of Venice when Mr Henry Smith of the Argus called to see me'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley and Harry Castieau Print: Book
'In the evening read for some time with Harry, he manages Shakespeare tolerably well for a boy of his age'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley and Harry Castieau Print: Book, Serial / periodical
'In the evening played Bezique with Polly & read Shakespeare with Harry.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley and Harry Castieau Print: Book, Serial / periodical
'There is nothing in nature that you may not get a quotation out of Wordsworth to suit, and a quotation too that breathes the very soul of poetry. There are only three books in the world that are worth the opening in search of mottos and quotations, and all of them are alike rich. These are, the Old Testament, Shakspeare, and the poetical works of Wordsworth, and, strange to say, the "Excursion" abounds most in them'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'When we were tired of singing we went into the house & did some Shakespearian Readings. Harry & I read the Grave-diggers. Harry read the Gravediggers very well. Afterwards Polly & I did Pericles & Catherine in "The Taming of the Shrew" this amused us very well & brought on ten o'clock, then Polly & I had our toddy & then I got in real life a lesson of how absurd the Play was we had been reading & how false it was to nature for my Katherina gave me a lecture & shut me up in very quick time.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Castieau family Print: Book
'When we were tired of singing we went into the house & did some Shakespearian Readings. Harry & I read the Grave-diggers. Harry read the Gravediggers very well. Afterwards Polly & I did Pericles & Catherine in "The Taming of the Shrew" this amused us very well & brought on ten o'clock, then Polly & I had our toddy & then I got in real life a lesson of how absurd the Play was we had been reading & how false it was to nature for my Katherina gave me a lecture & shut me up in very quick time.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Castieau family Print: Book
'Mamma, Harry & myself read a scene or two from Shakspeare (sic). Harry was particularly delighted with the Witches Chorus in Macbeth & would insist upon his audience encoring him in it. To please him we duly went over it with him again. Polly, Harry & I then read the Trial Scene in Othello, Polly taking Desdemona & Harry Brabantio, leaving Othello for your humble servant.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Castieau family Print: Book
'Mamma, Harry & myself read a scene or two from Shakspeare (sic). Harry was particularly delighted with the Witches Chorus in Macbeth & would insist upon his audience encoring him in it. To please him we duly went over it with him again. Polly, Harry & I then read the Trial Scene in Othello, Polly taking Desdemona & Harry Brabantio, leaving Othello for your humble servant.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Castieau family Print: Book
'Spent the evening reading with Harry & Sissy, both of these youngsters have some idea of dramatic reading & like very much to show off their capabilities. Sissy & I read a scene from the School for Scandal. Harry & I soared higher for we tried several Shaksperian (sic) pieces.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Castieau family Print: Book
'When I came home I found Charley Gee engaged with our youngsters singing comic songs & making himself otherwise entertaining, the children enjoyed his company very much before he went away he joined Harry & myself in some Shakesperian (sic) Readings'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley and Harry Castieau Print: Book
'[from a letter from Mary Ward to her father] I have been reading Joubert's "Pensees" and "Correspondance" lately, with a view to the Amiel introduction. You would be charmed with the letters and some of the [italics] pensees [end italics] are extraordinarily acute. Now I am deep in Senancour, and for miscellaneous reading I have been getting through Horace's Epistles and dawdling a good deal over Shakespeare. My feeling as to him gets stronger and stronger, that he was, strictly speaking, a great poet, but not a great dramatist! [she discusses this at length, concluding] I have always felt it most strongly in Othello, and of course in the last act of Hamlet, which, in spite of the magnificent poetry in it, is surely a piece of dramatic bungling.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Ward Print: Book
'[from a letter from Mary Ward to her father] I have been reading Joubert's "Pensees" and "Correspondance" lately, with a view to the Amiel introduction. You would be charmed with the letters and some of the [italics] pensees [end italics] are extraordinarily acute. Now I am deep in Senancour, and for miscellaneous reading I have been getting through Horace's Epistles and dawdling a good deal over Shakespeare. My feeling as to him gets stronger and stronger, that he was, strictly speaking, a great poet, but not a great dramatist! [she discusses this at length, concluding] I have always felt it most strongly in Othello, and of course in the last act of Hamlet, which, in spite of the magnificent poetry in it, is surely a piece of dramatic bungling'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Ward Print: Book
'A part reading from the Midsummer Night Dream was then given, nearly all the members present taking part - after that Mr and Mrs Morland read a selection from Macbeth'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: XII Book Club members Print: Book
'A part reading from the Midsummer Night Dream was then given, nearly all the members present taking part - after that Mr and Mrs Morland read a selection from Macbeth'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harold J. Morland Print: Book
'A part reading from the Midsummer Night Dream was then given, nearly all the members present taking part - after that Mr and Mrs Morland read a selection from Macbeth'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Adelaide Morland Print: Book
'The programme included [...] a Shakespearean reading in the garden from the Tempest in which many members and some visitors took part'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of the XII Book Club, and guests Print: Book
'F.J. Edminson read an able and interesting paper on "The Tempest".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick J. Edminson Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 30 September 1797: '... this took a strange turn when I was about nine years old. I had been reading the historical plays of Shakespere — concluded that there must be civil war in my own time & resolved to be a very great man, like the Earl of Warwick.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
'Mr Edminson then made some interesting remarks on the subject of Shakespeare's [??] and portraits as an introduction to readings & songs from the poet's works, the programme consisting of the folowing.
Song. Sigh no more Ladies Mrs Cass
Reading from Cymbeline A.F.H. Rawlings
" from Hamlet Mrs Stansfield
Paper on Hamlet C.L. Stansfield
reading from Taming of Shrew Mr and Mrs Cass
" " Much Ado Miss Neild
" " Henry V Mr and Mrs Edminson
song Who is Sylvia Mrs Cass'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Rawlings Print: Book
'Mr Edminson then made some interesting remarks on the subject of Shakespeare's [??] and portraits as an introduction to readings & songs from the poet's works, the programme consisting of the folowing.
Song. Sigh no more Ladies Mrs Cass
Reading from Cymbeline A.F.H. Rawlings
" from Hamlet Mrs Stansfield
Paper on Hamlet C.L. Stansfield
reading from Taming of Shrew Mr and Mrs Cass
" " Much Ado Miss Neild
" " Henry V Mr and Mrs Edminson
song Who is Sylvia Mrs Cass'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Pattie Stansfield Print: Book
'Mr Edminson then made some interesting remarks on the subject of Shakespeare's [??] and portraits as an introduction to readings & songs from the poet's works, the programme consisting of the folowing.
