' ... [Gladstone] was disappointed by ... "The History of David Grieve" (1892), though he read it all ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Ewart Gladstone Print: Book
' ... [Virginia Woolf] was liable to blame Mrs [Humphry] Ward for her own periods of sterility as a writer: "How I dislike writing straight after reading Mrs H. Ward! -- she is as great a menace to health of mind as influenza to the body".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Henry James to Mrs Humphry Ward, 9 December 1884: "I read ... [Miss Bretherton] with great interest and pleasure ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
'At this precise moment I am feeling mightily morose, owing to my having foolishly embarked on Robert Elsmere and Tom Jones this afternoon.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan Print: Book
Sunday 21 September 1919: 'By paying 5/ I have become a member of the Lewes public library. It is an amusing place -- full of old ghosts; books half way to decomposition [...] I could not resist Mrs Ward, & I stand in her unconscionably long hours, as if she were a bath of tepid water that one lacks the courage to leave [goes on to comment further on Ward's autobiography].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'A Writer's Recollections, by Mrs Humphry Ward, had been published in the autumn of 1918. V[irginia] W[oolf] had read it then'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'Read "The Coryston Family". Was again fitted with a uniform. Wrote to Mrs Davies.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Frederick William Dunn Print: Book
'Extremely hot even at Therapia. Back at 7 and dined at home and read the "Marriage of William Ashe".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'I am longing to hear what you think of "D.[David]G.[Grieve]" I read the first volume this morning — oh! how dull it is, how dull! how full of unnecessary detail, how flatlessly and pointlessly written! I like some of the childhood scenes, though I thought them nearly all in a measure spoilt by too great length and by that absolute want of humour which is characteristic of her. And why all that foolish ghost episode that leads to nothing, and why all those useless illnesses and deaths, and why all those long stories of the birth and parentage of each character? Then the Manchester part is awfully feeble and uninteresting — no I cannot think it will catch on even with the B.P. And all written with such effort and such painstaking — that's the pity of it. I'm bound to say however that I think the English is very slipshod.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
