'lines on the death of a general officer in the east indies / ladies monthly museum' 'the muffled drums dull moan /... [transcription of poem]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Groom Print: Serial / periodical
William Wordsworth to Thomas De Quincey, regarding editing of The Convention of Cintra: 'I have alluded to the blasphemous address to Buonaparte made by some Italian deputies, which you remember we read at Grasmere some time ago, and his answer; I should like to have referred to the very words in the Appendix ... If ... you could find it in the file of Couriers at the office, I should exceedingly like such parts as you might approve of ... to be inserted ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth and Thomas De Quincey Print: Serial / periodical
William Wordsworth discusses reading habits of the local labouring classes in letter to Francis Wrangham, 5 June 1808:
'... I find, among the people I am speaking of, half-penny Ballads, and penny and two-penny histories, in great abundance; these are often bought as charitable tributes to the poor Persons who hawk them about (and it is the best way of procuring them); they are frequently stitched together in tolerably thick volumes, and such I have read; some of the contents, though not often religious, very good; others objectionable, either for the superstition in them (such as prophecies, fortune-telling, etc.) or more frequently for indelicacy.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
Statement of boy to London society, aim of which to rescue juvenile criminals, demonstrating pernicious influence of penny dreadfuls:
"Bill couldn't read a bit, but he knowed boys that could, and he used to hear 'em reading about Knights of the Road, and Claude Duval and Skeleton Crews, till I suppose his head got regler stuffed with it. He never had no money to buy a pen'orth when it came out, so he used to lay wait for me, carrying my younger sister over his shoulder, when I came out of school at dinner time, and gammon me over to come along with him to a shop on the corner of Rosamond street in Clerkenwell, where there used to be a whole lot of the penny numbers in the window. They was all of a row, Wildfire Jack, the Boy Highwayman, Dick Turpin, and ever so many others -just the first page, don't you know, and the picture. Well, I liked it too, and I used to go along o' Bill and read to him all the reading on the front page and look at the pictures until -'specially on Mondays when there was altogether a new lot -Bill would always get so worked up with the aggravatin' little bits, which always left off where you wanted to turn over and see what was on the next leaf..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charley Print: Serial / periodical, penny dreadful
William Wordsworth to Viscount Lowther, 31 December 1819: 'In the last Kendal Chronicle appeared a most malignant misrepresentation of the words you used upon the searching for arms Bill ... I was requested to animadvert upon this Letter, which indeed I had felt some disposition to do when I first read it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Newspaper
Recorded in Joseph Farington's diary, '[On 21 May] Sir George [Beaumont] mentioned the high encomiums for Wordsworth's "Excursion" in the Eclectic Review. Wordsworth had seen it, and could not but be pleased with the sentiments expressed in it."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Serial / periodical
'The Wordsworths were reading the Morning Chronicle during the 1800s. It was the source of ... the recipe for croup medicine ... entered in the Commonplace Book.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Wordsworth Family Print: Newspaper
'Writing to Mary Monkhouse from Allan Bank on 19 April 1809, S[ara] H[utchinson] remarked that she had seen a churn "advertized in the Courier yesterday". She refers to the advertisement on the front page of the Courier for 13 April [which also appeared on 5 April] ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sara Hutchinson Print: Advertisement, NewspaperManuscript: Unknown
Byron to John Hanson, [? November 1799]: 'I congratulate you on Capt. Hanson's being appointed commander of the Brazen sloop of war ... The manner I knew that Capt. Hanson was appointed Commander of the ship before mentioned was this[.] I saw it in the public paper.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Newspaper
Byron to Augusta Byron, 25 April 1805: 'You say you are sick of the Installation [of seven Knights of the Garter at Windsor], and that Ld. C[arlisle] was not present; I however saw his name in the Morning Post, as one of the Knights Companions....'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Newspaper
Byron to the Earl of Clare, 20 August 1807: 'I hope this Letter will find you safe, I saw in a Morning paper, a long account of Robbery &c. &c. committed on the persons of sundry Majors, Colonels, & Esquires, passing from Lady Clare's to Limerick ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: NewspaperManuscript: Letter
Byron to Francis Hodgson, 3 October 1810: 'I have seen some old English papers up to the 15th. of May, I see the "Lady of the Lake" advertised[;] of course it is in his old ballad style, and pretty, after all Scott is the best of them.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Advertisement, Newspaper
Byron to John Murray, acknowledging receipt of parcel of books and letters from Christian well-wishers, 14 September 1812, including Granville Penn, "The Bioscope, or Dial of Life Explained": ;The "Bioscope" contained an M.S.S. copy of very excellent verses, from whom I know not, but evidently the composition of some one in the habit of writing & of writing well, I do not know if he be ye. author of the "Bioscope" which accompanied them, but whoevever he is if you can discover hiim, thank him from me most heartily.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown
Byron to John Murray, 12 June 1813: 'In yesterday's paper immediately under an advertisement on "Strictures in the Urethra" I see most appropriately consequent - a poem with "strictures on Ld. B. Mr. Southey and others" ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Advertisement, Newspaper
Byron to John Murray, 12 June 1813: 'In yesterday's paper immediately under an advertisement on "Strictures in the Urethra" I see most appropriately consequent - a poem with "strictures on Ld. B. Mr. Southey and others" ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Advertisement, Newspaper
Byron to John Murray, 13 June 1813: 'I have read the strictures which are just enough - & not grossly abusive - in very fair couplets ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to Augusta Leigh, 22 September 1816 ("Alpine Journal"): 'Passed a rock -- inscription -- 2 brothers -- one murdered the other ...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: inscription
Byron to John Murray, 5 October 1816: 'I have read the last E[dinburgh] R[eview] they are very severe on the Germans -- and their idol Goethe -- I have also read Wedderburne Webster -- and Ilderim -- and the Pamphleteer. -- --'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Serial / periodicalManuscript: Unknown
Byron's Ravenna Journal (4 January-27 February 1821), 11 January 1821, on visit to plain of Troy in 1810: ' ... I read "Homer Travestied" (the first twelve books), because [John Cam] Hobhouse and others bored me with their learned localities, and I love quizzing.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to Thomas Moore, 5 July 1821: 'I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in England ... It is signed simply N. N. A. ... She simply says that she is dying, and that as I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, she thought that she might say so ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Letter
'[Edgar Wallace recalled] the teacher read aloud "The Arabian Nights". "The colour and beauty of the East stole through the foggy windows of Reddin's Road School. Here was a magic carpet indeed that transported forty none too cleanly little boys into the palace of the Caliphs, through the spicy bazaars of Bagdad, hand in hand with the king of kings".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Wallace 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
'[according to Stan Dickens]"There was one book that we all thought was sensational" - Aristotle's Masterpiece. "At last we understood what was meant when, during Scripture lessons, reference was made to 'the mother's womb'".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Stan Dickens Print: Book
'The girls at the hat and cap factory where [Mary Bertenshaw] worked would huddle round at dinner to read Aristotle's Masterpiece over general giggles: "It contained explicit pictures of the developent of a foetus; in turn we read out passages. This went on until our boss Abe interrupted us. We felt so ashamed and from then on kept even further away from the VD clinic and became very dubious about the male sex'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Bertenshaw Print: Book
The Lord Mayor's Show. 'The boys always went ... They always brought home for me a little book, that opened out to nearly a yard of coloured pictures, displaying all the features of the Show. This was called 'A Penny Panorama of the Lord Mayor's Show', and the name pleased me so much that for days afterwards I would go about the house pretending to be a hawker, crying: "Buy my Pamorama, my penny Panorama, My penny Panorama of the Lord Mayor's Show."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: M.V, Hughes Print: Book
'One enthusiastic reader of "Land and Water" was the poet James Elroy Flecker, who, in the process of dying in a Swiss sanatorium, requested his parents to take out a subscription to the paper for him.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: James Elroy Flecker Print: Serial / periodical
At meeting of new representative assembly for colony of Virginia in 1619, 'The man appointed speaker, John Pory, a veteran of the House of Commons, began the meeting by reading aloud "the great charter or commission of privileges" that sanctioned the convening of the assembly.'
