'Our parents had accumulated a large number of books, which we were allowed to browse in as much as we liked.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Vivian (Molly) Hughes Print: Book
'Our parents had accumulated a large number of books, which we were allowed to browse in as much as we liked.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Vivian (Molly) Hughes Print: Book
1"Vanity Fair" I read without the faintest suspicion of the intent of the note in the bouquet, or of Rawdon's reason for knocking down Lord Steyne.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Vivian (Molly) Hughes Print: Book
'When asked how books had shaped him, Labour M.P. F.W. Jowett ranged widely: Ivanhoe made him want to read, Unto this Last made him a socialist, Past and Present made him think, Vanity Fair and Les Miserables taught him human sympathy, and Wuthering Heights taught him respect for man and nature.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: F.W. Jowett Print: Book
'In a Sunday school library set up by a cotton mill fire-beater, [Thomas Thompson] read Dickens, Thackeray, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Marcus Aurelius'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Thompson Print: Book
'"I made no distinction between Thackeray's Barry Lyndon and Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel - or between Pilgrim's Progress and Sexton Blake", recalled upholsterer's son Herbert Hodge. "All four were simply exciting stories".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Hodge Print: Book
'As a boy V.S. Pritchett read Oliver Twist "in a state of hot horror, It seized me because it was about London and the fears of the London streets. There were big boys at school who could grow up to be the Artful Dodger; many of us could have been Oliver...". Pritchett read Thackeray for escape, "a taste of the gentler life of better-off people", but in Dickens "I saw myself and my life in London".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Sawdon Pritchett Print: Book
[due to the fact that books in working class communities were generally cheap out of copyright reprints, not new works] Welsh collier Joseph Keating was able to immerse himself in Swift, Pope, Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Keats, Byron, Shelley, Dickens and Greek philosophy, as well as the John Dicks edition of Vanity Fair in weekly installments. The common denominator among these authors was that they were all dead. "Volumes by living authors were too high-priced for me", Keating explained. "Our schoolbooks never mentioned living writers; and the impression in my mind was that an author, to be a living author, must be dead and that his work was all the better if he died of neglect and starvation".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Keating Print: Serial / periodical
'[Philip Ballard] had no exposure to contemporary writers until the 1890s: "I gained a nodding acquaintance with the life and letters of Ancient Greece and Rome, and... I had read most of Dickens, much of Thackeray and some of Scott; but I had never read a line of Henry James, of Meredith or of Hardy".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Ballard 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
'The son of a barely literate Derbyshire collier recalled a sister, a worker in a hosiery factory, who was steeped in the poetry of Byron, Shelley, Keats and D.H. Lawrence. Their mother's reading "would astonish the modern candidate for honours in English at any university", he claimed. "Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgeniev, Dumas, Hugo, Thackeray, Meredith, Scott, Dickens, all the classics, poetry etc., all these gave her immense joy".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sutton Print: Book
'[Max] Beerbohm ... [declared] to Will Rothenstein that he had read ... only Thackeray's The Four Georges (1860) and Lear's Book of Nonsense (1846), though lately he had sampled Wilde's Intentions (1891).'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Max Beerbohm Print: Book
Geraldine Hodgson, The Life of James Elroy Flecker (1925), 'Reading aloud in the family circle was an established custom [in 1880s-90s] ... by a very early age, Roy had listened to large parts of Dickens, Longfellow, and Tennyson, and to much of Thackeray, George Eliot, Carlyle, and Browning.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Elroy Flecker 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
June Badeni on readings by 13-year-old Alice Thompson, as recorded in her notebook: 'She has been reading more of Scott and Dickens, is plunging through the novels of George Eliot... has sampled Bulwer Lytton, Thackeray, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alice Thompson 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
'Theodore Watts-Dunton remembers Algernon Swinburne's fondness for reading aloud during his last years at Watts-Dunton's home: "... he would read for the hour together from Dickens, Lamb, Charles Reade and Thackeray."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Algernon Swinburne Print: Unknown
'On learning that [Hall] Caine was to present twenty-four lectures in Liverpool on "Prose Fiction" ... [D. G. Rossetti] insisted that he read the works [of English novelists] aloud to him; hence "I read Fielding and Smollett, Richardson, Radcliffe, 'Monk' Lewis, Thackeray and Dickens, under a running fire of comment and criticism from Rossetti".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Hall Caine Print: Book
'As a collier [Joseph Keating]... heard a co-worker sigh, "Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate". Keating was stunned: "You are quoting Pope". "Ayh", replied his companion, "me and Pope do agree very well". Keating had himself been reading Pope, Fielding, Smollett, Goldsmith and Richardson in poorly printed paperbacks. Later he was reassigned to a less demanding job at a riverside colliery pumping station, which allowed him time to tackle Swift, Sheridan, Byron, Keats, Shelley and Thackeray'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Keating Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to George Smith, 14 February 1852, after having been lent the first volume of W. M. Thackeray, "Henry Esmond", in manuscript by her publishers: 'It has been a great delight to me to read Mr Thackeray's manuscript ... you must permit me ... to thank you for a pleasure so rare and special ... In the first half of the work what chiefly struck me was the wonderful manner in which the author throws himself into the spirit and letter of the times wherof he treats ... As usual -- he is unjust to women ...Many other things I noticed that -- for my part -- grieved and esxasperated me as I read -- but then again came passages so deeply thought -- so tenderly felt -- one could not help forgiving and admiring.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte Manuscript: Unknown
Charlotte Bronte to George Smith, May 1853: 'The "Lectures" arrived safely; I have read them through twice. They must be studied to be appreciated ... I was present at the Fielding lecture ... That Thackeray was wrong in his way of treating Fielding's character and vices -- my conscience told me. After reading that lecture -- I trebly feel that he was wrong ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte Print: Book
'[In The Saturday Review, 19 November 1904], "A Mother" records the books consumed since July by her sixteen-year-old daughter ... [who is] on the point of going in for the "Senior Cambridge" ... :