Song. Sigh no more Ladies Mrs Cass
Reading from Cymbeline A.F.H. Rawlings
" from Hamlet Mrs Stansfield
Paper on Hamlet C.L. Stansfield
reading from Taming of Shrew Mr and Mrs Cass
" " Much Ado Miss Neild
" " Henry V Mr and Mrs Edminson
song Who is Sylvia Mrs Cass'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: T.T. Cass Print: Book
'Mr Edminson then made some interesting remarks on the subject of Shakespeare's [??] and portraits as an introduction to readings & songs from the poet's works, the programme consisting of the folowing.
Song. Sigh no more Ladies Mrs Cass
Reading from Cymbeline A.F.H. Rawlings
" from Hamlet Mrs Stansfield
Paper on Hamlet C.L. Stansfield
reading from Taming of Shrew Mr and Mrs Cass
" " Much Ado Miss Neild
" " Henry V Mr and Mrs Edminson
song Who is Sylvia Mrs Cass'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mrs Cass Print: Book
'At 8pm, there is a very good St George's Day concert by D-Block. They read extracts from the works of Shakespeare, Rupert Brooke and Kipling, as well as Noel Coward's "Cavalcade". It is very inspiring; it ends with "God Save The King".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: prisoners of war Print: Book
'Mr Edminson then made some interesting remarks on the subject of Shakespeare's [??illegible] and portraits as an introduction to readings & songs from the poet's works, the programme consisting of the folowing.
Song. Sigh no more Ladies Mrs Cass
Reading from Cymbeline A.F.H. Rawlings
" from Hamlet Mrs Stansfield
Paper on Hamlet C.L. Stansfield
reading from Taming of Shrew Mr and Mrs Cass
" " Much Ado Miss Neild
" " Henry V Mr and Mrs Edminson
song Who is Sylvia Mrs Cass'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria Neild Print: Book
'Mr Edminson then made some interesting remarks on the subject of Shakespeare's [??] and portraits as an introduction to readings & songs from the poet's works, the programme consisting of the folowing.
Song. Sigh no more Ladies Mrs Cass
Reading from Cymbeline A.F.H. Rawlings
" from Hamlet Mrs Stansfield
Paper on Hamlet C.L. Stansfield
reading from Taming of Shrew Mr and Mrs Cass
" " Much Ado Miss Neild
" " Henry V Mr and Mrs Edminson
song Who is Sylvia Mrs Cass'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Edminson Print: Book
'Mr Edminson then made some interesting remarks on the subject of Shakespeare's [?? illegible] and portraits as an introduction to readings & songs from the poet's works, the programme consisting of the folowing.
Song. Sigh no more Ladies Mrs Cass
Reading from Cymbeline A.F.H. Rawlings
" from Hamlet Mrs Stansfield
Paper on Hamlet C.L. Stansfield
reading from Taming of Shrew Mr and Mrs Cass
" " Much Ado Miss Neild
" " Henry V Mr and Mrs Edminson
song Who is Sylvia Mrs Cass'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Edminson Print: Book
'Mr Edminson then made some interesting remarks on the subject of Shakespeare's [?? illegible] and portraits as an introduction to readings & songs from the poet's works, the programme consisting of the folowing.
Song. Sigh no more Ladies Mrs Cass
Reading from Cymbeline A.F.H. Rawlings
" from Hamlet Mrs Stansfield
Paper on Hamlet C.L. Stansfield
reading from Taming of Shrew Mr and Mrs Cass
" " Much Ado Miss Neild
" " Henry V Mr and Mrs Edminson
song Who is Sylvia Mrs Cass'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield Print: Book
'Byron's example has formed a sort of Upper House of poetry. There is Lord Leveson Gower a very clever young man. Lord Porchester too, nephew to Mrs Scott of Harden, a young man who lies on the carpet and looks poetical and dandyish - fine lad too - But
There be many peers
Ere such another Byron.' (footnote - An allusion to Cymbeline)
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
'I should be sorry the saying were verified in him
So wise and young they say never live long.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
'Never was there such a representative of Wall in Pyramus and Thisbe.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
'Three days ago I would have been contented to buy this consola as Judy says, dearer than by a dozen falls in the mud - for had the great Constable fallen
O my countrymen what a fall were there!'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
'Read "King John" completely for the first time; I like the historical plays myself better than the pet ones. "Midsummer Night's Dream" I like least of any in Shakespeare. I think the death scene in "King John" one of the very finest things in Shakespeare; but Constance talks too much Billingsgate.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Finished "Henry the Fourth", 1st part.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'"Midsummer Night's Dream" in evening'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Last night by a log-fire, I seemed the loneliest most contented man in the world. I was reading Romeo and Juliet and beginning this letter to you. I had a kitten & my terrier Mick, (who shiver and stare at each other) & the wireless muttering and playing music ever so distantly.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter D'Arcy Cresswell Print: Book
From Anne Isabella Milbanke's reminiscences of her father:
'"Of Shakespeare, Otway, Dryden, he was a devoted admirer, pointing out or reciting to me their finest passages"'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Ralph Milbanke Print: Book
Which resolutions with health and my habits of indutry will make me 'Sleep in spite of thunder'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
'read, with understanding for the first time in my life, the first scene of "As you like it".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'An excellent plot, excellent friends, and full of preparations'.