Unknown
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: John Pory
' ... E. Terry, at Newnham College, Cambridge in 1902, recalls being coached in Middle High German Lyrics by a Dr. Breul: they came to "a love-song that I thought particularly charming ... but Dr. Breul turned the page ... and said, 'Er ist nicht erbaulich' (not edifying)' ..."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: E. Terry Print: Book
' ... E. Terry, at Newnham College, Cambridge in 1902, recalls being coached in Middle High German Lyrics by a Dr. Breul: they came to "a love-song that I thought particualrly charming ... but Dr. Breul turned the page ... and said, 'Er ist nicht erbaulich' (not edifying)" ..."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Breul Print: Book
'... Vera Brittain, attending her aunt's school in Surrey shortly before the First World War, glossed her [the aunt's] practice of allowing them to read extracts [ie cuttings] from newspapers [The Times and the Observer] ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Female pupils at Surrey school Print: Newspaper
'Zoe Proctor [sic] (b. 1867) describes how, during the 1870s, when her father was governor of
the County Gaol at Bury St Edmunds, she "could not gain sufficient solitude for reading my little
story books and was obliged to use the only secure retreat—the long, narrow W.C."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Zoe Procter Print: Book
'A South Wales miner, raised in an orphanage, acknowledged that "Robin Hood was our patron saint, or ideal. We sincerely believed in robbing the rich to help the poor". (Actually he stole from an old widow's tuck shop). "Our real heroes were robbers like Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin, and Charles Peace, whose 'Penny dreadful' biographies we knew by heart". Yet in later life, even as a Calvinistic Methodist minister, he did not condemn that genre: "It introduced me to a romantic world when pennies were scarce and libraries seemed far beyond my reach. We read the badly printed booklets in all sorts of places, even in church; they gave us glimpses of freedom, abandon, and romance, heroism and defiance of fate... As a corrective to natural law-breaking propensities, the 'penny dreadful' always ended with the punishment of crime".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book, Serial / periodical
'A South Wales miner, raised in an orphanage, acknowledged that "Robin Hood was our patron saint, or ideal. We sincerely believed in robbing the rich to help the poor". (Actually he stole from an old widow's tuck shop). "Our real heroes were robbers like Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin, and Charles Peace, whose 'Penny dreadful' biographies we knew by heart". Yet in later life, even as a Calvinistic Methodist minister, he did not condemn that genre: "It introduced me to a romantic world when pennies were scarce and libraries seemed far beyond my reach. We read the badly printed booklets in all sorts of places, even in church; they gave us glimpses of freedom, abandon, and romance, heroism and defiance of fate... As a corrective to natural law-breaking propensities, the 'penny dreadful' always ended with the punishment of crime".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book, Serial / periodical
'A South Wales miner, raised in an orphanage, acknowledged that "Robin Hood was our patron saint, or ideal. We sincerely believed in robbing the rich to help the poor". (Actually he stole from an old widow's tuck shop). "Our real heroes were robbers like Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin, and Charles Peace, whose 'Penny dreadful' biographies we knew by heart". Yet in later life, even as a Calvinistic Methodist minister, he did not condemn that genre: "It introduced me to a romantic world when pennies were scarce and libraries seemed far beyond my reach. We read the badly printed booklets in all sorts of places, even in church; they gave us glimpses of freedom, abandon, and romance, heroism and defiance of fate... As a corrective to natural law-breaking propensities, the 'penny dreadful' always ended with the punishment of crime".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book, Serial / periodical
'A South Wales miner, raised in an orphanage, acknowledged that "Robin Hood was our patron saint, or ideal. We sincerely believed in robbing the rich to help the poor". (Actually he stole from an old widow's tuck shop). "Our real heroes were robbers like Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin, and Charles Peace, whose 'Penny dreadful' biographies we knew by heart". Yet in later life, even as a Calvinistic Methodist minister, he did not condemn that genre: "It introduced me to a romantic world when pennies were scarce and libraries seemed far beyond my reach. We read the badly printed booklets in all sorts of places, even in church; they gave us glimpses of freedom, abandon, and romance, heroism and defiance of fate... As a corrective to natural law-breaking propensities, the 'penny dreadful' always ended with the punishment of crime".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book, Serial / periodical
'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, Serial / periodical
'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, Serial / periodical
'[Edwin] Whitlock... borrowed books from a schoolmaster and from neighbours: "Most of them would now be considered very heavy literature for a boy of fourteen or fifteen, but I didn't know that, for I had no light literature for comparison. I read most of the novels of Dickens, Scott, Lytton and Mrs Henry Wood, 'The Pilgrim's Progress' and 'The Holy War' - an illustrated guide to Biblical Palestine, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', several bound volumes of religious magazines, 'The Adventures of a Penny', and sundry similar classics". With few books competing for his attention, he could freely concentrate on his favorite reading, "A set of twelve thick volumes of Cassell's 'History of England'".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Whitlock Print: Book
'[Edwin] Whitlock... borrowed books from a schoolmaster and from neighbours: "Most of them would now be considered very heavy literature for a boy of fourteen or fifteen, but I didn't know that, for I had no light literature for comparison. I read most of the novels of Dickens, Scott, Lytton and Mrs Henry Wood, 'The Pilgrim's Progress' and 'The Holy War' - an illustrated guide to Biblical Palestine, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', several bound volumes of religious magazines, 'The Adventures of a Penny', and sundry similar classics". With few books competing for his attention, he could freely concentrate on his favorite reading, "A set of twelve thick volumes of Cassell's 'History of England'".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Whitlock Print: Book
'[Edwin] Whitlock... borrowed books from a schoolmaster and from neighbours: "Most of them would now be considered very heavy literature for a boy of fourteen or fifteen, but I didn't know that, for I had no light literature for comparison. I read most of the novels of Dickens, Scott, Lytton and Mrs Henry Wood, 'The Pilgrim's Progress' and 'The Holy War' - an illustrated guide to Biblical Palestine, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', several bound volumes of religious magazines, The Adventures of a Penny, and sundry similar classics". With few books competing for his attention, he could freely concentrate on his favorite reading, "A set of twelve thick volumes of Cassell's 'History of England'".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Whitlock Print: Book
'Growing up in Clapton during the Depression, Michael Stapleton needed a signature from his father (an Irish navvy) for a public library card, "but I asked him on the wrong evening and he merely shouted at me... So I... started examining every book in the house, ransacking forgotten cupboards and the hole under the stairs. I read everything I could understand, and begged twopenny bloods quite shamelessly from the boys at school who were fortunate enough to enjoy such things. I absorbed an immense amount of useless information, but occasionally a treasure came my way and I would strain my eyes under the twenty-watt bulb which lighted our kitchen. A month-old copy of the 'Wizard' would be succeeded by a handbook for vegetarians, and this in turn would be followed by 'Jane Eyre'. 'Tarzan and the Jewels of Ophir' was no sooner finished than I was deep in volumes three and four of a history of 'The Conquest of Peru' (the rest of the set was missing). I would go from that to 'Rip van Winkle' and straight on to a tattered copy of the Hotspur".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Michael Stapleton Print: Book
'Growing up in Clapton during the Depression, Michael Stapleton needed a signature from his father (an Irish navvy) for a public library card, "but I asked him on the wrong evening and he merely shouted at me... So I... started examining every book in the house, ransacking forgotten cupboards and the hole under the stairs. I read everything I could understand, and begged twopenny bloods quite shamelessly from the boys at school who were fortunate enough to enjoy such things. I absorbed an immense amount of useless information, but occasionally a treasure came my way and I would strain my eyes under the twenty-watt bulb which lighted our kitchen. A month-old copy of the 'Wizard' would be succeeded by a handbook for vegetarians, and this in turn would be followed by 'Jane Eyre'. 'Tarzan and the Jewels of Ophir' was no sooner finished than I was deep in volumes three and four of a history of 'The Conquest of Peru' (the rest of the set was missing). I would go from that to 'Rip van Winkle' and straight on to a tattered copy of the Hotspur".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Michael Stapleton Print: Serial / periodical
'Growing up in Clapton during the Depression, Michael Stapleton needed a signature from his father (an Irish navvy) for a public library card, "but I asked him on the wrong evening and he merely shouted at me... So I... started examining every book in the house, ransacking forgotten cupboards and the hole under the stairs. I read everything I could understand, and begged twopenny bloods quite shamelessly from the boys at school who were fortunate enough to enjoy such things. I absorbed an immense amount of useless information, but occasionally a treasure came my way and I would strain my eyes under the twenty-watt bulb which lighted our kitchen. A month-old copy of the 'Wizard' would be succeeded by a handbook for vegetarians, and this in turn would be followed by 'Jane Eyre'. 'Tarzan and the Jewels of Ophir' was no sooner finished than I was deep in volumes three and four of a history of 'The Conquest of Peru' (the rest of the set was missing). I would go from that to 'Rip van Winkle' and straight on to a tattered copy of the Hotspur".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Michael Stapleton Print: Book
'I have lately read a report of the Corn Laws made in 1814 before the house of Commons, one witness says... It came out in evidence that most of the witnesses were land Valuers, appointed by the land Leviathans to value their estates...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Sharp
'Binda gave us a satirical character of the Duke of wellington said to be written by B.Constant "un heros froid et mediocre [...]" I am quite sick of Hobhouse's book his abuse of the Bourbons is not worth answering; if it were true its unaltered violence defeats its own malignity. The publication of the Bodleian and Ashmolean letters are very amusing in three volumes.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Newton Print: Book
'Derek Davies could not recall that his mother had ever read a book. His father, a die-caster in an automobile factory, read only local and sports papers and two novels a week - a Western or a detective thriller: "Yet quite unintentionally he gave me... a love of reading... He never seemed to vary the diet, he never discussed either the books he read or newspaper items, and he never urged me to read for myself... I... was soon reading everything he read. by the age of eleven or twelve I must have read a couple of hundred of his novels..." In addition to the newspapers and his father's novels, he consumed books for younger children and travel books for adults ("Tibet, I remember, was one passionate preoccupation"). He jumped from the "Wizard" and "Hotspur", which his parents considered "trash" to their twenty-two bound volumes of "The Illustrated News History of the 1914-18 War". "Undeterred by the fact that I had neither the space nor the money to embark on even the most modest layout, I consumed book after book on the building of model railways. Gradually, as I found out how to use the School Library and the Public Library, some degree of selection took place, but as nobody at school before the sixth form advised me what to read the selection remained distinctly erratic... At about fourteen... I read every word of T.E. Lawrence's 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom', although I had only the faintest glimmer of its real significance".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Derek Davies Print: Book
'To Richard's where I stayed all afternoon ... I met mr Graham of our college formerly, and he showed me some Verses about Lord Cateret that were made in Ireland, pretty good.'