"Old Mortality", "The Farringdons", "By Mutual Consent" (L. T. Meade), "To Call Her Mine", "Kathrine Regina", and "Self or Bearer" (Besant); "Christmas Carol", "The Cricket on the Hearth", "Hypatia", "Concerning Isabel Carnaby", "The Virginians", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "The Head of the House" (E. Everett-Green), "A Double Thread", "The Heir-Presumptive and the Heir-Apparent", "Sesame and Lilies", "A Tale of Two Cities".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon 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
'David Copperfield was puzzling, too. He was a 'posthumous child' and was born with a 'caul'. The French dictionary, the only one I had, gave posthumous; posthume, which did not help me much; but for caul it gave fillet, and of course a fillet was a string bag. How very odd. Then someone gave me a present of Esmond; but my mother said I was not to read it, because parts of it were 'not very nice'. Of course I wanted to find out what was not nice about it; so, by a quibble, I decided that I might read all that I could manage without cutting the pages. With industry and perseverance this meant practically all of it, though the pages were not cut for many a long year. But I could never discover what was wrong with it'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gwen Raverat Print: Book
[L.M. Montgomery] 'read a great deal; she mentions fifty different authors in her journal which covers the years 1910 to 1921. Titles range from Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" to Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit" and Thackeray's "Vanity Fair". She also read many female writers, such as George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Edith Wharton and Olive Schreiner'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Maud Montgomery Print: Book
'Began to read Egmont after dinner, then "The Hoggarty Diamond".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'We are reading Gall's Anatomie et Physiologie du Cerveau in the evening, with, occasionally, Carpenter's Comparative Physiology. The Newcomes as light fare after dinner'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes Print: Book
'on his eighth birthday, 27 February 1920, an ox-cart drew up outside Everleas Lodge with a present for him - a huge parcel of books. His father had bought him a complete set of Dickens which had belonged to a recently expired tea-planter. Durrell claimed later that he never got beyond the Pickwick Papers (sometimes he said that he got through about ten of them), but Dickens gave him a vision of merrie England... supplemented later by reading Thackeray and R.S. Surtees. In Surtees' convivial tales of the hunting, shooting, sporting Mr Jorrocks and his pursuitful adventures, there was something ruddy, jolly and rumbustious, which appealed to the perky youngster'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lawrence Durrell Print: Book
'O! "Esmond"! That book marks its own year in one's life. I never did any justice to Thackeray before; and I cannot now read "Vanity Fair". But the publisher sent me "Esmond"; and I expect to read it as long as I live. "Villette". I suppose you feel with the rest of us ; - that it is marvellously powerful, but grievously morbid and not a little coarse.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'My [Harriet Martineau's] first real interest in [Thackeray] arose from reading M. A. Titmarsh in Ireland, during my Tynemouth illness.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'"Esmond" appears to me [Harriet Martineau] [italics]the [end italics] book of the century, in its department. I have read it three times; and each time with new wonder at its rich ripe wisdom, and at the singular charm of Esmond's own character.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'While at Cromer [...] I read "Pendennis" with such intense enjoyment [...] that the notion of trying my hand once more at a novel seized upon me'.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'I will not tell you my exact state of health day by day, but will give you a diary of my reading, which is perhaps a good index of my physical state.
Friday morning. Full of buck. "Tartarin sur les Alpes".
Friday afternoon. Wanted soothing. "Letters from a Silent Study".
Saturday morning. Very depressed. "Pickwick Papers".
Saturday afternoon. A little better. "Esmond".
Sunday morning. Quite well thank you! "Butler's Analogy".
Sunday afternoon. Quite well thank you! "Esmond and Stonewall Jackson".
As a guide I may point out that "Pickwick" cheers me up when I am most depressed, while "Butler's Analogy" taxes all my strength.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Donald William Alers Hankey 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: 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
'In various letters to Osborne he mentions having received "Tom Jones" which he did not care for; "Jane Eyre" he thought a "wonderful book"; in a volume titled "British Dramatists" he thought Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" "the best by head and shoulders"; Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship" he admired "exceedingly" (he proceeded to write an essay of twenty-six notepaper pages on Carlyle); of Thackeray's "Henry Esmond" he told Osborne that he thought it a "great book", though he disliked its "overelaboration": "perhaps you may say it is merely an additional grace - but I think it stands rather in the way of true eloquence and geninely forceful tragedy, not that I deny there is both eloquence and tragedy in 'Esmond', but I think there might have been more and grander but for that elaborateness".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arthur Symons Print: Book
'Monday, 15th February,
Thackeray?s descriptions of high life, and, more especially of army conditions, are magnificent. I would like to give a paper on this aspect of Thackeray?s writing, or, indeed, on this book.
Wrote to Eric Barber re Scarborough Camp.
Read - ?Barry Lindon? (W. M. Thackeray)'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Sunday, 28th February,
Discussion Group ? We read four plays from which we intend to choose our programme for the summer and next year:
? Thread o? Scarlet? (J. J. Bell)
? A night in the sun? (Dunsany)
? The Monkey?s Paw? (W. W. Jacobs)
?The rising of the moon? ( Lady Gregory)
Read ? ?The Four Georges? (W. Thackeray)'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Tuesday, 13th April,
Madge intending to call, decided to go to the Settlement to see Algy and his players. The rehearsal fell through however owing to the Settlement being crowded. Postponed to Friday. I walked down to the Ferry with Bal Lear, talking about the merits of the ?Observer? and Garvin?s leaders.
The beautiful weather which has lasted, unbroken, for three weeks came to an end today. It looks as though summer had set in.
Read ? ?English Humourists? (W. M. Thackeray)'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Friday 27th August
I bought ?Esmond? and ?Westward Ho!? today and started to read the former.
Why is Thackeray suffering from a decline? He is the best of them, easily. What novelist is there to rival him in the nineteenth century? Dickens, perhaps, in greatness, but there is no comparison between their writings, they are so completely different from each other. There is no standard, and no need for one.