Footnote: An allusion to Hotspur's plot in I Henry IV, ii. 3.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
'I have been trying to think how far I and my like, middle class schoolboys at the end of our pre-war education, were unquestioning patriots ready to respond to heroics. I think it is true that we were. We were reading now, or having read to us by our English master, the newly published sonnets of Rupert Brooke: 'Now, God be thanked who has matched us with His hour / And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleep.' 'Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead.' and 'Honour has come back, as a king, to earth.' 'If I should die, think only this of me: / That there's some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England.' We had been prepared for these heights: conditioned may be the right word. Tennyson and Browning (besides Shakespeare, of course) we read in the English lessons and learnt by heart; and it cannot be by chance that there comes to my mind unbidden 'Ulysses' - 'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield' and the well-known 'Epilogue to Asolando':
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harold Edward Leslie Mellersh Print: Book
'The rest of the evening was devoted to a reading of 'The Winter's Tale'. The production was under the joint management of Mrs Robson & R.B. Graham. The play had been 'cut' to bring it within the compass of the time at our disposal and the cast was so arranged that most members took some part. Where all were so good it would be invidious to mention names. Suffice it to say that all felt the evening to have been a good one and the result of the evening was two fold: a new or renewed acquaintance with the genius of Shakespeare and a sense of fellowship induced by the collective contributions of a large number of members'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club Print: Book
15 October 1879, from Berlin:
'Since dinner I have read the Merry Wives of Windsor with great delight. I have been going through the historical plays of Shakespeare from King John to Henry VIII since I came abroad [in September 1879], and hope to read them more carefully again.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
15 October 1879, from Berlin:
'Since dinner I have read the Merry Wives of Windsor with great delight. I have been going through the historical plays of Shakespeare from King John to Henry VIII since I came abroad [in September 1879], and hope to read them more carefully again.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
'Progress was so slight [in Charles Schreiber's recovery following disorder of lungs in spring 1883] that the doctors recommended a sea journey to South Africa. On October 26 [1883] they [Schreiber and his wife, Lady Charlotte] left England in the Hawarden Castle, and on November 14 anchored in Table Bay. Lady Charlotte found solace during an uneventful journey in Shakespeare and Walter Scott.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
[between Journal entries for 2 January and 28 February 1887]
'Until [Lady Charlotte Schreiber's] eyes were uncovered [following operation on 9 January] Maria
[daughter] had acted as her secretary and had read Shakespeare to her.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria [nee Guest] Print: Book
[between journal entries for 6 November 1889 and 2 Jun 1890]
'From one till two every day, a Mr. Upton came to read to [Lady Charlotte Schreiber], first the Times and then whatever book was interesting to her at the moment. There was reason to believe that on his way to [No. 17] Cavendish Square Mr. Upton moistened his throat for reading aloud by a visit to a publican in the neighbourhood. A story is told that one day when sitting down to read he lost his balance and fell on the floor. Lady Charlotte rang the bell [...] for her maid, and when she arrived said: "Remove Mr. Upton, Moody, I don't think he is well." In the evening Moody herself was the reader, generally of some memoirs. Her sister, whom Lady Charlotte had helped to become an actress, had just returned from America [...] Moody therefore was now occasionally replaced as a reader by her sister, who read the Shakespeare plays in which she had been acting with Mary Anderson.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Moody Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was devoted to a series of readings & quotations from Shakespeare intended to indicate different aspects of him and these were interspersed with brief informal & sometimes penetrating discussions. We were indebted to E.A. Smith for quotations on public & private life to C.I. and K.S. Evans for a reading from King Lear R.B. Graham gave us a series on Death & after several short items C.E. Stansfield appropriately concluded with Shakespeare's description of a wet Summer in "A Midsummer Night's Dream".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Ann Smith Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was devoted to a series of readings & quotations from Shakespeare intended to indicate different aspects of him and these were interspersed with brief informal & sometimes penetrating discussions. We were indebted to E.A. Smith for quotations on public & private life to C.I. and K.S. Evans for a reading from King Lear R.B. Graham gave us a series on Death & after several short items C.E. Stansfield appropriately concluded with Shakespeare's description of a wet Summer in "A Midsummer Night's Dream".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: R.B. Graham Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was devoted to a series of readings & quotations from Shakespeare intended to indicate different aspects of him and these were interspersed with brief informal & sometimes penetrating discussions. We were indebted to E.A. Smith for quotations on public & private life to C.I. and K.S. Evans for a reading from King Lear R.B. Graham gave us a series on Death & after several short items C.E. Stansfield appropriately concluded with Shakespeare's description of a wet Summer in "A Midsummer Night's Dream".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was devoted to a series of readings & quotations from Shakespeare intended to indicate different aspects of him and these were interspersed with brief informal & sometimes penetrating discussions. We were indebted to E.A. Smith for quotations on public & private life to C.I. and K.S. Evans for a reading from King Lear R.B. Graham gave us a series on Death & after several short items C.E. Stansfield appropriately concluded with Shakespeare's description of a wet Summer in "A Midsummer Night's Dream".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was devoted to a series of readings & quotations from Shakespeare intended to indicate different aspects of him and these were interspersed with brief informal & sometimes penetrating discussions. We were indebted to E.A. Smith for quotations on public & private life to C.I. and K.S. Evans for a reading from King Lear R.B. Graham gave us a series on Death & after several short items C.E. Stansfield appropriately concluded with Shakespeare's description of a wet Summer in "A Midsummer Night's Dream".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles and Katherine Evans Print: Book
'Under [Anne Rutherford Scott, his mother's] strong encouragement Scott, at the age of seven, read aloud Shakespeare's plays and the Arabian Nights in the family circle'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
'In a mill town in the late 1840's, a group of girl operatives met at five o'clock in the morning to read Shakespeare for an hour before going to work.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Print: Book
'F. E. Pollard gave a short introduction to the play of The Two Noble Kinsmen and in the ensuing reading took the part of Arcite Thos C Elliott taking Palamon and Mrs Evans and Miss Brain taking respectively the character of Emilia and her maid.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Martha L. (Pattie) Stansfield
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: E. Dorothy Brain
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas C. Elliott
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald H. Robson
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Muriel Bowman-Smith
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Rawlings
'A meeting held at School House 4/12/28 T. C. Elliott in the chair
1 Minutes of the last read and approved
[...]
4 The Most Part of the Tempest was then read the Play being cast as follows.
Alonso King of Naples Mrs Stansfield.
Sebastian, his brother Miss Brain.
Prsopero [sic], the right Duke of Milan Mr Stansfield.
Antonio, his brother, usurping Duke of Milan Mr Elliott.
Ferdinand, son to King of Naples Mr Reynolds.
Gonzalo, honest old Counsellor Mr Rawlings.
Adrian, a Lord Mrs Pollard
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave Mr Pollard.
Trinculo, a Jester Mr Smith.
Stephano, a Drunken Butler Mr Robson
Miranda, daughter to Prospero Miss Bowman Smith
Ariel, an airy Spirit Miss Wallis
Mrs Rawlings read the stage directions
Mrs [or Mr.?] Robson sang some of Ariel’s songs.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary E. Robson
'A Meeting held at Grove House May 3rd H. B. Lawson in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last Read and approved
[...]
[Min] 4 The Subject of the evening "Humour" was then introduced by H. B. Lawson who fascinated us by his thoughtful attempts to
define his subject[.] An interesting discussion followed in which the disputants backed their opinions by literary allusion and we
were led to wonder if Humour flowed from F E Pollards heart & wit from R H Robsons head.