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Byrom
'Gifford had read only some ballads, the black-letter romance Parismus and Parismenus, some odd loose magazines of his mother's, the Bible (which he studied with his grandmother) and "The Imitation of Christ" (read to his mother on her deathbed). He then learned algebra by surreptitiously reading Fenning's textbook: his master's son owned the book and had deliberately hidden it from him'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Gifford Print: Unknown
'Gifford had read only some ballads, the black-letter romance Parismus and Parismenus, some odd loose magazines of his mother's, the Bible (which he studied with his grandmother) and "The Imitation of Christ" (read to his mother on her deathbed). He then learned algebra by surreptitiously reading Fenning's textbook: his master's son owned the book and had deliberately hidden it from him'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Gifford Print: Book
'[Patrick McGill] read virtually nothing, not even the daily papers until, working on the rail line, he happened to pick up some poetry written on a page from an exercise book. Somehow it spoke to him and he began to read "ravenously". He brought "Sartor Resartus", "Sesame and Lilies" and Montaigne's essays to work. "Les Miserables" reduced him to tears, though he found "Das Kapital" less affecting. Each payday he set aside a few shillings to buy secondhand books, which after a month's use were almost illegible with rust, grease and dirt....[eventually he] went on to become a popular novelist.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Patrick McGill Manuscript: Sheet, sheet from an exercise 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 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Edgar Coppard Print: Serial / periodical
'Masefield's early experience of literature came with the stories told or read to him by his nurse. The fare was what would be expected in a middle class Victorian home; even "Dick Whittington and his Cat" was introduced. Tennyson's "The Dying Swan" was one of the boy's earliest delights; and, having been taught to read before his sixth birthday, he read and committed to memory copious amounts of Longfellow, especially Hiawatha and Evangeline'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Masefield Print: Book
'In the even read part of a simple thing called "The West Country Clothier" and, notwithstanding the meanness of the language, I think the character of the midwife and gossips is in some measure painted in their true colours; and the thoughtlessness and extravagance of many women are in some respects justly exposed by its often terminating in the husband's ruin...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Unknown
'In reading "The History of England" I find that England first took that name under Egbert the 1st monarch of England after the Saxon Heptarchy, anno 801.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'Found in "The History of England" that England was first divided into counties, parishes, etc. in King Alfred's reign, about the year 890...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'In the even read part of the 5th volume of "Medical Essays and Observations", published at Edinburgh by a society of physicians.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
[Marginalia]: ms note, in pencil, in French, on verso of half-title, may relate to text or may refer to works by authors eg ' ...Esprit...,... La Fontaine...,... Rochefoucaut...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anon Print: Book
'After I came home, I read part of "The London Magazine" for October, as also a poor empty piece of tautology called "A Series Advice to the Public to Avoid the Danger of Inoculation", in which he says a physician can only know and be the proper person to perform the operation, and that a surgeon can know nothing about it.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner
Henry James to William Dean Howells, 3 February 1876: "Why won't you tell me the name of the author of the very charming notice of Roderick Hudson in the last Atlantic, which I saw today at Galignani's?"
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Serial / periodical
'At the corner of Hanging Bridge, near Old Churchyard, was a bookshop kept by one Swindells, a printer. In the spacious windows of this shop? were exhibited numerous songs, ballads, tales, and other publications, with horrid and awful-looking woodcuts at the head; which publications, with their cuts, had a strong command of my attention. Every farthing I could scrape together was now spent in purchasing "Histories of Jack the Giant Killer", "Saint George and the Dragon", "Tom Hickathrift", "Jack and the Bean Stalk", "History of the Seven Champions", tale of "Fair Rosamond", "History of Friar Bacon", "Account of the Lancashire Witches", "The Witches of the Woodlands", and such like romances; whilst my ? collections embraced but few pieces besides "Robin Hood?s Songs", and "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". Of all these tales and ballads I was soon to master, and they formed the subjects of many a long study to me, and of many a wonder-creating story for my acquaintance both at the workhouse and elsewhere. For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were "trash" and "nonsense", and "could not be true", I innocently enough, contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I read in books that "it were a sin to disbelieve".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'At the corner of Hanging Bridge, near Old Churchyard, was a bookshop kept by one Swindells, a printer. In the spacious windows of this shop? were exhibited numerous songs, ballads, tales, and other publications, with horrid and awful-looking woodcuts at the head; which publications, with their cuts, had a strong command of my attention. Every farthing I could scrape together was now spent in purchasing "Histories of Jack the Giant Killer", "Saint George and the Dragon", "Tom Hickathrift", "Jack and the Bean Stalk", "History of the Seven Champions", tale of "Fair Rosamond", "History of Friar Bacon", "Account of the Lancashire Witches", "The Witches of the Woodlands", and such like romances; whilst my ? collections embraced but few pieces besides "Robin Hood?s Songs", and "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". Of all these tales and ballads I was soon to master, and they formed the subjects of many a long study to me, and of many a wonder-creating story for my acquaintance both at the workhouse and elsewhere. For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were "trash" and "nonsense", and "could not be true", I innocently enough, contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I read in books that "it were a sin to disbelieve".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'At the corner of Hanging Bridge, near Old Churchyard, was a bookshop kept by one Swindells, a printer. In the spacious windows of this shop? were exhibited numerous songs, ballads, tales, and other publications, with horrid and awful-looking woodcuts at the head; which publications, with their cuts, had a strong command of my attention. Every farthing I could scrape together was now spent in purchasing "Histories of Jack the Giant Killer", "Saint George and the Dragon", "Tom Hickathrift", "Jack and the Bean Stalk", "History of the Seven Champions", tale of "Fair Rosamond", "History of Friar Bacon", "Account of the Lancashire Witches", "The Witches of the Woodlands", and such like romances; whilst my ? collections embraced but few pieces besides "Robin Hood?s Songs", and "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". Of all these tales and ballads I was soon to master, and they formed the subjects of many a long study to me, and of many a wonder-creating story for my acquaintance both at the workhouse and elsewhere. For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were "trash" and "nonsense", and "could not be true", I innocently enough, contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I read in books that "it were a sin to disbelieve".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'At the corner of Hanging Bridge, near Old Churchyard, was a bookshop kept by one Swindells, a printer. In the spacious windows of this shop? were exhibited numerous songs, ballads, tales, and other publications, with horrid and awful-looking woodcuts at the head; which publications, with their cuts, had a strong command of my attention. Every farthing I could scrape together was now spent in purchasing "Histories of Jack the Giant Killer", "Saint George and the Dragon", "Tom Hickathrift", "Jack and the Bean Stalk", "History of the Seven Champions", tale of "Fair Rosamond", "History of Friar Bacon", "Account of the Lancashire Witches", "The Witches of the Woodlands", and such like romances; whilst my ? collections embraced but few pieces besides "Robin Hood?s Songs", and "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". Of all these tales and ballads I was soon to master, and they formed the subjects of many a long study to me, and of many a wonder-creating story for my acquaintance both at the workhouse and elsewhere. For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were "trash" and "nonsense", and "could not be true", I innocently enough, contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I read in books that "it were a sin to disbelieve".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'At the corner of Hanging Bridge, near Old Churchyard, was a bookshop kept by one Swindells, a printer. In the spacious windows of this shop? were exhibited numerous songs, ballads, tales, and other publications, with horrid and awful-looking woodcuts at the head; which publications, with their cuts, had a strong command of my attention. Every farthing I could scrape together was now spent in purchasing "Histories of Jack the Giant Killer", "Saint George and the Dragon", "Tom Hickathrift", "Jack and the Bean Stalk", "History of the Seven Champions", tale of "Fair Rosamond", "History of Friar Bacon", "Account of the Lancashire Witches", "The Witches of the Woodlands", and such like romances; whilst my ? collections embraced but few pieces besides "Robin Hood?s Songs", and "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". Of all these tales and ballads I was soon to master, and they formed the subjects of many a long study to me, and of many a wonder-creating story for my acquaintance both at the workhouse and elsewhere. For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were "trash" and "nonsense", and "could not be true", I innocently enough, contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I read in books that "it were a sin to disbelieve".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'At the corner of Hanging Bridge, near Old Churchyard, was a bookshop kept by one Swindells, a printer. In the spacious windows of this shop? were exhibited numerous songs, ballads, tales, and other publications, with horrid and awful-looking woodcuts at the head; which publications, with their cuts, had a strong command of my attention. Every farthing I could scrape together was now spent in purchasing "Histories of Jack the Giant Killer", "Saint George and the Dragon", "Tom Hickathrift", "Jack and the Bean Stalk", "History of the Seven Champions", tale of "Fair Rosamond", "History of Friar Bacon", "Account of the Lancashire Witches", "The Witches of the Woodlands", and such like romances; whilst my ? collections embraced but few pieces besides "Robin Hood?s Songs", and "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". Of all these tales and ballads I was soon to master, and they formed the subjects of many a long study to me, and of many a wonder-creating story for my acquaintance both at the workhouse and elsewhere. For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were "trash" and "nonsense", and "could not be true", I innocently enough, contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I read in books that "it were a sin to disbelieve".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'At the corner of Hanging Bridge, near Old Churchyard, was a bookshop kept by one Swindells, a printer. In the spacious windows of this shop? were exhibited numerous songs, ballads, tales, and other publications, with horrid and awful-looking woodcuts at the head; which publications, with their cuts, had a strong command of my attention. Every farthing I could scrape together was now spent in purchasing "Histories of Jack the Giant Killer", "Saint George and the Dragon", ?Tom Hickathrift?, "Jack and the Bean Stalk", "History of the Seven Champions", tale of "Fair Rosamond", "History of Friar Bacon", "Account of the Lancashire Witches", "The Witches of the Woodlands", and such like romances; whilst my ? collections embraced but few pieces besides "Robin Hood?s Songs", and "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". Of all these tales and ballads I was soon to master, and they formed the subjects of many a long study to me, and of many a wonder-creating story for my acquaintance both at the workhouse and elsewhere. For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were "trash" and "nonsense", and "could not be true", I innocently enough, contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I read in books that "it were a sin to disbelieve".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'At the corner of Hanging Bridge, near Old Churchyard, was a bookshop kept by one Swindells, a printer. In the spacious windows of this shop? were exhibited numerous songs, ballads, tales, and other publications, with horrid and awful-looking woodcuts at the head; which publications, with their cuts, had a strong command of my attention. Every farthing I could scrape together was now spent in purchasing "Histories of Jack the Giant Killer", "Saint George and the Dragon", "Tom Hickathrift", "Jack and the Bean Stalk", "History of the Seven Champions", tale of "Fair Rosamond", "History of Friar Bacon", "Account of the Lancashire Witches", "The Witches of the Woodlands", and such like romances; whilst my ? collections embraced but few pieces besides "Robin Hood?s Songs", and "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". Of all these tales and ballads I was soon to master, and they formed the subjects of many a long study to me, and of many a wonder-creating story for my acquaintance both at the workhouse and elsewhere. For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were "trash" and "nonsense", and "could not be true", I innocently enough, contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I read in books that "it were a sin to disbelieve".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'At the corner of Hanging Bridge, near Old Churchyard, was a bookshop kept by one Swindells, a printer. In the spacious windows of this shop? were exhibited numerous songs, ballads, tales, and other publications, with horrid and awful-looking woodcuts at the head; which publications, with their cuts, had a strong command of my attention. Every farthing I could scrape together was now spent in purchasing "Histories of Jack the Giant Killer", "Saint George and the Dragon", "Tom Hickathrift", "Jack and the Bean Stalk", "History of the Seven Champions", tale of "Fair Rosamond", "History of Friar Bacon", "Account of the Lancashire Witches", "The Witches of the Woodlands", and such like romances; whilst my ? collections embraced but few pieces besides "Robin Hood?s Songs", and "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". Of all these tales and ballads I was soon to master, and they formed the subjects of many a long study to me, and of many a wonder-creating story for my acquaintance both at the workhouse and elsewhere. For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were "trash" and "nonsense", and "could not be true", I innocently enough, contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I read in books that "it were a sin to disbelieve".