I picked up for 6 cent. a little ?Selected works of Pope. With the ?Dunciad? ?The Rape of the Lock?, ?Essay on Critism?? Fine!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'As I began to mend, the Governor, to keep me from brooding too much, gave orders that I was to have all the reading matter I wanted within the limits of the prison library, and my book changed just as often as I liked and at any hour of the day. To a man eager to improve his acquaintance with standard literature such a privilege was immeasurably great, and for the next six weeks or so I browsed among the Victorian novelists - Austin [sic?], the Brontes, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Meredith, Lytton, Kingsley, Reade, Hughes, Trollope and others.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Stuart Wood [pseud?] Print: Book
'I have had all things considered and thanks principally to Philip, a very passable Christmas day [...] then went upstairs and read Phillip till lunchtime (you see I adhere to my own views as to how Philip should be spelt).'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Serial / periodical
27 January 1918: 'Desmond has read some of the Newcomes lately: finds no depth, but a charming rippling conventional picturesqueness.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Desmond MacCarthy Print: Unknown
Wednesday 14 February: '10 days recumbent [with headache], sleeping, dreaming, dipping into oh dear how many different books, how capriciously: Thackeray, Young's travels in France [...] then a book a day from the Times [Book Club], Berners, Selincourt & a stout life by Neale of Q. Elizabeth which pretending to impartiality emphasises the double chin & the wig of Mary at the critical moment: a fig for impartial & learned historians! All men are liars.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'they, the Scotts, where [sic] in a state of delight about Esmond, which Thackeray had given them'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: the Scotts Print: Book
'We rushed here for ten days on Monday; & last night your letter & Macmillan's Mag. followed us, and was received with a hearty greeting. 'We' are Meta, & Julia - for whose benefit we are come, as she has outgrown her strength - six inches in the last twelve months. - We are delighted with [italics] our [end italics] type, & that we don't print in double columns which is so trying to the eyes; we put the page of the Virginians by a page of Macmillan last night & you can't think how much more legible [italics] ours [end italics] was.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Gaskell and her daughters 'Meta' and Julia Print: Book, Serial / periodical
'I extremely like & admire Framley Parsonage, - & the Idle Boy; and the Inaugural address. I like Lovel the Widower, only (perhaps because I am stupid,) it is a little confusing on account of its discursiveness, - and V's verses; and oh shame! I have not read the sensible & improving articles.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Serial / periodical
'The History of Pendennis (2 vols, 1849-50) by William Makepeace Thackeray was published by Bradbury and Evans in twenty-four numbers (twenty-three parts) from November 1848 to December 1850 [...] The edition the Brownings were reading, which had been lent to them by Charles Eliot Norton (see letter 2893 [in source]) was probably the one being published in Leipzig by Bernhard Tauchniz. Issued in three volumes from April 1849 to December 1850, the second volume appeared in March 1850'.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Isa Blagden, ?3 December, 1850: 'I send the first volume of Pendennis. We have one more which Robert is finishing'.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
'Your mention of Hawthorne puts me in mind to tell you what rabid [underlined] admirers we
are of his [...] There is no prose write of the present day I have half the interest in I have in
him, his style, in my mind is so beautifully refined and there is such exquisite pathos and
quaint humour, and such an awfully [underlined] deep knowledge of human nature, not that
hard unloving detestable, and, as it is purely one sided (or wrong [underlined] sided) false
reading of it that one finds in Thackeray. He reminds me in many things of Charles Lamb, and
of heaps of our rare old English humourists, with their deep pathetic nature--and one faculty
he possesses beyond any writer I remember (not dramatic, for then I would certainly
remember Shakespeare, and others on further though perhaps) viz. that of exciting you to the
highest pitch without on any [underlined] occasion that I am aware of making you feel by his
catastrophe ashamed of having been excited. What I mean is, if you have ever read it, such a
case as occurs in the "Mysteries of Udolpho" where your disgust is beyond all expression on
finding that all your fright about the ghostly creature that has haunted you throughout the
volumes has been caused by a pitiful wax image! [...] And no Author I know does [underlined]
try to work upon them [i.e. the passions] more, apparently with no [underlined] effort to
himself. I cannot satisfy myself as to whether I like his sort of Essays contained in the twice
told tales best, or his more finished works such as Blithedale romance. Every touch he adds to
any character gives a higher interest to it, so that I should like the longer ones best, but there
is a concentration of excellence in the shorter things and passages that strike, in force like
daggers, in their beauty and truth, so that I generally end in liking that best which I have read
last [...] There are beautiful passages in Longfellow, above all, as far as my knowledge goes
in the Golden Legend, some of which in a single reading impressed themselves on my
memory.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret De Quincey Print: Book
'At home there were daily Bible-readings in the family circle for many years, but secular reading aloud happily also found a place. Lucy was "A good reader" and gave them Scott and Thackeray and Tom Moore as well as Shakespeare; Edward read Pickwick.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Housman 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