After Supper the Club settled down to enjoy the following selections chosen to represent English Humour in literature down the
Ages[:]
Prologue of Chaucers Canterbury Tales The Prioress & Wife of Bath read by Howard R. Smith
Shakespeares Henry IV The Men in Buckram read by R. H Robson Fallstaff
[ditto] S. A. Reynolds Poins
[ditto] C. E. Stansfield Prince Hall [sic]
[ditto] Geo Burrow Gadshill
Jane Austin Pride & Prejudice Mr. Collins proposes
[ditto] Mrs Robson
Charles Dickens David Copperfield Mrs Micawber on her husbands career[?] Geo Burrow
Charles Lamb A Letter Alfred Rawlings
Lewis Carrols Alice in Wonderland The Lobster Quadrill Mary Reynolds
Jerome K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat Uncle Podger hangs a picture F. E. Pollard
Hilaire Belloc Cautionary Tales "George" recited by Howard R. Smith'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald H. Robson Print: Book
'A Meeting held at Grove House May 3rd H. B. Lawson in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last Read and approved
[...]
[Min] 4 The Subject of the evening "Humour" was then introduced by H. B. Lawson who fascinated us by his thoughtful attempts to
define his subject[.] An interesting discussion followed in which the disputants backed their opinions by literary allusion and we
were led to wonder if Humour flowed from F E Pollards heart & wit from R H Robsons head.
After Supper the Club settled down to enjoy the following selections chosen to represent English Humour in literature down the
Ages[:]
Prologue of Chaucers Canterbury Tales The Prioress & Wife of Bath read by Howard R. Smith
Shakespeares Henry IV The Men in Buckram read by R. H Robson Fallstaff
[ditto] S. A. Reynolds Poins
[ditto] C. E. Stansfield Prince Hall [sic]
[ditto] Geo Burrow Gadshill
Jane Austin Pride & Prejudice Mr. Collins proposes
[ditto] Mrs Robson
Charles Dickens David Copperfield Mrs Micawber on her husbands career[?] Geo Burrow
Charles Lamb A Letter Alfred Rawlings
Lewis Carrols Alice in Wonderland The Lobster Quadrill Mary Reynolds
Jerome K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat Uncle Podger hangs a picture F. E. Pollard
Hilaire Belloc Cautionary Tales "George" recited by Howard R. Smith'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Print: Book
'A Meeting held at Grove House May 3rd H. B. Lawson in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last Read and approved
[...]
[Min] 4 The Subject of the evening "Humour" was then introduced by H. B. Lawson who fascinated us by his thoughtful attempts to
define his subject[.] An interesting discussion followed in which the disputants backed their opinions by literary allusion and we
were led to wonder if Humour flowed from F E Pollards heart & wit from R H Robsons head.
After Supper the Club settled down to enjoy the following selections chosen to represent English Humour in literature down the
Ages[:]
Prologue of Chaucers Canterbury Tales The Prioress & Wife of Bath read by Howard R. Smith
Shakespeares Henry IV The Men in Buckram read by R. H Robson Fallstaff
[ditto] S. A. Reynolds Poins
[ditto] C. E. Stansfield Prince Hall [sic]
[ditto] Geo Burrow Gadshill
Jane Austin Pride & Prejudice Mr. Collins proposes
[ditto] Mrs Robson
Charles Dickens David Copperfield Mrs Micawber on her husbands career[?] Geo Burrow
Charles Lamb A Letter Alfred Rawlings
Lewis Carrols Alice in Wonderland The Lobster Quadrill Mary Reynolds
Jerome K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat Uncle Podger hangs a picture F. E. Pollard
Hilaire Belloc Cautionary Tales "George" recited by Howard R. Smith'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield Print: Book
'A Meeting held at Grove House May 3rd H. B. Lawson in the chair
Min 1. Minutes of last Read and approved
[...]
[Min] 4 The Subject of the evening "Humour" was then introduced by H. B. Lawson who fascinated us by his thoughtful attempts to
define his subject[.] An interesting discussion followed in which the disputants backed their opinions by literary allusion and we
were led to wonder if Humour flowed from F E Pollards heart & wit from R H Robsons head.
After Supper the Club settled down to enjoy the following selections chosen to represent English Humour in literature down the
Ages[:]
Prologue of Chaucers Canterbury Tales The Prioress & Wife of Bath read by Howard R. Smith
Shakespeares Henry IV The Men in Buckram read by R. H Robson Fallstaff
[ditto] S. A. Reynolds Poins
[ditto] C. E. Stansfield Prince Hall [sic]
[ditto] Geo Burrow Gadshill
Jane Austin Pride & Prejudice Mr. Collins proposes
[ditto] Mrs Robson
Charles Dickens David Copperfield Mrs Micawber on her husbands career[?] Geo Burrow
Charles Lamb A Letter Alfred Rawlings
Lewis Carrols Alice in Wonderland The Lobster Quadrill Mary Reynolds
Jerome K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat Uncle Podger hangs a picture F. E. Pollard
Hilaire Belloc Cautionary Tales "George" recited by Howard R. Smith'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Burrow Print: Book
Meeting held at Broomfield: 15. V. 31
George Burrow in the chair
1. Minutes of last approved
[...]
5. George Burrow read a short paper introducing the Taming of the Shrew and the Club then
read this play in parts
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of the XII Book Club Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham: 23.5.33
Howard R. Smith in the chair
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
5. We then proceeded to the subject for the evening "The Jew in Literature", which was dealt
with by eight readings and some discussion of several of them. It proved to be rather a vast
subject, & there was considerable disagreement as to what really are the racial characteristics
of the Jews, and there is an even greater indefiniteness in the Secretary's mind as to what the
Club collectively thinks on all this. It must suffice then to give a list of the readers and their
readings.
Mary E. Robson an extract from Du Maurier's Trilby describing Svengali
Howard R. Smith from Heine, in the Temple
Shakespeare, on Shylock's love for Jessica
George H. S. Burrow two XIII Century ballads, Sir Hugh & The Jew's Daughter
Mary S. Stansfield from The Children of the Ghetto
Edgar B. Castle from F. W. H. Myers's St. Paul
Victor W. Alexander from Frazer's Folklore of the Old Testament
Sylvanus A. Reynolds, the Jew's Tale in Longfellow's Wayside Inn
Howard R. Smith from Hilaire Belloc's The Jews'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue 15. I. 35.
Sylvanus Reynolds in the Chair
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
5. It was with a great pleasure to the club to welcome back Charles and Katherine Evans, who
with the latter’s brother Samuel Bracher, came to entertain us with their programme of “Bees in
Music and Literature.”