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'At the corner of Hanging Bridge, near Old Churchyard, was a bookshop kept by one Swindells, a printer. In the spacious windows of this shop? were exhibited numerous songs, ballads, tales, and other publications, with horrid and awful-looking woodcuts at the head; which publications, with their cuts, had a strong command of my attention. Every farthing I could scrape together was now spent in purchasing "Histories of Jack the Giant Killer", "Saint George and the Dragon", "Tom Hickathrift", "Jack and the Bean Stalk", "History of the Seven Champions", tale of "Fair Rosamond", "History of Friar Bacon", "Account of the Lancashire Witches", "The Witches of the Woodlands", and such like romances; whilst my ? collections embraced but few pieces besides "Robin Hood?s Songs", and "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". Of all these tales and ballads I was soon to master, and they formed the subjects of many a long study to me, and of many a wonder-creating story for my acquaintance both at the workhouse and elsewhere. For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were "trash" and "nonsense", and "could not be true", I innocently enough, contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I read in books that "it were a sin to disbelieve".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book, Broadsheet
'At the corner of Hanging Bridge, near Old Churchyard, was a bookshop kept by one Swindells, a printer. In the spacious windows of this shop? were exhibited numerous songs, ballads, tales, and other publications, with horrid and awful-looking woodcuts at the head; which publications, with their cuts, had a strong command of my attention. Every farthing I could scrape together was now spent in purchasing "Histories of Jack the Giant Killer", "Saint George and the Dragon", "Tom Hickathrift", "Jack and the Bean Stalk", "History of the Seven Champions", tale of "Fair Rosamond", "History of Friar Bacon", "Account of the Lancashire Witches", "The Witches of the Woodlands", and such like romances; whilst my ? collections embraced but few pieces besides "Robin Hood?s Songs", and "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". Of all these tales and ballads I was soon to master, and they formed the subjects of many a long study to me, and of many a wonder-creating story for my acquaintance both at the workhouse and elsewhere. For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were "trash" and "nonsense", and "could not be true", I innocently enough, contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I read in books that "it were a sin to disbelieve".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book, Broadsheet
'? with the exception of Bible lessons at Sunday school, all my reading was done at home, after the daily task was finished. When not strongly tempted to play I was almost certain to be reading by the summer?s twilight, or by the red embers of the winter's fire, my books being chiefly "Wesley?s Journals", "The Armenian Magazine", wherein I found "Maundrell?s Travels from Aleppo to Jerusalem", which I was very much interested by; "An account of the Inquisition in Spain", which filled me with a dislike of Popery; "The Drummer of Tedworth"; "Some account of the Disturbances at Glenluce"; "An account of the Apparition of the Laird of Cool", - and other most marvellous narratives which excited my attention, and held me pausing over the ashes until the light was either gone or I was sent to bed. I also got hold of an old superstitious doctoring book, which gave me some unexpected information relative to the human frame, and equally surprised me as to the occult powers of certain herbs and simples, when prepared under supposed planetary aspects. A copy of Cocker?s "Arithmetic" soon after set me to writing figures and casting accounts, in which I made but slow progress; and part of a small volume of "The History of England", which I found in rumaging an old meal ark, gave me the first insight into the chronicles of my native country.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'? with the exception of Bible lessons at Sunday school, all my reading was done at home, after the daily task was finished. When not strongly tempted to play I was almost certain to be reading by the summer?s twilight, or by the red embers of the winter fire, my books being chiefly "Wesley?s Journals", "The Armenian Magazine", wherein I found "Maundrell?s Travels from Aleppo to Jerusalem", which I was very much interested by; "An account of the Inquisition in Spain", which filled me with a dislike of Popery; "The Drummer of Tedworth"; "Some account of the Disturbances at Glenluce"; "An account of the Apparition of the Laird of Cool", - and other most marvellous narratives which excited my attention, and held me pausing over the ashes until the light was either gone or I was sent to bed. I also got hold of an old superstitious doctoring book, which gave me some unexpected information relative to the human frame, and equally surprised me as to the occult powers of certain herbs and simples, when prepared under supposed planetary aspects. A copy of Cocker?s "Arithmetic" soon after set me to writing figures and casting accounts, in which I made but slow progress; and part of a small volume of "The History of England", which I found in rumaging an old meal ark, gave me the first insight into the chronicles of my native country.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Unknown
'? with the exception of Bible lessons at Sunday school, all my reading was done at home, after the daily task was finished. When not strongly tempted to play I was almost certain to be reading by the summer?s twilight, or by the red embers of the winter's five, my books being chiefly "Wesley?s Journals", "The Armenian Magazine", wherein I found "Maundrell?s Travels from Aleppo to Jerusalem", which I was very much interested by; "An account of the Inquisition in Spain", which filled me with a dislike of Popery; "The Drummer of Tedworth"; "Some account of the Disturbances at Glenluce"; "An account of the Apparition of the Laird of Cool", - and other most marvellous narratives which excited my attention, and held me pausing over the ashes until the light was either gone or I was sent to bed. I also got hold of an old superstitious doctoring book, which gave me some unexpected information relative to the human frame, and equally surprised me as to the occult powers of certain herbs and simples, when prepared under supposed planetary aspects. A copy of Cocker?s "Arithmetic" soon after set me to writing figures and casting accounts, in which I made but slow progress; and part of a small volume of "The History of England", which I found in rumaging an old meal ark, gave me the first insight into the chronicles of my native country.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Unknown
'? with the exception of Bible lessons at Sunday school, all my reading was done at home, after the daily task was finished. When not strongly tempted to play I was almost certain to be reading by the summer?s twilight, or by the red embers of the winter's fire, my books being chiefly "Wesley?s Journals", "The Armenian Magazine", wherein I found "Maundrell?s Travels from Aleppo to Jerusalem", which I was very much interested by; "An account of the Inquisition in Spain", which filled me with a dislike of Popery; "The Drummer of Tedworth"; "Some account of the Disturbances at Glenluce"; "An account of the Apparition of the Laird of Cool", - and other most marvellous narratives which excited my attention, and held me pausing over the ashes until the light was either gone or I was sent to bed. I also got hold of an old superstitious doctoring book, which gave me some unexpected information relative to the human frame, and equally surprised me as to the occult powers of certain herbs and simples, when prepared under supposed planetary aspects. A copy of Cocker?s "Arithmetic" soon after set me to writing figures and casting accounts, in which I made but slow progress; and part of a small volume of "The History of England", which I found rumaging an old meal ark, gave me the first insight into the chronicles of my native country.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Unknown
?Excepting "Pilgrim?s Progress", "Gulliver?s Travels" and the "Arabian Nights", I saw and read none of the books which entrance young minds. The religious meaning of the first, the satirical meaning of the second, and the doubtful meaning of the third were, of course, not understood. The story was the great thing ? the travels of Christian, the troubles of Gulliver, the adventures of Aladdin??