'He [Tennyson] would always talk of Thackeray's novels, Esmond, Pendennis, and The Newcomes as being "delicious; they are so mature. But now the days are so full of false sentiment that, as Thackeray said, one cannot draw a man as he should be." He would read and re-read them as well as Walter Scott's and Miss Austen's novels. His comments on Walter Scott and Miss Austen were: "Scott is the most chivalrous literary figure of this century and the author with the widest range since Shakespeare. I think Old Mortality is his greatest novel. The realism and life-likeness of Miss Austen's Dramatis Personae come nearest to those of Shakespeare. Shakespeare however is a sun to which Jane Austen, tho' a bright and true little world, is but an asteroid."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'He [Tennyson] would always talk of Thackeray's novels, Esmond, Pendennis, and The Newcomes as being "delicious; they are so mature. But now the days are so full of false sentiment that, as Thackeray said, one cannot draw a man as he should be." He would read and re-read them as well as Walter Scott's and Miss Austen's novels. His comments on Walter Scott and Miss Austen were: "Scott is the most chivalrous literary figure of this century and the author with the widest range since Shakespeare. I think Old Mortality is his greatest novel. The realism and life-likeness of Miss Austen's Dramatis Personae come nearest to those of Shakespeare. Shakespeare however is a sun to which Jane Austen, tho' a bright and true little world, is but an asteroid."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'He [Tennyson] would always talk of Thackeray's novels, Esmond, Pendennis, and The Newcomes as being "delicious; they are so mature. But now the days are so full of false sentiment that, as Thackeray said, one cannot draw a man as he should be." He would read and re-read them as well as Walter Scott's and Miss Austen's novels. His comments on Walter Scott and Miss Austen were: "Scott is the most chivalrous literary figure of this century and the author with the widest range since Shakespeare. I think Old Mortality is his greatest novel. The realism and life-likeness of Miss Austen's Dramatis Personae come nearest to those of Shakespeare. Shakespeare however is a sun to which Jane Austen, tho' a bright and true little world, is but an asteroid."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'Stopped at home & read "The Newcomers" until nearly mid-night.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'I was sitting between one & two o'clock quietly enjoying a chapter in "Vanity Fair" when there was a bustling noise [?] to the Gaol. Polly looked out of the window & immediately called out "Mr Castieau there is some prisoners escaping."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'I have been reading "Vanity Fair" again & found it even more enjoyable than when I read it for the first time. I really think I like the Book better even than any of those of Dickens. "Becky Sharp" is prodigious. I thought however it to be a great mistake to pull Mr Sedley down so quickly after his bankruptcy & make him so soon appear so dreadfully shabby, humble & contemptible, particularly as "Jos" did what was necessary to prevent his parents being in want as he is stated to have sent instructions to his agents to furnish what money was required. The description given of poor old "Sedley" is the most painful & most truthful description of a ruined man without hopes or friends but the fall to such a condition would be very gradual & Sedley had'ent the time given him to arrive at it any more than his glossy coats had had time to become white in the Seams & Greasy in the collars.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'In the evening I went to "the Yorick" & had a look at the papers. Came home & went on reading Vanity Fair.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'Came home & finished "Vanity Fair" before tea-time.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'In the evening wrote a page in my Diary & dreamed away over "The Newcomes" until it was time to go to bed. The little girls & Harry stayed with me a good deal during the day & I read some little stories to them & Walter'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'I stayed up very late to-night reading Thackeray's scraps contributed in the olden days to Punch & Frazer's Magazine. Some of them interested me very much though I was reading under difficulties for the book was one that had been ill used in the Gaol & it frequently happened that when I came to some particularly interesting point there was a leaf gone & the thread of the story lost in consequence'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'Read some of Thackeray to Mrs Castieau & the youngsters this evening. The account of Master Augustus's visit to the pantomime delighted Harry very much & he could'ent help noticing a great similarity in his own manner with that of the young gentleman who accompanied Mr [Spee?] to the play.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'Miss Goadby then read a paper entitled "A View of Thackeray from the Roundabout Papers" & readings from the same author were then given by F.J. Edminson, C.L. Stansfield, Miss Pollard, T.T. Cass & S.A. Reynolds'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield Print: Book
'Miss Goadby then read a paper entitled "A View of Thackeray from the Roundabout Papers" & readings from the same author were then given by F.J. Edminson, C.L. Stansfield, Miss Pollard, T.T. Cass & S.A. Reynolds'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: T.T. Cass Print: Book
'Miss Goadby then read a paper entitled "A View of Thackeray from the Roundabout Papers" & readings from the same author were then given by F.J. Edminson, C.L. Stansfield, Miss Pollard, T.T. Cass & S.A. Reynolds'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Print: Book
'Miss Goadby then read a paper entitled "A View of Thackeray from the Roundabout Papers" & readings from the same author were then given by F.J. Edminson, C.L. Stansfield, Miss Pollard, T.T. Cass & S.A. Reynolds'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick J. Edminson Print: Book
'Miss Goadby then read a paper entitled "A View of Thackeray from the Roundabout Papers" & readings from the same author were then given by F.J. Edminson, C.L. Stansfield, Miss Pollard, T.T. Cass & S.A. Reynolds'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Pollard Print: Book
'Miss Goadby then read a paper entitled "A View of Thackeray from the Roundabout Papers" & readings from the same author were then given by F.J. Edminson, C.L. Stansfield, Miss Pollard, T.T. Cass & S.A. Reynolds'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Goadby Print: Book
'The evening was given over to the consideration of Thackeray.
A paper by J.J. Cooper was read by Miss Marriage followed by readings from his works
Charles E. Stansfield from Pendennis
Charles I. Evans from Newcomes
Mrs W.H. Smith from Vanity Fair
H.M Wallis from Roundabout Papers
H.R. Smith from Esmond'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield Print: Book
'The evening was given over to the consideration of Thackeray.
A paper by J.J. Cooper was read by Miss Marriage followed by readings from his works
Charles E. Stansfield from Pendennis
Charles I. Evans from Newcomes
Mrs W.H. Smith from Vanity Fair
H.M Wallis from Roundabout Papers
H.R. Smith from Esmond'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'The evening was given over to the consideration of Thackeray.
A paper by J.J. Cooper was read by Miss Marriage followed by readings from his works
Charles E. Stansfield from Pendennis
Charles I. Evans from Newcomes
Mrs W.H. Smith from Vanity Fair
H.M Wallis from Roundabout Papers
H.R. Smith from Esmond'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Ann Smith Print: Book
'The evening was given over to the consideration of Thackeray.
A paper by J.J. Cooper was read by Miss Marriage followed by readings from his works
Charles E. Stansfield from Pendennis
Charles I. Evans from Newcomes
Mrs W.H. Smith from Vanity Fair
H.M Wallis from Roundabout Papers
H.R. Smith from Esmond'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'The evening was given over to the consideration of Thackeray.
