Henry Mayhew interviews a former London pickpocket, turned patterer; grew up in Shropshire, father a Wesleyan minister:
"...I have read Paine, and Valney, and Holyoake, those infidel writers, and have also read the works of Bulwer, Dickens and numbers of others..."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
Wu notes extracts from vol 1 of Volney, "Travels Through Syria and Egypt", in Dove Cottage MS 28.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Wordsworth Family Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
"As an errand-boy I had, of course, many hardships to undergo, and to bear with much tyranny; and that led me into reasoning upon men and things, the causes of misery, the anomalies of our societary state, politics &tc., and the circle of my being rapidly out-surged. New power came to me with all that I saw and thought and read. I studied political works, - such as Paine, Volney, Howitt, Louis Blanc, &tc, which gave me another element to mould into my verse, though I am convinced that a poet must sacrifice much if he write party-political poetry."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Massey Print: Book
[Shelley encouraged her to read] 'some key Romantic texts (Coleridge, Scott, Southey, Volney's "Les ruines"), radical politics ("The Rights of Man" and "The Age of Reason") and radical sexual politics (Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Woman" and James Lawrence's anti-marriage utopia, "The Empire of the Nairs").'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Westbrook Print: Book