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Edwin Adams Print: Book
'I cannot remember learning the Alphabet but when I was four years of age or there about my Godmother presented me with a new book it was the reading made easy it had/many pictures in it which I remember I was much delighted with
'this takeing [sic] my atention [sic] there was nothing Suited so well as my book and I was sone [sic] able to read it without Spelling.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Mayett Print: Book
[Marginalia]: a page of ms notes on the first binding page gives nautical instructions 'The course by the Compass From Buchaness to Fair Isle is NNE or .... Dist. 32 leagues. From Fair Isle to Si[?]mbrough Head .is NE ... This is from Alexr Buchan Mr of the Shotland[?] Paket ... '
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Ferguson Print: Book
[Marginalia]: Some blanks, left by printer, have been completed in either ink or pencil. The data entered covers numbers of crew, dates and costings. There are also copious marginal notes, connected to deleted lines of text: eg. p.25 has lines 2-9 deleted and in the margin 'It is proposed to obtain by contribution the sum of ?32000 the sum required for building & equipping the vessel; and x[ie continue with the text]'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anon Print: Book
'music, "Arabian Nights", and Darwin.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes Print: Book
'I got my [first] peep into "Robinson Crusoe" and the "Arabian Nights" at the home of an old uncle of mine. But even though these two wonderful books have been read and enjoyed by millions, I am afraid I could never thoroughly master the contents of either of them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Tinsley Print: Book
'Before I forget again?have you looked into the "History of a Flirt"? [The History of a Flirt, related by Herself ? by the author of "The Manoeuvring Mother"] The name may alarm you ? but the writer "leans to Miss Austen?s side," ? as I remember dear Dr. Mitford and yourself do - & there is some power and much truth to nature.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Fanny Kemble, 21 September 1832: 'The few critiques that I have seen upon our acting have been, upon the whole, laudatory. One was sent to me from a paper called the Mirror, which pleased me very much [...] it was written with great taste and feeling, and was evidently not the produce of a common press hack'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Kemble Print: Newspaper, Serial / periodical
Fanny Kemble, 21 September 1832: 'The few critiques that I have seen upon our acting have been, upon the whole, laudatory. One was sent to me from a paper called the Mirror, which pleased me very much [...] it was written with great taste and feeling, and was evidently not the produce of a common press hack'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Kemble Print: Newspaper
Fanny Kemble, 20 April 1846: 'My friend has given me a charming little Sicilian song, of which the following is a free translation. The pathetic and graceful idea is, however, a thousand times more appropriately clothed in the soft dialect from which I have transferred it [transcribes eight-line verse]'.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Kemble
'? with the exception of Bible lessons at Sunday school, all my reading was done at home, after the daily task was finished. When not strongly tempted to play I was almost certain to be reading by the summer?s twilight, or by the red embers of the winter's fire, my books being chiefly "Wesley?s Journals", "The Armenian Magazine", wherein I found "Maundrell?s Travels from Aleppo to Jerusalem", which I was very much interested by; "An account of the Inquisition in Spain", which filled me with a dislike of Popery"; "The Drummer of Tedworth"; "Some account of the Disturbances at Glenluce"; "An account of the Apparition of the Laird of Cool", - and other most marvellous narratives which excited my attention, and held me pausing over the ashes until the light was either gone or I was sent to bed. I also got hold of an old superstitious doctoring book, which gave me some unexpected information relative to the human frame, and equally surprised me as to the occult powers of certain herbs and simples, when prepared under supposed planetary aspects. A copy of Cocker?s "Arithmetic" soon after set me to writing figures and casting accounts, in which I made but slow progress; and part of a small volume of "The History of England", which I found in rumaging an old meal ark, gave me the first insight into the chronicles of my native country.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
'I on Tuesday the 8th went in the afternoon to Fareham by the telegraph, where I spent the evening & slept at the Red Lion, taking with me for my amusement there & in the coach the little novel of "Maria or The Vicarage", w'ch I had seen well spoken of in a review.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
'On Wed'y the 24th I finish'd reading the new & popular novel of the "Irish Excursion", w'ch Mr Hayley had recommended to us...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh 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
'Looked into the "Marmi" of Doni... read Saccheti and Boccaccio's capital story of Fra Cipolla - one of his few good stories - and the Little Hunchback in the Arabian Nights, which is still better. Read Nardi in the evening'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'My master said to me one day, he was surprized that I did not learn to write my own letters, and added, that he was sure that I could learn to do it in a very short time. ... Without any delay I set about it, by taking up pieces of paper that had any writing on them, and initiating the letters as well as I could. I employed my leisure hours in this way for near two months, after which time I wrote my own letters, in a bad hand, you may be sure; but it was plain and easy to read, which was all I cared for.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington Manuscript: Unknown
'As to the little knowledge of literature I possess, I acquired that by dint of application. In the beginning I attached myself very closely to the study of divinity and moral philosophy; so that I became tolerably acquainted with all the points controverted between the Divines.?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington Print: Book
[reminiscing about the Ugly Duckling, first story he remembers reading when he was 6 or so] 'When the ugly duckling at last flew away on his strong pinions, and when he met the swans and was accepted as an equal, then I felt sorrowful, agreeably sorrowful. It seemed to me nothing could undo, atone for, the grief and humiliations of the false duckling's early youth.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'Much of it [ie. 'the daily instruction I received'] consisted in the books I read by myself, and my father's discourses to me, chiefly during our walks. From 1810 to the end of 1813 we were living in Newington Green, then an almost rustic neighbourhood. My father's health required considerable and constant exercise, and he walked habitually before breakfast, generally in the green lanes towards Hornsey. In these walks I always accompanied him, and with my earliest recollections of green fields and wild flowers, is mingled that of the account I gave him daily of what I had read the day before. To the best of my remembrance, this was a voluntary rather than a prescribed exercise. I made notes on slips of paper while reading, and from these, in the morning walks, I told the story to him; for the books were chiefly histories, of which I read in this manner a great number: Robertson?s histories, Hume, Gibbon; but my greatest delight, then and for long afterwards, was Watson's Philip the Second and Third. The heroic defence of the Knights of Malta against the Turks, and of the revolted provinces of the Netherlands against Spain, excited in me an intense and lasting interest. Next to Watson, my favourite historical reading was Hooke's History of Rome. Of Greece I had seen at that time no regular history, except school abridgments and the last two or three volumes of a translation of Rollin's Ancient History, beginning with Philip of Macedon. But I read with great delight Langhorne's translation of Plutarch. In English history, beyond the time at which Hume leaves off, I remember reading Burnett's History of his Own Time, though I cared little for anything in it except the wars and battles; and the historical part of the Annual Register, from the beginning to about 1788, where the volumes my father borrowed for me from Mr Bentham left off. In these frequent talks about the books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give me explanations and ideas respecting civilization, government, morality, mental cultivation, which he required me afterwards to restate to him in my own words.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Stuart Mill Print: Book, Serial / periodical
'... I took up a London paper, and the first object in it which struck my eye, was the death of Charles Lamb. I felt it as a friend of the deceased for, although I had never seen Mr Lamb, yet from our correspondence , I know the kindness of his heart the same as if I had been personally acquainted with him; and this paragraph drew forth peculiar reminiscences; and upon it I ruminated during the remainder of this day, and of many succeeding ones.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Print: Newspaper
'Read "Hebrew Migration" - an anonymous book, very well done - arguing that Mount Sinai is in Idumaea and is identical with Mount Hor'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Finished Prose Edda, etc.
Akkadians.
Malthus.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
Mary Berry, Journal, 16 March 1811: 'I had heard from Lord Stafford, at Lady Spencer's the night before, that the "Scotch Review," with the criticism upon "Madame du Deffand's Letters [edited by Berry]," was out; and this morning before I got my own, Lady Donegall sent me a copy she had got early. I ought to be much content, and I am [...] Blame, or notice of faults, there is none'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Berry Print: Serial / periodical
Horace Walpole to Mary Berry, 29 July 1790: 'I have most seriously been house-hunting for you. I saw two bills on doors in Montpellier-row, but neither are furnished.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Horace Walpole Print: Advertisement, Poster
'By the age of ten he had gone through E.W. Lane's three-volume translation of "The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night", Scott's Waverley novels, Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass", the adventure stories of Captain Marryat, everything of Harrison Ainsworth, and other, now forgotten, works'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Somerset Maugham Print: Book
Horace Walpole to Mary Berry, 21 April 1794: 'I have found on my table a rhapsody in verse on my recovery, so extravagant that, coupled with the post-mark [italics]Isleworth[end italics], it can come from no mortal but our neighbour whose Cupid from the top of his gazebo was drowned [goes on to provide synopsis and to transcribe various lines].'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Horace Walpole Manuscript: Unknown
'Absorbed as always in books, Willie read seriously in both French and German literature. His favourites in French were the "Maximes" of La Rochefoucauld, "La Princesse de Cleves" (which inspired his play "Caesar's Wife"), the tragedies of Racine, the novels of Voltaire, Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le Noir" and "La Chartreuse de Parme", Balzac's "Pere Goriot", Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", the works of Anatole France, the exotic tales of Pierre Loti and the well-crafted stories of Maupassant'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham Print: Book
'Absorbed as always in books, Willie read seriously in both French and German literature. His favourites in French were the "Maximes" of La Rochefoucauld, "La Princesse de Cleves" (which inspired his play "Caesar's Wife"), the tragedies of Racine, the novels of Voltaire, Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le Noir" and "La Chartreuse de Parme", Balzac's "Pere Goriot", Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", the works of Anatole France, the exotic tales of Pierre Loti and the well-crafted stories of Maupassant'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham Print: Book
'Two days after being elected to his fellowship at Trinity Hall, Harvey [...] received from [Spenser] the copy of "Howleglas" now in the Bodleian, in which he wrote the following note, now partly obliterated:
'"This Howletglasse, with Skoggin, Skelton, and L[a]zarillo, giuen me at London, of Mr. Spensar xx Decembris [15]78 on condition [that I] shoold bestowe ye reading of them oue[r] before ye first of January [imme]diatly ensuing: otherwise to forfeit unto him my Lucian jn fower uolumes. Whereupon I was ye rather jnduced to trifle away so many howers, as were jdely ouerpassed in running thorowgh ye [foresai]d foolish bookes: wherein methoug[ht] not all fower togither seemed comparable for s[utt]le and crafty feates with Jon Miller, whose witty shiftes, & practises ar reported amongst Skeltons Tales.'