A paper by J.J. Cooper was read by Miss Marriage followed by readings from his works
Charles E. Stansfield from Pendennis
Charles I. Evans from Newcomes
Mrs W.H. Smith from Vanity Fair
H.M Wallis from Roundabout Papers
H.R. Smith from Esmond'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard Smith Print: Book
18 July 1876:
'Left Paris by tidal service at half-past nine, reaching London before seven... I am reading again, with great delight, Thackeray's Esmond. Since I left England [on ceramics-collecting expedition] I have read Dickens's Tale of Two Cities, Smollett's Peregrine Pickle and Mrs Elliot's Old Court Life in France, various in style, all in their way of much interest to me.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
[following journal entry for 1 November 1879] 'The next few days [following seven weeks' travels in Europe] were occupied unpacking, after which the Schreibers went to Canford, the railway journey from London being enlivened by Thackeray's Humorists.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
7 December 1879:
'I was a little chilly in the morning [...] and I feared I had taken cold, so I did not go out. Read over the fire. First Freeman's account of the Bayeux tapestry, then some of Thackeray's Humorists.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Charlotte Schreiber Print: Book
'Geo Burrow then read portions of Thackeray's essay on Swift. H. R. Smith read several short extracts from the Journal to Stella. After supper Miss D. Brain read several passages from Gulliver's travels & T. C. Elliott read from the Drapers Letters & explained them Alfred Rawlings read from the Tale of a Tub'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Burrow Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte (as 'Currer Bell') to her publisher, W. S. Williams, 11 December 1847:
'I hardly ever felt delight equal to that which cheered me when I received your letter
containing an extract from a note by Mr Thackeray, in which he expressed himself gratified with the perusal of "Jane Eyre." Mr Thackeray is a keen, ruthless satirist. I had never perused his writings but with blended feelings of admiration and indignation. Critics, it appears to me, do not know what an intellectual boa-constrictor he is [...] his is a most scalping humour, a most deadly brilliancy: he does not play with his prey, he coils round it and crushes it in his rings [comments further].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte Print: Unknown
Charlotte Bronte (as Currer Bell) to her publisher, W. S. Williams, 29 March 1848:
'You mention Thackeray and the last number of "Vanity Fair." The more I read Thackeray's
works, the more certain I am that he stands alone — alone in his sagacity, alone in his truth,
alone in his feeling (his feeling, though he makes no noise about it, is about the most genuine
that ever lived on a printed page), alone in his power, alone in his simplicity, alone in his self-
control. Thackeray is a Titan, so strong that he can afford to perform with calm the most
herculean feats [...] his is never the energy of delirium — his energy is sane energy,
deliberate energy, thoughtful energy. The last number of "Vanity Fair" proves this peculiarly.
Forcible, exciting in its force, still more impressive than exciting, carrying on the interest of
the narrative in a flow, deep, resistless, it is still quiet — as quiet as reflection, as quiet as
memory; and to me there are parts of it that sound as solemn as an oracle [...] Thackeray is
unique.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Serial / periodical
Charlotte Bronte to W. S. Williams, 14 August 1848:
'I regard Mr Thackeray as the first of modern masters, and as the legitimate high priest of Truth [...] He, I see, keeps the mermaid's tail below water, and only hints at the dead men's bones and noxious slime amidst which it wriggles; but, his hint is more vivid than other men's elaborate explanations [comments further] [...] There is a something, a sort of "still profound," revealed in the concluding part of Vanity Fair which the discernment of one generation will not suffice to fathom [comments further].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Serial / periodical
Charlotte Bronte to W. S. Williams, 7 December 1848:
'I have not yet read the second number of "Pendennis." The first I thought rich in indication of ease, resource, promise; but it is not Thackeray's way to develop his full power all at once. "Vanity Fair" began very quietly [...] but the stream as it rolled gathered a resistless volume and force. Such, I doubt not, will be the case with "Pendennis."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Serial / periodical
Charlotte Bronte to her publisher, W. S. Williams, 1 February 1849:
'There are two volumes in the first parcel [sent on loan by Williams] which, having seen, I cannot bring myself to part with, and must beg Mr Smith [Williams's publishing partner] to retain: Mr Thackeray's "Journey from Cornhill, etc.", and "The Testimony to the Truth." That last is indeed a book after my own heart. I do like the mind it discloses — it is of a fine and high order. Alexander may be a clown by birth, but he is a nobleman by nature. When I could read no other book [following death of her sister Emily in December 1848], I read his and derived comfort from it. No matter whether or not I can agree in all his views, it is the principles, the feelings, the heart of the man I admire.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to Mrs Smith, 9 January 1850:
'You ask me what I think of [Thackeray's] Christmas Book. I think it is like himself, and all he says and writes; harsh and kindly, wayward and wise, benignant and bitter; its pages are overshadowed with cynicism, and yet they sparkle with feeling. As to his abuse of Rowena and women in general ‐ I will tell you my dear Madam what he deserves ‐ first to be arrested, to be kept in prison for a month, then to be tried by a jury of twelve matrons, and subsequently to undergo any punishment they might think proper to inflict; and I trust they would not spare him [comments further]'.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to George Smith, 15 January 1850:
'I have received the "Morning Chronicle." I like Mr Thackeray's letter. As you say, it is manly; it breathes rectitude and independence; now and then the satirist puts in a word, but, on the whole, its tone is as earnest as its style is simple.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Serial / periodical
Charlotte Bronte to George Smith, 16 March 1850:
'The last two or three numbers of "Pendennis" will not, I dare say, be generally thought sufficiently exciting, yet I like them. Though the story lingers (for me), yet the interest does not flag. Here and there we feel that the pen has been directed by a tired hand [...] but Thackeray still proves himself greater when he is weary than other writers are when they are fresh.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Serial / periodical
Charlotte Bronte to George Smith, 7 January 1851:
'I am glad "The Kicklebury's" is likely to be successful; it has that interest and that pith without
which Thackeray cannot write, yet I mentally wrung my hands as I laid it down.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to George Smith, 12 May 1851:
'I fear it cannot be denied that Mr Thackeray has actually gone and written a poem. The
whole of the May-Day Ode is not poetry — that I will
maintain — it opens with decent prose — but at the fourth stanza "I felt a thrill of love and
awe" — it begins to swell: towards the middle it waxes strong and rises high, takes a tone
sustained and sweet, fills the ear with music, the heart with glow and expansion -- becomes
in a word — POETRY. Shame and sin that the man who [italics]can[end italics] write thus —
should write thus so seldom!'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Unknown
Charlotte Bronte to James Taylor, 15 November 1851:
'The BATH scene [in letter of Taylor's from India] amused me much. Your account of that
operation tallies in every point with Mr Thackeray's description in the "Journey from Cornhill to
Grand Cairo." The usage seems a little rough, and I cannot help thinking that equal benefit
might be obtained through less violent means; but I suppose without the previous fatigue the
after-sensation would not be so enjoyable, and no doubt it is that indolent after-sensation
which the self-indulgent Mahometans chiefly cultivate. I think you did right to disdain it.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Unknown
Charlotte Bronte to George Smith, 11 March 1852:
'I have read the "Paris Sketches" slowly, and by regulated allowances of so much per diem. I
was so afraid of exhausting the precious provision too quickly. What curious traces one finds
(at least so it struck me) of a somewhat wild, regular [sic], and reckless life being led at that
time by the Author! And yet how good — how truthful and sagacious are many of the papers —
such as touch on politics, for instance — and above all the critical articles! And then whatever
vinegar and gall, whatever idle froth a book of Thackeray's may contain, it has no dregs; you
never go and wash your hands when you put it down [...] Perverse he may be and is, but, to
do him justice, not degraded; no — never.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to George Smith, early November 1852:
'The third volume [of Thackeray's History of Henry Esmond] seemed to me to possess the
most sparkle, impetus, and interest. Of the first and second my judgement was that parts of
them were admirable; but there was the fault of containing too much History — too little
Story. I hold that a work of fiction ought to be a work of creation: that the real should be sparingly introduced in pages dedicated to the ideal.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to W. S. Williams, May 1853:
'The "Lectures" arrived safely; I have read them through twice. They must be studied to be
appreciated. I thought well of them when I heard them delivered, but now I see their real
power, and it is great. The lecture on Swift was new to me; I thought it almost matchless. Not
that by any means I always agree with Mr Thackeray's opinions [...] against his errors I
protest, were it treason to do so. I was present at the Fielding lecture [...] That Thackeray
was wrong in his way of treating Fielding's character and vices my conscience told me [...]
Had Thackeray owned a son, grown or growing up, and a son brilliant but reckless — would he
have spoken in that light way of courses that lead to disgrace and the grave? He speaks of it
all as if he theorised; as if he had never been called on, in the course of his life to witness the
actual consequences of such failings [...] I believe, if only once the prospect of a promising
life blasted at the outset by wild ways had passed close under his eyes, he never
could have spoken with such levity of what led to its piteous destruction.
Had I a brother yet living, I should tremble to let him read Thackeray's lecture on Fielding ... [comments further].'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
Patrick Bronte to George Smith, his daughter Charlotte's publisher before her death in 1855,
26 March 1860:
'Though writing is to me now something of a task I cannot avoid sending you a few lines to
thank you for sending me the magazines, and for your gentlemanly conduct towards my
daughter in all your transactions with her [...] All the magazines were good; the last
especially attracted my attention and excited my admiration. The "Last Sketch" took full
possession of my mind. Mr Thackeray in his remarks in it has excelled even himself [...] If
organless spirits see as we see, and feel as we feel, in this material clogging world, my
daughter Charlotte's spirit will receive additional happiness on scanning the remarks of her
Ancient Favourite.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Patrick Brontë Print: Serial / periodical
Meeting held at Eynsham, Shinfield Rd., 20.XII.33.
E. Dorothy Brain in the chair
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
7. Schoolmasters in Literature were portrayed by a series of readings from biography and
fiction. There were ten in all and they reflected the various estimation in which these beings
are held, and were held generations ago. In spite of the dullness, the jealousy and the morbid
introspection that characterize the assistant, the profession is in part redeemed by the haloes
that flicker around its heads - generally, it must be admitted, very much in retrospect.
After all, would other professions fare much better?
We are certainly indebted to the committee who prepared the readings, and regret that
Reginald Robson felt it necessary to omit the one he had allotted to himself.
The readings were given in this order.
1. From Roger Ascham V. W. Alexander
2. [From] Westward Ho H. R. Smith
3. [From] Essays of Elia Janet Rawlings
4. [From] T. E. Brown's Clifton Celia Burrow
6. [From] Stalky & Co G. H. S. Burrow
5. [From] Life of Frederick Andrews Mary Robson
7. [From] Vanity Fair S. A. Reynolds
8. [From] Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill Dorothy Brain
9. [From] Jeremy at Crale E. B. Castle
10. [From] Rugby Chapel F. E. Pollard
'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus A. Reynolds Print: Book
'She [Emma Darwin] was especially devoted to Jane Austen's novels and almost knew them by heart... Scott was also a perennial favourite, especially ''The Antiquary''. Mrs Gaskell's novels she read over and over again; Dickens and Thackeray she cared for less.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
''Finished "[The] Rose and Ring" (how satisfying) and turned over the "Assemblies of al-Hariri", which confirms my old opinion that there is but one book in Arabic and that is the "Arabian Nights". The Admiralty handbook of Mesopotamia a compilation of the first order, and invaluable to me. Bed 10, and again cold (72°).'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'How I hate Thackeray's women. He makes Mrs Pen and Laura behave exactly like the women in ''Ruth'' who are so detestable, and Thackeray thinks it quite right.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'How I hate Thackeray's women. He makes Mrs Pen and Laura behave exactly like the women in ''Ruth'' who are so detestable, and Thackeray thinks it quite right.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Hillsborough”: 24 Jan 1940
R. H. Robson in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
[...]