6. Charles Evans opened with an introduction that gave us an outline of the bee’s life.[...]
7. We next listened to a record of Mendelssohn’s “Bee’s Wedding.”
8. Samuel Bracher gave a longish talk on Bees and the Poets. He classified the poems as Idyllic,
Scientific or Philosophical, and Ornamental; by quoting a great variety of works including lines
from Shakespeare, K. Tynan Hickson, Pope, Thompson, Evans, Alexander, Tennyson, & Watson,
he showed an amazing knowledge of the Poets. [...]
9. Charles Evans then spoke on Maeterlinck and Edwardes.
10. Charles Stansfield read Martin Armstrong’s Honey Harvest.
11. Another gramophone record gave us Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumble Bee”
12. Katherine Evans read from Vitoria Sackville-West’s “Bees on the Land”. Some of the lines
were of very great beauty, & much enjoyed.
13 H. M Wallis then read an extract from the Testament of Beauty, concerning Bees. But he & all
of us found Robert Bridges, at that hour in a warmish room, too difficult, and he called the
remainder of the reading off.
14. A general discussion was the permitted, and members let themselves go.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel V. Bracher
'Le Havre, though undamaged by war, was stark and gloomy to march through ... "We are quite near Agincourt", I wrote dutifully to my old history master at school, feeling as far from the thin skin of my patriotism as I could be. "This quarrel honourable" -- of course we all "did" Henry V -- seemed to be some quirk in Shakespeare rather than anything stable in the English character.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Ruprecht Bion Print: Book
'But having time to write up this, with a letter or so,to fifnish the amazing "Ambassadors", as well as "Embarrassments" (I and III especially good) the unusual "[The] Other House" and a volume of Leslie Stephen (a little diffuse), and eaten very little with never a threat of nausea, I have suffered from nothing beyond irritation at the abnormal dalay,with faint boredom at the meals.[...] Read also five Sonnets every morning.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge :- 3. 7. 37.
Henry Marriage Wallis in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
7. The Meeting then gave its attention to Witches.
H. M Wallis led off with a paper on Witchcraft and readings were given from the following
books:- MacBeth – The Witch Scene[?] by Janet Rawlings, Dorothy Brain, & Dorothea Taylor
with F. E. Pollard & V. W. Alexander as Banquo & MacBeth
Samuel – The Witch of Endor scene by Mary Robson
Westward Ho (Lucy), by Dorothy Brain
Trials for Witchcraft, by Howard Smith
Precious Bane, by Rosamund Wallis
Between all these items there was considerable discussion. Members were able to vie with
one another in tale of mystery and eerie happenings, and if all the conversation was not
strictly relevant at least the interest did not flag.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Janet Rawlings Print: Book
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge :- 3. 7. 37.
Henry Marriage Wallis in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
7. The Meeting then gave its attention to Witches.
H. M Wallis led off with a paper on Witchcraft and readings were given from the following
books:- MacBeth – The Witch Scene[?] by Janet Rawlings, Dorothy Brain, & Dorothea Taylor
with F. E. Pollard & V. W. Alexander as Banquo & MacBeth
Samuel – The Witch of Endor scene by Mary Robson
Westward Ho (Lucy), by Dorothy Brain
Trials for Witchcraft, by Howard Smith
Precious Bane, by Rosamund Wallis
Between all these items there was considerable discussion. Members were able to vie with
one another in tale of mystery and eerie happenings, and if all the conversation was not
strictly relevant at least the interest did not flag.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Brain Print: Book
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge :- 3. 7. 37.
Henry Marriage Wallis in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
7. The Meeting then gave its attention to Witches.
H. M Wallis led off with a paper on Witchcraft and readings were given from the following
books:- MacBeth – The Witch Scene[?] by Janet Rawlings, Dorothy Brain, & Dorothea Taylor
with F. E. Pollard & V. W. Alexander as Banquo & MacBeth
Samuel – The Witch of Endor scene by Mary Robson
Westward Ho (Lucy), by Dorothy Brain
Trials for Witchcraft, by Howard Smith
Precious Bane, by Rosamund Wallis
Between all these items there was considerable discussion. Members were able to vie with
one another in tale of mystery and eerie happenings, and if all the conversation was not
strictly relevant at least the interest did not flag.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothea Taylor Print: Book
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge :- 3. 7. 37.
Henry Marriage Wallis in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
7. The Meeting then gave its attention to Witches.
H. M Wallis led off with a paper on Witchcraft and readings were given from the following
books:- MacBeth – The Witch Scene[?] by Janet Rawlings, Dorothy Brain, & Dorothea Taylor
with F. E. Pollard & V. W. Alexander as Banquo & MacBeth
Samuel – The Witch of Endor scene by Mary Robson
Westward Ho (Lucy), by Dorothy Brain
Trials for Witchcraft, by Howard Smith
Precious Bane, by Rosamund Wallis
Between all these items there was considerable discussion. Members were able to vie with
one another in tale of mystery and eerie happenings, and if all the conversation was not
strictly relevant at least the interest did not flag.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Print: Book
Meeting held at Ashton Lodge :- 3. 7. 37.
Henry Marriage Wallis in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
7. The Meeting then gave its attention to Witches.
H. M Wallis led off with a paper on Witchcraft and readings were given from the following
books:- MacBeth – The Witch Scene[?] by Janet Rawlings, Dorothy Brain, & Dorothea Taylor
with F. E. Pollard & V. W. Alexander as Banquo & MacBeth
Samuel – The Witch of Endor scene by Mary Robson
Westward Ho (Lucy), by Dorothy Brain
Trials for Witchcraft, by Howard Smith
Precious Bane, by Rosamund Wallis
Between all these items there was considerable discussion. Members were able to vie with
one another in tale of mystery and eerie happenings, and if all the conversation was not
strictly relevant at least the interest did not flag.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Alexander Print: Book
'It is surprising how irritating it is when simple little questions or arguments arise which none of us can settle because we have no other sources of information than our imagination. [italics] The Merchant of Venice [end italics], which Elsie sent me, has just settled one grevious point, viz. who was in love with Portia. I was a bit hazy over most of the play but I said Bassanio. Hamilton stuck out that Bassanio eventually trotted off with Nerissa. He had got it into his head that although Bassanio and Portia were lovers in the early part of the play, the ring episode upset things and Bassanio married Nerissa. But I was correct and I can now gloat over Hamilton although really I have little right to do so for it was more of a guess than a feat of memory, but I don't admit that to Hamilton.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Albert John Martin Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Bruce Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Muriel Stevens Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Kenneth F. Nicholson Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Dilks Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ruth Beck Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Joselin Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elsie Harrod Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alice Joselin Print: Book
'Meeting held at 64 Northcourt Avenue 25.1.43
S. A. Reynolds in the chair.
[...]