Century: 1500-1599 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Book
'One of [Gabriel] Harvey's leisure time interests in London at this time [1580s] is suggested by an interesting broadsheet with his signature dated "1588", some manuscript underlinings of various items, and brief comments. The broadsheet lists the pharmaceuticals and chemicals which can be obtained at the shop of John Hester, "practitioner in the art of Distillation"'.
Century: 1500-1599 Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey Print: Advertisement, Broadsheet
'For the benefit of my children read "Wonders of the human body" [underlined] describing and explaining by diagram the eye [underlined]. Looked over Pulley's "Etymological compendium".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Print: Book
'Read in Sir Phillip's "Personal Tour" - curios of natural history... Read a portion of Blair on death.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Print: Book
'Aftn. Suitable readings & social prayers. Read a sermon by the Revd E. Butcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Cole Print: Book
'One day my [Harriet Martineau's] mother was distressed at finding in the "Times" a ribald song addressed to me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Martineau Print: Newspaper
[Item transcribed into commonplace book]: Title = 'The season of death' Text = 'Leaves have their time to fall/ And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath/And stars to set - but all/ Thou hast all seasons for thine own, oh Death ...' (total - 5 x 4 line verses)
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: Title = 'Epitaph on an idiot'; Text = 'If innocence has its reward in heaven/ And God but little asks, where little's given/The wise Creator has for thee in store/ Great joys!-what wise man can ask more?'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Transcription from a commonplace book]: Title = 'Epitaph on a tomb in Melrose Abbey'; text [4 lines] = 'The yerthe walketh on ye earthe glyttering lyke golde/ The yerthe goeth to ye yerthe sooner than it wolde/ The yerthe buildeth upon the yerthe castelles & towers/ the yerthe sayeth to the yerthe, all things are ours'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Transcription from a commonplace book]: [Title]'Translation of an Arabic Ode'; [text]'When mortal hands thy peace destroy/ Or strive to ease thy woes/ Will thou to man impute the joy/ To man ascribe the cause ...'[total = 3 x 4 line verses]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Transcription from a commonplace book]: [Title]'The Ton'; [Text] 'I ask not L ...[?] wealth or power/ A Gascoigne's face, a Pulteney's dower/ I ask not wit nor even sense/ I scorn content and innocence/The gift I ask can these forestall/ It aids, improves, implies them all/Then good or bad, or right or wrong/ Grant me ye Gods! - to be the Ton! ...' [Total = 30 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Transcription from a commonplace book]: [Untitled]; [Text] 'Farewell, oh farewell; my heart it is sair/ Farewell oh farewell; I shall see him nae mair/ Lang lang was he mine, lang lang but nae mair/ I ?. ?. , but my heart it is sair ...'[total = 10 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Transcription from a commonplace book]: [Title] 'Ode to the closing year'; [Text] 'Oh why should I attempt to ring/The knell of Time in sorrowing tone / Or sadly tune my lyre to sing/ A requiem to the year that's gone? ...' [total = 24 lines of verse followed by 1.5 pp of related prose]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Serial / periodical
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Title] 'Lines addressed to a Lady who had suffered much and long affliction'; [Text] 'Reviewing June's perennial flight/ We mark some lovely hours/ Like stars amidst a stormy night/ Or winter blooming flowers ...; 1st In happier hours my pleasure all day/ Was to rove with the thoughtless and dance with the gay/ Through life as I sported no clouds could I see/ And the hearts that were gayest were dearest to me/ But now in affliction how chang'd is the view/ Tho' gay hearts are many sincere ones are few. 2nd Tho' some come around us to laugh and to jest/ In sickness or sorrow they shrink from the test/ ... 3rd But thou in my sorrow still faithfully came/ And tho' I am alter'd, I find you the same...' [total = 2 x 4 line verses followed by 3 x 6 lines verses labelled '1st', '2nd', '3rd']
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Title] 'On Friendship'; [Text] 'There are different modes of obligation and/ different avenues to our gratitude and favour - A man/may lend his countenance who will not part/ with his money...' [total = 43 lines of prose followed by three related quotes, one French, two are anonymous, the third is by "THe judicious Hooker" ie Richard Hooker?]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: Title 'Lines on Home'; [Text] 'That is not home, where day by day/ I wear the busy hours away/That is not home where lonely night/ Prepares me for the toils of light/ ...' [total = 36 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Untitled] ; [Text] 'Que fais tu la seul et reveur?/ Je m'entretiens avec moi meme;/ Ah prends garde un peril extreme/ De causes avec un flatteur'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Title] 'Genius ? From "The Dead and the Living"'; [Text] 'Oh genius thou bright emanation of the/ Divinity, thou brilliant struggler from another/ world! - daily daily doth thou present to us a striking/ exemplification that man was created in the image / of His Maker ?'; [total = 37 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Title] 'Resignation'; [Text] 'Be hushed each sigh whose murmering moan/ Of endless woe complains/ Be mine in patient hope alone/To hear what Heaven ordains...'; [total = 12 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Title] 'Journal of an Annuyee' ; [Text] 'Is it sorrow which makes our experience = it is/ sorrow which teaches us to feel properly for ourselves/ and others - We must feel deeply before we can/ think rightly. It is not in the storms and tempests/ of passion, we can reflect - but afterwards ...'; [total = 10 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Untitled];[Text] 'Souls of the just! whose truth and love,/ Like light and warmth once liv'd below/ Where have ye ta'en your flight above/ Leaving life's vale in wintry woe/ ...'; [total = 2 x 8 line verses]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Untitled]; [Text]' "La Belle France" has no more pretensions to beauty/ than the majority of her daughters. Like many of/ them she has not a single good feature in her face,/but unlike them she does not even do her best ??' [total = 18 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Untitled]; [Text]' Count oe'r the days whose happy flight/ Is shared with those we love/ Like stars amid a stormy night/ Alas! how few they prove ?' [total = 2 x 8 line verses]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Title] 'A Highland Salute to the Queen/ Air Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! Ieroe!'; [Text] 'Long life to our Queen who in beauty advances/ To the refuge of freedom, the home of the fair/ Each true Highland bosom with loyalty dances/ From Drummond to Taymouth - from ? to Blair/ ...' [total = 5 x 10 line verses]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]; [Title] "The Star of Missions"; [Text] "Behold the Mission Star's soul gladdening ray/ Which o'er the nations sheds a beam of day;/ While glad salvation speeds her life fraught ?/ Borne by the Gospel's herald wheels afar;/ ... " [Total = 7 x 6 line verses]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]; [Untitled]; [Text] "Qu'est ce qui fait le bonheur ou le malheur/ de notre vie? C'est notre caractere, c'est la/ maniere ? nous voyons les choses, /? " [Total = 17 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Title] 'The dead friend'; [Text] 'Not to the grave, not to the grave, my soul/ Descend to contemplate/ The form that once was dear!/ ?not on thoughts so loathly horrible/ ...'; [Total = 40 lines]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: [Untitled]; [Text] 'Weep not, tho' lonely and wild be thy path/ And the storm may be gathering round/ There is one ! who can shield from the hurricane's wrath/ and that one! may for ever be found;/ ... (Anonymous)'; [Total = 3 x 8 line verses]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
'I was reading an article by a Labour M.P. who wants to harbour refugees. He's all wrong. Good job we haven't got dictators here.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Unknown
'Looks at cartoon first. "Oh, quite right, you know. It is these people who - I love those two. Yes". Turns to Priestley quotation, "He's come out lately, this Priestley, hasn't he? He's a bit of a radical on the lay, isn't he?" Starts to read printed matter, but gets no farther than than first paragraph. "I expect they've got to intern them, to be on the safe side. But I think they should have some sort of a tribunal, don't you."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon
'Reads the front page, turns to the back, looks at the cartoon intently as if trying to understand it; then opens it and says, "What's all this?" "Have I got to read it all?" He is told it is just as he likes, so he reads about two paragraphs and then gives it up. "I quite agree with it, it's wrong to lock all these people up like that. They're useful to us I suppose."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon
'Reads part. "This is very interesting". Reads carefully. "Of course it was ridiculous jamming all foreigners into concentration camps. I call that a good leaflet -very interesting."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon
'I took "Varieties & c" to the Library. I brought the 2nd Volume of the "Minstrel or Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons in ye 15 Century". ... I think it one of the Prettyest [sic] novels I have ever read. The first volume being lost at our Library. I got it at Lindley's Library in Church Lane. There is a vey long list of books lost. I bought 26 songs for 0 1/2.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'I rose at 5 O'clock, and going to a small plantation that overlooked the Jed I learned all I ever knew of English Grammar. At that time grammar was not taught in such of the country schools as I had attended. Of course I had to go back and open up the shop at 6 O' clock.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert White Print: Book
'The following Saturday afternoon [father] was a bit late getting home from work; he must have gone to the second-hand bookstall in the market. ...he handed me a book that was dropping to pieces. It was thin, with a dark green back. There were about fifty pages; there had been a lot more but the others must have dropped out. All the pages were loose. It was called "Guy's Expositor". It was just lists of words, but it told you where they had come from, and how their meaning had varied through the ages so that some words, eventually, came to mean just the opposite from what they had meant long ago. I was thrilled to the marrow with it...'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Stamper Print: Book
'I return you the Quarterly Reveiw [sic] with many Thanks. The Authoress of "Emma" has no reason I think to complain of her treatment in it - except in the total omission of Mansfield Park. - I cannot but be sorry that so clever a Man as the Reveiwer [sic] of "Emma" should consider it as unworthy of being noticed.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Serial / periodical
'And so went home, taking Mr Leigh with me; and after drunk a cup of wine, he went away and I to my office, there reading in Sir W Pettys book, and so home - and to bed'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
Inscribed in the book on the front free endpaper:
This book belonged to my father William youngest son of John and Catherine Williams of Scorrier House in the year of our lord 1800. It was his favourite playbook when a boy, and he was particularly fond of the story of the starling, which he often quoted to me. It was given me by my mother in 1862 and was rebound in 1877. M.W. 20. Oct. 1877.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Williams Print: Book
Letter to her daughter-in-law Ann, dated 4th June 1818:
"Little Madge (Margaret Elizabeth Haskoll) told me that she had a little brother now
and she prayed for him. I told her she must pray for all our enemies. She replied that a
little girl in Goody Two Shoes would not pray for her enemies.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lydia Haskoll Print: Book
The book seems to have been used in an educational context, probably at home. Pencilled crosses, dates and slash marks in the margins and within the text at regular intervals, suggesting that Olive was learning by rote. No evidence of usage after p.35 (Reign of Henry VIII)
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Olive Heath Print: Book
Elizabeth Missing Sewell, on books lent to herself and her siblings, when children, during visits to her uncle Edwards (a barrister):
'My uncle was so particular about his books that he used to declare that when a child's finger had touched one it was spoilt. Acting upon this idea, he gave up certain books to us, when as children we stayed with him at Binstead, on condition of our never touching any others. My brothers had Glanvill's [italics]History of the Witches[end italics], and we four [Sewell girls] had a handsome edition of the [italics]Arabian Nights' Entertainments[end italics], which, being unexpurgated, was not the wisest choice that could have been made, though it gave me
hours of entrancing delight at the time, and taught me to understand allusions to tales which have become part of general literature.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Sewell Print: Book
From Elizabeth Missing Sewell's Journal, 15 July 1870, from Eisenach:
'War [apparently the Franco-Prussian war] is actually declared. We heard the news this morning as we were at breakfast in the [italics]Salle[end italics]. Some one (I think it was the master of the hotel) came up and laid before me a printed slip of paper. I had just been talking about railway trains, and thought this had something to do with them. When I read it you can understand the surprise.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: loose slip of paper
'"Guy Mannering" is reviewed in the same number [ of the Quarterly Review]. Tho' we have still more reason to question their competency here - you will probably admit that "the Dutch boors of Mannering tho' never so well painted, must cause a different class of sensations from those excited by the Salvator banditti of Waverl[e]y." - Yet the only extract they give (the departure of the gypsies, and Meg Merrilies' address to Ellangowan) is very much in the Salvator stile.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Serial / periodical
'I am glad you saw Lara; and am indebted for your account of it. I read the review of it in the Quarterly review?some time ago.' [there follow Carlyle's observations on Mitchell's account of the plot; apparently Carlyle has not yet read the poem]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Serial / periodical
I console myself with Doddridge's Expositor and "The Scholar Armed", to say nothing of a very popular book called "The Dissenter tripped up".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith
'I think "Ireland and its Leaders" worth reading and beg of you to tell me who wrote it if you happen to know, for you though you call yourself solitary live much more in the world than I do while I am in the Country'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'I have looked into the Belfast Town and Country Almanack - and consulted several cunning men upon the subject - and from all quartrs, I collect - that the moon will be full about one of the clock on the morning of Thursday the 9th inst.-'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Unknown
'When we arrived at Turin, we had no hope of being present at a sitting of Parliament, but our Sicilian friend [a friend of Cavour and acquaintance of Garibaldi, previously encountered by Sewell in a railway carriage], who had promised to call upon us, came [...] to bring us tickets of admission for Monday [...] He was as voluble and excited as before, and produced a novel which he had lately written, and which he begged us to accept. A most remarkable production
it was, as I found when I read it! ___ the Pope, Antonelli, and Lamorciere, being brought in by name, and made to take part in a plot of atrocious and not very readable wickedness.'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell
'I have received from you within these few months some very polite and liberal presents of new publications ; and though I was sorry you put yourself to any expense on my account, yet I was flattered by this mark of respect and good-will from gentlemen to whom I am personally unknown. I am quite sure, however, that you overlooked the purpose and tendency of a work called Elizabeth Evanshaw, or that you would not have sent it to a clergyman of the Established Church, or indeed to a clergyman of any church. [Smith then rebukes the publishers at length for producing irreligious books, including a translation of Voltaire, before going on to say that, nevertheless] I shall read all the works and tell you my opinion of them from time to time.
I was very much pleased with the "Two Months in Ireland", but did not read the poetical part; the prosaic division of the work is very good'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
'I have received from you within these few months some very polite and liberal presents of new publications ; and though I was sorry you put yourself to any expense on my account, yet I was flattered by this mark of respect and good-will from gentlemen to whom I am personally unknown. I am quite sure, however, that you overlooked the purpose and tendency of a work called Elizabeth Evanshaw, or that you would not have sent it to a clergyman of the Established Church, or indeed to a clergyman of any church. [Smith then rebukes the publishers at length for producing irreligious books, including a translation of Voltaire, before going on to say that, nevertheless] I shall read all the works and tell you my opinion of them from time to time.
I was very much pleased with the "Two Months in Ireland", but did not read the poetical part; the prosaic division of the work is very good'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith 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]
'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 Meamo[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
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
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: Mary Godwin
[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 - again, 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
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
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
[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 - again, 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
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
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
[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 - again, 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
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
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
'Read Clarendon - finish the life of Holcroft - read Glenarvon in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Not well - read Glenarvon all day and finish it'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read Curt and Castle Rackrent aloud. S. finishes Castle Rackrent in the evening'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read Curt and Castle Rackrent aloud. S. finishes Castle Rackrent in the evening'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'I am confined Tuesday 2nd. Read Rhoda - Pastors Fire Side - Missionary - Wild Irish Girls - The Anaconda. Glenarvon - 1st Vol Percy's Northern antiquities'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'read 2 plays in the ancient drama'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Sunday May [...] 2nd Rainy -- Read Floris & Fleur Blanche [sic] -- Cleomades et Clarimonde et Pierre de Provence et la Belle Maguelone -- Also 1st Chapter of Winkelmann'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday May [...] 2nd Rainy -- Read Floris & Fleur Blanche [sic] -- Cleomades et Clarimonde et Pierre de Provence et la Belle Maguelone -- Also 1st Chapter of Winkelmann'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday May [...] 2nd Rainy -- Read Floris & Fleur Blanche [sic] -- Cleomades et Clarimonde et Pierre de Provence et la Belle Maguelone -- Also 1st Chapter of Winkelmann'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday April 16th. [...] Read I Piffari di Montagna a pamphlet upon the Carbonari.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont
'Friday June 29th. [...] Read the Quarterly. Review of Southey's Life of Wesley [notes several
anecdotes given in this]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Serial / periodical
'Monday Oct. 29th. [...] The following passage is from Thistlewood's Defence
'A few hours hence and I shall be no more; but the nightly breeze which will whistle over the
silent grave that shall protect me from its keenness, will bear to your restless pillow the
memory of one who lived but for his country -- and died when liberty and justice had been
driven from its confines by a set of wretches.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, March 1828:
'I send you three notices of my poem [An Essay on Mind] [...] They are the only ones I have [italics]seen[end italics] [...] The flat contradiction between the Eclectic Review & Literary Gazette, with respect to [italics]Akenside[end italics], will amuse you [...] I was put out of humour for at least ten minutes, by the charge of my having imitated Darwin. I never could [italics]bear[end italics] Darwin! I have tried his Botanic Garden four or five times, & never
could get thro' above twenty pages!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, March 1828:
'I send you three notices of my poem [An Essay on Mind] [...] They are the only ones I have
[italics]seen[end italics] [...] The flat contradiction between the Eclectic Review & Literary
Gazette, with respect to [italics]Akenside[end italics], will amuse you [...] I was put out of
humour for at least ten minutes, by the charge of my having imitated Darwin. I never could
[italics]bear[end italics] Darwin! I have tried his Botanic Garden four or five times, & never
could get thro' above twenty pages!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 1-3 May 1828:
'Saturday, eight o' clock. Our dinner hour was rather later than usual today [...] we have only
just left the table. I find your parcel waiting for me in my room, & hear that your messenger
is in eminent [sic] danger of being benighted. Therefore my quick way of reading, which you
are so severe upon, has done me some service, in looking over the magazine & your letter
[...] The Review is a very satisfactory one to [italics]my[end italics] vanity'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 14 March 1843:
'I have [italics]tried[end italics] to read "Duty and Inclination" -- I tried twice & failed. the
first time I tried, it had just come out with Miss Landon's name on the title page & a laudatory
introduction -- & I sent it back to the booksellers in the agony of a yawn in the middle of the
first volume. A year afterwards I wanted something light to doze over, & I bethought me of