7. Two one act plays were then read. The first of these starred Margaret Dilks as
Becky Sharp, a part which she read so successfully as to make her nervous about
the effect on her own character afterwards. The Secretary has had the pleasure of
seeing Margaret Dilks two or three times since, and is glad to report no noticeable
deleterious effects.
Other parts in the play were taken by,
Muriel Stevens as Amelia, very demurely
C. E. Stansfield [as] George Osbourne
R. H. Robson [as] Joseph Sedley
A. B. Dilks [as] Rawdon Gawley
8. The second play was Five Birds in a Cage. And here too, a new planet entered
the firmament, to whom the other luminaries did obeissance [sic].
Rosamund Wallis was the Duchess of Wiltshire, giving us a delicate mixture of the
old time hauteur of Vere de Vere, and the kindly condescension of the great lady
who travels third class, and lectures on the appeal of socialism. She had, so to
speak, two beaux on her string, Victor Alexander as the prepossessing but
ineffective young peer, and Roger Moore as the young foreman plumber. Into this
dual situation Rosamund Wallis entered with such verve, as to become for the
time being what the late William Fryer Harvey would have called “one of the most
forward looking members of the aristocracy,” & on the strength of the inspiration
invited the two young men to the theatre the next day where she continued their
education.
Mary Robson read a very pleasing part as the shy but ambitious little London
midinette. We were sorry her part was not longer. R. H. Robson stepped into the
breach at the last moment to become the lift man, where however he had perforce
to remain stolid.
[Signed as a true record] Rosamund Wallis'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Dilks
'Meeting held at “Hillsborough”: 24 Jan 1940
R. H. Robson in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
[...]
7. Two one act plays were then read. The first of these starred Margaret Dilks as
Becky Sharp, a part which she read so successfully as to make her nervous about
the effect on her own character afterwards. The Secretary has had the pleasure of
seeing Margaret Dilks two or three times since, and is glad to report no noticeable
deleterious effects.
Other parts in the play were taken by,
Muriel Stevens as Amelia, very demurely
C. E. Stansfield [as] George Osbourne
R. H. Robson [as] Joseph Sedley
A. B. Dilks [as] Rawdon Gawley
8. The second play was Five Birds in a Cage. And here too, a new planet entered
the firmament, to whom the other luminaries did obeissance [sic].
Rosamund Wallis was the Duchess of Wiltshire, giving us a delicate mixture of the
old time hauteur of Vere de Vere, and the kindly condescension of the great lady
who travels third class, and lectures on the appeal of socialism. She had, so to
speak, two beaux on her string, Victor Alexander as the prepossessing but
ineffective young peer, and Roger Moore as the young foreman plumber. Into this
dual situation Rosamund Wallis entered with such verve, as to become for the
time being what the late William Fryer Harvey would have called “one of the most
forward looking members of the aristocracy,” & on the strength of the inspiration
invited the two young men to the theatre the next day where she continued their
education.
Mary Robson read a very pleasing part as the shy but ambitious little London
midinette. We were sorry her part was not longer. R. H. Robson stepped into the
breach at the last moment to become the lift man, where however he had perforce
to remain stolid.
[Signed as a true record] Rosamund Wallis'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Muriel Stevens
'Meeting held at “Hillsborough”: 24 Jan 1940
R. H. Robson in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
[...]
7. Two one act plays were then read. The first of these starred Margaret Dilks as
Becky Sharp, a part which she read so successfully as to make her nervous about
the effect on her own character afterwards. The Secretary has had the pleasure of
seeing Margaret Dilks two or three times since, and is glad to report no noticeable
deleterious effects.
Other parts in the play were taken by,
Muriel Stevens as Amelia, very demurely
C. E. Stansfield [as] George Osbourne
R. H. Robson [as] Joseph Sedley
A. B. Dilks [as] Rawdon Gawley
8. The second play was Five Birds in a Cage. And here too, a new planet entered
the firmament, to whom the other luminaries did obeissance [sic].
Rosamund Wallis was the Duchess of Wiltshire, giving us a delicate mixture of the
old time hauteur of Vere de Vere, and the kindly condescension of the great lady
who travels third class, and lectures on the appeal of socialism. She had, so to
speak, two beaux on her string, Victor Alexander as the prepossessing but
ineffective young peer, and Roger Moore as the young foreman plumber. Into this
dual situation Rosamund Wallis entered with such verve, as to become for the
time being what the late William Fryer Harvey would have called “one of the most
forward looking members of the aristocracy,” & on the strength of the inspiration
invited the two young men to the theatre the next day where she continued their
education.
Mary Robson read a very pleasing part as the shy but ambitious little London
midinette. We were sorry her part was not longer. R. H. Robson stepped into the
breach at the last moment to become the lift man, where however he had perforce
to remain stolid.
[Signed as a true record] Rosamund Wallis'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield
'Meeting held at “Hillsborough”: 24 Jan 1940
R. H. Robson in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
[...]
7. Two one act plays were then read. The first of these starred Margaret Dilks as
Becky Sharp, a part which she read so successfully as to make her nervous about
the effect on her own character afterwards. The Secretary has had the pleasure of
seeing Margaret Dilks two or three times since, and is glad to report no noticeable
deleterious effects.
Other parts in the play were taken by,
Muriel Stevens as Amelia, very demurely
C. E. Stansfield [as] George Osbourne
R. H. Robson [as] Joseph Sedley
A. B. Dilks [as] Rawdon Gawley
8. The second play was Five Birds in a Cage. And here too, a new planet entered
the firmament, to whom the other luminaries did obeissance [sic].