2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed
[...]
6. The rest of the evening was spent reading “The Taming of the Shrew” reputed
to be by William Shakespeare. Bruce Dilks took the part of Petruchio which he
read with all the dash and vigour of the practised Shrew Tamer. Muriel
Stevens read the part of the Shrew, but her natural characteristics also showed
through her interpretation of the part and she was rather more convincing after
she had been tamed than before. The summing up in the last scene, of the wife’s
duty to her husband was warmly applauded by all the gentle men present — Other
parts were read, all most adequately as follows:
Baptista — Howard Smith.
Vincentio S. A. Reynolds
Lucentio Kenneth Nicholson
Gremio F. E. Pollard
Hortensio R. D. L. Moore
Tranio Margaret Dilks
Biondello Ruth Beck
Grumio A. G. Joselin
Curtis Mary S. W. Pollard
Bianca Elsie Harrod
Widow Rosamund Wallis
The thanks of all were expressed to Alice Joselin for cutting and casting the play
and she hastened to assure us that it had been done only with the assistance and
approbation of her lord and master.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Joselin Print: Book
'We pitched the men's tent and lighted a great fire at which we dried ourselves — I was wet too. In a moment's sunshine we pitched the other tents, and then came thunder and hail and rain so heavy that the pools stood twinkling in the thirsty sand. I sat in my tent and read "Hamlet" from beginning to end and, as I read, the world swung back into focus. Princes and powers of Arabia stepped down into their true place and there rose up above them the human soul conscious and answerable to itself, made with such large discourse, looking before and after. '
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'With Shelley I shared the sadness of human frailty. Except for some of his shorter poems, Browning was too involved for me, while I restricted my reading of Shakespeare to his Sonnets. But the most ravishing of all was Keats. While others gave stimulus to mind and emotion, Keats was like champagne to the senses and kept the joyous bubbles winking at the brim.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vero Walter Garratt Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue: 18. 3. 40.
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
2. We began our meeting with four readings taken before the interval. These
reading were love scenes from the following books or poems:
Chas. Kingsley’s “Westward Ho”: read by Elsie Sikes
Jas. Hilton’s “Goodbye Mr. Chips”: [read by] M Dilkes
J. R. Lowell’s “Coortin’”: [read by] C. E. Stansfield
Rev. W. Barnes’s “Bit o’ Sly Coortin’”: [read by] S. A. Reynolds
These readings stirred the amorous instincts of certain of our members who
regaled the club with courting stories. [...]
5. We then [...] listened to readings from
Shakespeare’s: Merchant of Venice, by R & M Robson
Browning’s: By the Fireside, by F. E. Pollard
F. Stockton’s: Squirrel Inn, by Rosamund Wallis
H. M. Wallis’s: Mistakes of Miss Manisty, by H. R. Smith
Thackeray’s: The Rose and the Ring, by Muriel Stevens
6. These duly received their meed of comment & appreciation, and we then took
our leave, two or three of the husbands going home, we suspect, to curtain
lectures.
[signed as a true record:] F. E. Pollard
17.IV.40.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald H. Robson Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue: 18. 3. 40.
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
2. We began our meeting with four readings taken before the interval. These
reading were love scenes from the following books or poems:
Chas. Kingsley’s “Westward Ho”: read by Elsie Sikes
Jas. Hilton’s “Goodbye Mr. Chips”: [read by] M Dilkes
J. R. Lowell’s “Coortin’”: [read by] C. E. Stansfield
Rev. W. Barnes’s “Bit o’ Sly Coortin’”: [read by] S. A. Reynolds
These readings stirred the amorous instincts of certain of our members who
regaled the club with courting stories. [...]
5. We then [...] listened to readings from
Shakespeare’s: Merchant of Venice, by R & M Robson
Browning’s: By the Fireside, by F. E. Pollard
F. Stockton’s: Squirrel Inn, by Rosamund Wallis
H. M. Wallis’s: Mistakes of Miss Manisty, by H. R. Smith
Thackeray’s: The Rose and the Ring, by Muriel Stevens
6. These duly received their meed of comment & appreciation, and we then took
our leave, two or three of the husbands going home, we suspect, to curtain
lectures.
[signed as a true record:] F. E. Pollard
17.IV.40.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary E. Robson Print: Book
'Meeting held at School House, LP. 15.9.36
Howard R. Smith in the chair.
1. Minutes of last read + approved
[...]
6. We then proceeded to read “Much Ado about Nothing”, a somewhat singular title for a
situation involving the honour and happiness of a virtuous young lady betrothed to a rather
attractive young noble. The parts were drawn by lot, or rather some of them were – such as had
not been forgotten by the committee, or had not slipped into the lining of the rather inferior
Handbag produced for the occasion. The principal male parts were taken by ladies — just the
reverse of what occurred in Shakespeare’s own day.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of the XII Book Club
'Books read from Feby 16th/18
King Richard II Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream do.
Henry the Eighth do.
As You Like It do.
Ziska Marie Corelli
Lorna Doone R. D. Blackmore
Don Quixote de la mancha Vol II
(Miguel de Cervantes Savedra)
Food of the Gods H. G. Wells
Odette's Marriage Albert Delpit
A Walking Gentleman James Prior
The Making of a Marchioness F. H. Burnett
Vixen Mrs. Braddon
The Magnetic North Eliz. Robins
A Roman Singer Marion Crawford
In the Reign of Terror G. A. Henty
Songs of a Sourdough R. W. Service
Forest Folk James Prior
John Henry Hugh McHugh
The Inviolable Sanctuary G. A. Birmingham'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Henry Jones Print: Book
'Books read from Feby 16th/18
King Richard II Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream do.
Henry the Eighth do.
As You Like It do.
Ziska Marie Corelli
Lorna Doone R. D. Blackmore
Don Quixote de la mancha Vol II
(Miguel de Cervantes Savedra)
Food of the Gods H. G. Wells
Odette's Marriage Albert Delpit
A Walking Gentleman James Prior
The Making of a Marchioness F. H. Burnett
Vixen Mrs. Braddon
The Magnetic North Eliz. Robins
A Roman Singer Marion Crawford
In the Reign of Terror G. A. Henty
Songs of a Sourdough R. W. Service
Forest Folk James Prior
John Henry Hugh McHugh
The Inviolable Sanctuary G. A. Birmingham'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Henry Jones Print: Book
'Books read from Feby 16th/18
King Richard II Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream do.
Henry the Eighth do.