Rosamund Wallis was the Duchess of Wiltshire, giving us a delicate mixture of the
old time hauteur of Vere de Vere, and the kindly condescension of the great lady
who travels third class, and lectures on the appeal of socialism. She had, so to
speak, two beaux on her string, Victor Alexander as the prepossessing but
ineffective young peer, and Roger Moore as the young foreman plumber. Into this
dual situation Rosamund Wallis entered with such verve, as to become for the
time being what the late William Fryer Harvey would have called “one of the most
forward looking members of the aristocracy,” & on the strength of the inspiration
invited the two young men to the theatre the next day where she continued their
education.
Mary Robson read a very pleasing part as the shy but ambitious little London
midinette. We were sorry her part was not longer. R. H. Robson stepped into the
breach at the last moment to become the lift man, where however he had perforce
to remain stolid.
[Signed as a true record] Rosamund Wallis'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald H. Robson
'Meeting held at “Hillsborough”: 24 Jan 1940
R. H. Robson in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
[...]
7. Two one act plays were then read. The first of these starred Margaret Dilks as
Becky Sharp, a part which she read so successfully as to make her nervous about
the effect on her own character afterwards. The Secretary has had the pleasure of
seeing Margaret Dilks two or three times since, and is glad to report no noticeable
deleterious effects.
Other parts in the play were taken by,
Muriel Stevens as Amelia, very demurely
C. E. Stansfield [as] George Osbourne
R. H. Robson [as] Joseph Sedley
A. B. Dilks [as] Rawdon Gawley
8. The second play was Five Birds in a Cage. And here too, a new planet entered
the firmament, to whom the other luminaries did obeissance [sic].
Rosamund Wallis was the Duchess of Wiltshire, giving us a delicate mixture of the
old time hauteur of Vere de Vere, and the kindly condescension of the great lady
who travels third class, and lectures on the appeal of socialism. She had, so to
speak, two beaux on her string, Victor Alexander as the prepossessing but
ineffective young peer, and Roger Moore as the young foreman plumber. Into this
dual situation Rosamund Wallis entered with such verve, as to become for the
time being what the late William Fryer Harvey would have called “one of the most
forward looking members of the aristocracy,” & on the strength of the inspiration
invited the two young men to the theatre the next day where she continued their
education.
Mary Robson read a very pleasing part as the shy but ambitious little London
midinette. We were sorry her part was not longer. R. H. Robson stepped into the
breach at the last moment to become the lift man, where however he had perforce
to remain stolid.
[Signed as a true record] Rosamund Wallis'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Bruce Dilks
'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
readings 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: Muriel Stevens Print: Book
'I am glad to hear you have read Esmond: it is one of my favourite novels, and I hardly know
which to praise most, the wonderful, musical Queen Anne English, or the delicate beauty of the
story. True, I did rather resent the history, and still maintain, that when a man sets out to write
a novel he has no right to ram a European War down your throat.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
(1) 'Can you guess what I have been reading this week? Of all things in the world "Pendennis"!
Isn't this the one you find too much for you? I am nearly through the first volume and like it
well so far: of course one gets rather sick of Pen's everlasting misbehaviour and the inevitable
repentance going round and round like a mill wheel and there doesn't seem much connection
between one episode and another. All the same it has a sort of way with it.' (2) 'I am at
present in the middle of a book called "Pendennis" which I should advise you to read unless I
knew your prejudice against the author: however, one of these days you will come round and
"see my point". (3) '... having finished "Pendennis" of which I am heartily sick by now...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
(1) 'I am still at The Newcomes...'
(2) 'Talking about stodge, I finished "The Newcomes" before leaving home, and certainly enjoyed
the end better than any parts except the scenes at Baden. Of course it is a great novel, and I am
very thankful to have got it off my chest.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'Also going through Vanity Fair again. It seems another world.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vere Hodgson Print: Book
'Do you know this modern six-shilling mummer of
"life," called Galsworthy? You may be aware that
he has recently published, among other novels, a
creation, "Beyond," and doubtless is now reaping
the fat royalty, for everyone in England reads
these false prophets now, and, of course, no-one
ever reads a war book. They are, indeed, rather
rotten form, and behind British masked convention
there rests a much deeper, sadder reason—but
this Galsworthy is positively jolly-well rottener!
I this evening finished "Pendennis": likewise read
a latter instalment of ["Beyond"]. I have read
previous ones, but this capped it. Violently
plunged from the dear old tale of egotistical Pen,
ludicrous Foker, and good and saintly Helen and
Laura ... into this shrieking twentieth-century
sordidness of intrigue, seduction, and rampant
infidelity ... Gad, I am sickened and
everlastingly fed-up with this Galsworthy ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wainwight Merrill Print: Book
'I have spoken of his affection for Dickens. Trollope he liked. Thackeray I
think not over much, though he had a due regard for such creations as Major
Pendennis. Meredith's characters were to him "seven feet high," and his style
too inflated. He admired Hardy's poetry. He always spoke with appreciation
of Howells, especially of the admirable "Rise of Silas Lapham". His
affectionate admiration for Stephen Crane we know from is introduction to
Thomas Beer's biography of that gifted writer. Henry James in his middle
period--the Henry James of "Daisy Miller", "The Madonna of the Future",
"Greville Fane", "The Real Thing", "The Pension Beaurepas"--was precious to
him. But of his feeling for that delicate master, for Anatole France, de
Maupassant, Daudet, and Turgenev, he has written in his "Notes on Life and
Letters". I remember too that he had a great liking for those two very
different writers, Balzac and Mérimée. Of philosophy he had read a good
deal, but on the whole spoke little. Schopenhauer used to give him
satisfaction twenty years and more ago, and he liked both the personality
and the writings of William James.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
I am wading through “Barry Lyndon” the first book
of Thackeray’s I have ever got into and I don’t
find it at all too bad.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arthur Morris Print: Book