As You Like It do.
Ziska Marie Corelli
Lorna Doone R. D. Blackmore
Don Quixote de la mancha Vol II
(Miguel de Cervantes Savedra)
Food of the Gods H. G. Wells
Odette's Marriage Albert Delpit
A Walking Gentleman James Prior
The Making of a Marchioness F. H. Burnett
Vixen Mrs. Braddon
The Magnetic North Eliz. Robins
A Roman Singer Marion Crawford
In the Reign of Terror G. A. Henty
Songs of a Sourdough R. W. Service
Forest Folk James Prior
John Henry Hugh McHugh
The Inviolable Sanctuary G. A. Birmingham'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Henry Jones Print: Book
'Books read from Feby 16th/18
King Richard II Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream do.
Henry the Eighth do.
As You Like It do.
Ziska Marie Corelli
Lorna Doone R. D. Blackmore
Don Quixote de la mancha Vol II
(Miguel de Cervantes Savedra)
Food of the Gods H. G. Wells
Odette's Marriage Albert Delpit
A Walking Gentleman James Prior
The Making of a Marchioness F. H. Burnett
Vixen Mrs. Braddon
The Magnetic North Eliz. Robins
A Roman Singer Marion Crawford
In the Reign of Terror G. A. Henty
Songs of a Sourdough R. W. Service
Forest Folk James Prior
John Henry Hugh McHugh
The Inviolable Sanctuary G. A. Birmingham'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Henry Jones Print: Book
'I am going on with my reading of Shakespeare's historical plays, and yesterday I came on the murder of Humphrey, Duke of Gloster, and the death of Beaufort; and Tennyson's 'bland and mild' Shakespeare grated between my teeth — one, who could so measure such a genius has no wings to soar into the higher realms of poetry; he must content himself with such things as 'Locksley Hall'.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Allen Print: Book
'It certainly is a grievous pity that Shakespeare filled Romeo and Juliet with those appalling
rhymes. But the worst thing in the play is old Capulet's preposterous speech to the guests. Still,
it is a very fine tragedy.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'I have been devoting this week to the reading of Othello, which I like as well as any
Shakespeare play I have read. The part of Iago, to my mind, is something of a blemish, and
the
fact that his pitiless malignity has absolutely no motive leaves him rather a monster (in the
Classical, not the newspaper sense of the word), than a human character. but then of course
Shakespeare at his best works on titanic lines, and the vices and virtues of Lear ... etc., are
magnified to a pitch more splendid and terrible than anything in real life.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
(1) 'I am awfully bucked about "Twelfth Night": I thought at the time you remember, that Heath
Robinson's illustrations were absolutely perfect — quite as good as Rackham's, though of course
in a different style.' (2) 'I have begun to read "Twelfth Night" which is a charming little romance,
don't you think? The opening speech about music is the best.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
‘Distant from us by 300 yards … snipers were continually firing, and rockets
… lit up the night outside … we had two days like that, and played Auction
Bridge, talked, read, smoked and went through a trench mortar strafe
together … it is impossible to read much in this new environment. "Antony
and Cleopatra" in the dugout and Cobbett’s "Rural Rides" in the vacant
spaces before [Le Sart, 25–31 May]—not many of those. O yes, and F. S.
Oliver’s Ordeal by Battle, a striking book.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘ [ … ] it was nice … to get the "Evening Standard" packed up with the rest
[of the parcel]. I do adore newspapers in certain moods. For frivolling time
away they are incomparable … Why was the "Daily Telegraph" one page
sent? For the College awards? Or for the review of Colles’ latest book? … I
asked for a book to be sent in the parcel. That means any sort of book. A
twopenny box in London would give me acute joy, but if you are debarred
from such, Nelson’s 6d Classics would be more than excellent. What a
washout most of the "Golden Treasury" is! As for the period of Pope, the
selection is simply lamentable. Only the Elizabethan and Wordsworth period
have much real stuff in them. Could you steal and small dirty copy of Shelley
or Keats and sent it me? I have tried to get these in the penny Poets, but
they must be out of print. The Everymans are too big, or my pack too small.
"Macbeth" is with me, but there is too much real tragedy about to find it
pleasant. Milton I can read (and have) particularly the Ode on Time which is
terrific … Palgrave makes me feel what a lot of good stuff I miss by reading
anthologies.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘Your Lucretius arrived in all its beauty of type and cover. It is a noble poem
and I wish it were printed in a more compressed form so that one could
have it in the pocket and read it more. It does now sound like a translation
the words seem so natural to the thought … I can say no more than that I
got deep pleasure from it and thank you very much. I’m reading some
Shakespeare—Sturge Moore, G. Bottomley H. G. Wells—Sturge Moore
delights me—they are only small things I mean as number of words go,—
but he is after my own heart. You know what I think of G. B. And that old
hawker of immortality how glad one feels, he is not a witness of these
terrible times—he would only have been flung into this terrible destruction,
like the rest of us. Anyway we all hope it’ll all end well.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Isaac Rosenberg Print: Book
' ... it is raining slightly ... I have almost
finished Twelfth Night. Yesterday I saw [Albert]
Ball. I asked him how many Boches he had shot
down. He said he didnt know. He didnt count them
... He is a dark little man with eyes of fire. I
liked him very much. Last night I had dinner with
George Lawrence of 70 Squadron. We talked about a
lot of things. He likes O. Henry very much. I dont
think you need to have travelled to appreciate O.
Henry but you need a certain dose of human nature.
After dinner we drank Old Brandy till we were
senseless.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Maurice Baring Print: Book
'I have just read King Lear. I think you are more
like Goneril than Regan and more like Regan than
Cordelia. But you have many qualities that none of
these three sisters possessed such as being able to
plant wallflowers. It is a probable play. It is the
kind of thing which might happen any day and I
daresay it happens in the east end very often. And
one feels it was bound to happen.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Maurice Baring Print: Book
'In a little book of poems by J S Squire called
Twelve Poems there is one poem called March which I
think quite beautiful. Do you know Mr Squire? ... He
writes to me often and I to him but I have never
seen him ... I have read Coriolanus and Timon of
Athens by you know who. I think the author must have
suffered in his life on account of the ingratitude
of friends as nearly all of his plays are about
ingratitude.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Maurice Baring Print: Book
'In a little book of poems by J S Squire called
Twelve Poems there is one poem called March which I
think quite beautiful. Do you know Mr Squire? ... He
writes to me often and I to him but I have never
seen him ... I have read Coriolanus and Timon of
Athens by you know who. I think the author must have
suffered in his life on account of the ingratitude
of friends as nearly all of his plays are about
ingratitude.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Maurice Baring Print: Book
'I have just finished the Lady of the Lake. – I read
all the notes. I have also read these plays of
Shakespeare. John. Richard 2d. Henry 4th & I am now
reading Henry 5th. I have nearly finished it – Sir
James Ramsay has got nearly 70 £ worth of books well
bound, here. I intend to borrow them all, one after
another. I hurt my arm very much Wednesday last, but
it is almost well now. Pray send me some more dates
and French plums, for they are universally admired.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Fox Talbot Print: Book
'I have just finished the Lady of the Lake. – I read
all the notes. I have also read these plays of
Shakespeare. John. Richard 2d. Henry 4th & I am now
reading Henry 5th. I have nearly finished it – Sir
James Ramsay has got nearly 70 £ worth of books well
bound, here. I intend to borrow them all, one after
another. I hurt my arm very much Wednesday last, but
it is almost well now. Pray send me some more dates
and French plums, for they are universally admired.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Fox Talbot Print: Book
'I have just finished the Lady of the Lake. – I read
all the notes. I have also read these plays of
Shakespeare. John. Richard 2d. Henry 4th & I am now
reading Henry 5th. I have nearly finished it – Sir
James Ramsay has got nearly 70 £ worth of books well
bound, here. I intend to borrow them all, one after
another. I hurt my arm very much Wednesday last, but
it is almost well now. Pray send me some more dates
and French plums, for they are universally admired.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Fox Talbot Print: Book
'I have just finished the Lady of the Lake. – I read
all the notes. I have also read these plays of
Shakespeare. John. Richard 2d. Henry 4th & I am now
reading Henry 5th. I have nearly finished it – Sir
James Ramsay has got nearly 70 £ worth of books well
bound, here. I intend to borrow them all, one after
another. I hurt my arm very much Wednesday last, but
it is almost well now. Pray send me some more dates
and French plums, for they are universally admired.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Fox Talbot Print: Book
'I have just finished the Lady of the Lake. – I read
all the notes. I have also read these plays of
Shakespeare. John. Richard 2d. Henry 4th & I am now
reading Henry 5th. I have nearly finished it – Sir
James Ramsay has got nearly 70 £ worth of books well
bound, here. I intend to borrow them all, one after
another. I hurt my arm very much Wednesday last, but
it is almost well now. Pray send me some more dates
and French plums, for they are universally admired.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Fox Talbot Print: Book
'After lunch read "The Tempest" to Babs, worked &
went through linen cupboard. After tea Tub put up a
second bookshelf in the drawing room and we arranged
books.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Verena Pennefather Print: Book
'To-day I ... prepare myself for leaving England.
I read, whilst [here] the "Ingoldsby Legends"
entire, Second Part "King Henry IV," and more
cursorily "Midsummer Nights Dream" over again, and
First Part "King Henry IV." I enjoyed myself very
much. But now to fresh fields and pastures. I take
over in books: Shakespeare, Tennyson (to 156),
"Canterbury Tales" (Skeat, Oxford edition),
Vergil, "Aeneid" (I-VI), "Wilhelm Tell," "Golden
Treasury," "Pickwick," "Collected Verse" of
Rudyard Kipling, et alia; French, German, and
English Dictionaries; map (Daily
Telegraph). I hope at Folkestone to secure a
small Horace, an Iliad-let (Macmillan's Pocket
Edition), and "Don Quixote de la Mancha," I also
have my old Harvard Italian grammar, and "England
in the Middle Ages" by a Manchester woman, B.A.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wainwight Merrill Print: Book
'To-day I ... prepare myself for leaving England.
I read, whilst [here] the "Ingoldsby Legends"
entire, Second Part "King Henry IV," and more
cursorily "Midsummer Nights Dream" over again, and
First Part "King Henry IV." I enjoyed myself very
much. But now to fresh fields and pastures. I take
over in books: Shakespeare, Tennyson (to 156),
"Canterbury Tales" (Skeat, Oxford edition),
Vergil, "Aeneid" (I-VI), "Wilhelm Tell," "Golden
Treasury," "Pickwick," "Collected Verse" of
Rudyard Kipling, et alia; French, German, and
English Dictionaries; map (Daily
Telegraph). I hope at Folkestone to secure a
small Horace, an Iliad-let (Macmillan's Pocket
Edition), and "Don Quixote de la Mancha," I also
have my old Harvard Italian grammar, and "England
in the Middle Ages" by a Manchester woman, B.A.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wainwight Merrill Print: Book
'To-day I ... prepare myself for leaving England.
I read, whilst [here] the "Ingoldsby Legends"
entire, Second Part "King Henry IV," and more
cursorily "Midsummer Nights Dream" over again, and
First Part "King Henry IV." I enjoyed myself very
much. But now to fresh fields and pastures. I take
over in books: Shakespeare, Tennyson (to 156),
"Canterbury Tales" (Skeat, Oxford edition),
Vergil, "Aeneid" (I-VI), "Wilhelm Tell," "Golden
Treasury," "Pickwick," "Collected Verse" of
Rudyard Kipling, et alia; French, German, and
English Dictionaries; map (Daily
Telegraph). I hope at Folkestone to secure a
small Horace, an Iliad-let (Macmillan's Pocket
Edition), and "Don Quixote de la Mancha," I also
have my old Harvard Italian grammar, and "England
in the Middle Ages" by a Manchester woman, B.A.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wainwight Merrill Print: Book
'With his first wages Conrad bought a volume of Shakespeare, and at sea he also read
Mill's "Principles of Political Economy".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
‘...I shall give my own poetical translation, also, of the scenes which Schiller in his translation
of Macbeth has substituted for the original witch-scenes. He has altogether mistaken in my
humble opinion, the true character of Shakespeare’s witchcraft - but the verses are pretty. I
hope you did not write the article on the Original in the Quarterly but one as it contains a very
unfeeling allusion to poor Charles Lamb. There is an Ass writes for the Quarterly - who is he?
You need not tell him that I said so.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Book, Serial / periodical
Ditto marks underneath the words:
'June (-July with Winnie and Edith)'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
'King Lear'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
Except Shakespeare, who grew from childhood as
part of myself, nearly every classic has come with
this same shock of almost intolerable enthusiasm:
Virgil, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Dante, Chaucer
and Milton and Goethe, Leopardi and Racine, Plato
and Pascal and St Augustine, they have appeared,
widely scattered through the years, every one like
a 'rock in a thirsty land', that makes the world
look different in its shadow.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book