"Duty of Inclination", -- & how Miss Landon cdnt surely have praised it quite for nothing, -- &
how the fault of my yawning might have been in my physics rather than in "Duty['s]"
imaginatives, .. & how I wd try it again. So I sent for the book and tried it for the second
time. My dearest Miss Mitford, it is as nearly [italics]trash[end italics] as any book I can think
of [...] It is the sort of lightness which tires you to death'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 14 March 1843:
'I have [italics]tried[end italics] to read "Duty and Inclination" -- I tried twice & failed. the
first time I tried, it had just come out with Miss Landon's name on the title page & a laudatory
introduction -- & I sent it back to the booksellers in the agony of a yawn in the middle of the
first volume. A year afterwards I wanted something light to doze over, & I bethought me of
"Duty of Inclination", -- & how Miss Landon cdnt surely have praised it quite for nothing, -- &
how the fault of my yawning might have been in my physics rather than in "Duty['s]"
imaginatives, .. & how I wd try it again. So I sent for the book and tried it for the second
time. My dearest Miss Mitford, it is as nearly [italics]trash[end italics] as any book I can think
of [...] It is the sort of lightness which tires you to death'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Tell me - did you write the critic [critique] on his [Edward Irving's] book, which appeared in the Sunday Times - I had not read two sentences of it till I said to myself "this is He" do not forget to tell me - I shall be disappointed if I find I have mistaken your style -'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: NewspaperManuscript: Letter
15 February 1922: 'I thought to myself, as Lytton was talking, Now I will remember this & write it down in my diary tomorrow [...] "Latest Racine" he had read on the posters at Waterloo; thought it referred to Masefield; then re-read Racing.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lytton Strachey Print: Poster
Monday 20 May 1935: 'Quentin bought an Italian paper & read of [T. E.] Lawrence's
death.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Quentin Bell Print: Newspaper
'I love the Warder as much as I detest these radicals and the general harping spirit of the Whigs Pray is my dear friend Cunninghame the author of The Cameronians Surely he must it is so like him and so graphic'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Serial / periodical
Wednesday 1 January 1941: 'On Sunday night, as I was reading about the great fire, in a very accurate detailed book, London was burning. 8 of my city churches destroyed, & the Guildhall. This belongs to last year.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'Last summer, being in Taunton, at the house of Mr J Smith, brother to my first wife, his son brought in a parcel of those religious tracts which are published by the Religious Tract Society, and sold cheap by T. Williams, Stationer's-court, Ludgate-street, London. . . I was much pleased with an opportunity of procuring some of them. I took one of each of more than thirty sorts; and when I got home, Mrs L and I read them over together, in order to know if they were proper to be dispersed abroad, and whether they were calculated to do good to such as should read them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington Print: tracts
'Oct. 24. Tuesday. We visited the King's library.—I saw the "Speculum humanae Salvationis", rudely printed with ink, sometimes pale, sometimes black; part supposed to be with wooden types, and part with pages cut in boards.—The Bible, supposed to be older than that of Mentz, in 62 [1462]; it has no date, it is supposed to have been printed with wooden types.—I am in doubt; the print is large and fair, in two folios.—Another book was shewn me, supposed to have been printed with wooden types;—I think, "Durandi Sanctuarium in 58 [1458]. This is inferred from the difference of form sometimes seen in the same letter, which might be struck with different puncheons.—The regular similitude of most letters proves better that they are metal.—I saw nothing but the "Speculum" which I had not seen, I think, before'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'[ letter from Boswell to Johnson, responding to the latter's contention that there existed no adequate 'Life' of Thomson] Since I received your letter I have read his [Thomson's] "Life", published under the name of Cibber, but as you told me, really written by a Mr. Shiels; that written by Dr. Murdoch; one prefixed to an edition of the "Seasons", published at Edinburgh, which is compounded of both, with the addition of an anecdote of Quin's relieving Thomson from prison; the abridgement of Murdoch's account of him, in the "Biographia Britannica", and another abridgement of it in the "Biographical Dictionary", enriched with Dr. Joseph Warton's critical panegyrick on the "Seasons" in his "Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope": from all these it appears to me that we have a pretty full account of this poet.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'My heart was inclined to love and honour my father, especially when, by reading the history of China, I found that they bore more respect to their parents than any nation in the world'.
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Isaac Archer Print: Book
'the famous Tristram Shandy itself is not absolutely original: for when I was at Derby in the Summer of 1774 I strolled by mere chance into a Bookseller's Shop, where however I could find nothing to tempt Curiosity but a strange Book about Corporal Bates, which I bought & read for want of better Sport, and found it to be the very Novel from which Sterne took his first Idea: the Character of Uncle Toby, the Behaviour of Coporal Trim, even the name of Tristram itself seems to be borrowed from this stupid History of Corporal Bates forsooth'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
Transcribed in Elizabeth Lyttelton's hand, (anon) 'An Hymne to our Redeemer'.
Copied in spaces between other entries in the commonplace book. Lyttelton signals the continuation of the hymn across the six pages with a series of asterisks.
Unknown
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton
Transcribed in Elizabeth Lyttelton's hand, 'Distich from a monument to Elizabeth I in Allhallows the Great, Thames Street, London'.
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton Print: Book
Transcribed in Elizabeth Lyttelton's hand, an anonymous poem entitled 'An Euening Hymn' and beginning 'Now that the Sable mantle of the night....'
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton Print: Book
Transcribed in Elizabeth Lyttelton's hand, an anonymous 'Moral dialogue'.
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton Print: Book
[List of books read to Sir Thomas Browne by Elizabeth Lyttelton]. Headed in commonplace book: 'The books which my daughter Elizabeth hath read unto me at nights till she read ym all out'. The books are: 'all Plutarch's Lives, folio; all the Turkish historie, folio ; all the three added of ye Turkish emperours by Rycaut, fol.; all Rycaut's books of ye Turks, fol; all Baker's Cronicle of England, fol; all ye history of China by Semedo, fol; all the history of Josephus, fol; all fox his book of Martyrs, fol; all the Travills of Olearius & Mandelilo, fol; all the Travells of Taverniere, fol; all the Travells of Petrus della valle, fol; all the Travells of Vincent Le Blanck, fol; all the Travells of Pinto, fol; all the Travells of Gage, fol; the Travells of Terre, octavo; all the Historie of the life of Monsieur d' Espernoon, fol; all the historie of naples, fol; all the historie of Venice, fol; all the historie of Queen Elizabeth by Camden, fol; all the history of Herodian, fol; all the history of Procopius, fol; all Sands his Travells, fol; all Olaus Magnus of the Northern Countrys, fol; all Camerarius his observations, fol; all Suetonius of the Twelve Caesars, fol; all appians warrs, fol; all Speed's Cronicle to the life of King James, fol; So some parts of Purchas his Relations; some hundreds of Sermons. Many other Books, Treatises, discourses of severall Kinds, which may amount unto halfe the quantety of halfe the books in folio, which are before set down.'
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton Print: Book
Transcription in Elizabeth Lyttelton's hand of 'An Epitaph upon Felton, who was hang'd in Chains for murdering the Old Duke of Buckingham'.
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton Print: Book
Transcription in Elizabeth Lyttelton's hand of 'A Turkish Prayer or Alhemdolilla'.
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Lyttelton Print: Book
'Look here, my fame is even more complete than I had dreamed of. Get the "Spectators" for August 5th and 12th; and you will see how the poor Spectatorists were puzzled and ("Scottice") affronted at my paper. It is charming.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Serial / periodical
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, c.3 April 1792: '"A soul prepard needs no delays/
The summons come the Saint obey —/
Swift was his flight & short the road/
He closd his eyes & saw his God/
The flesh rests here till Jesus come/
And claim the treasure from the tomb."
I studied this from the monument at Church & planned a paper upon Epitaps.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: monument
'Louisa and I began this day to read French. Our book was a little light piece of French gallantry entitled 'Journal Amoureux'. She pronounced best and I translated best. Between us we did very well'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell and Louisa Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Collins, 31 March 1793: 'On Wednesday morning about eight o clock we sallied forth. my travelling equipage consisting of my diary — writing book, pen & ink silk handkerchief & Miltons defence. We reached Woodstock to breakfast where I was delighted with reading the Nottingham address for peace...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Handbill
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 14-18 October 1793: 'I copied these four lines from the hospital at Reading
{Aye whose hours exempt from sorrow flow
{Behold the seat of Pain of Want & Woe
{Think whilst your hands the intreated alms extend
{That what to us ye give to God ye lend.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Unknown
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, c 26 December 1793: 'Forgive egotism if I mention one circumstance which happened above twelve years ago. I was struck with the apparent falshood in “I believe in the holy catholic church” when my sixpenny history of England taught me I was a protestant. I mentioned it & was severely reprimanded for impiety, but the passage was never explained & I was silenced instead of convinced till Greek gave the information.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Robert Lovell, 5-6 April 1794: 'I have not yet seen Priestleys reasons for quitting this country. from the review I collect that he compares the present state of Europe with ancient prophecies & foretells the most dismal scenes of devastation. “Oh I could prophesy” says Hotspur & so say I but to prophecy no good evil is melancholy — & good impossible, when indeed after evil. Belsham is elected Pastor in his place & by the little I know of this man he is more qualified to succeed, Joseph Priestley than the generality of dissenting preachers. he is the author of one or two very good works —thoughts on parliamentary reform & Memoirs of the house of Brunswick—Lunenburg. my knowledge of this is from the reviews.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Serial / periodical
Robert Southey to Robert Lovell, 5-6 April 1794: 'I have not yet seen Priestleys reasons for quitting this country. from the review I collect that he compares the present state of Europe with ancient prophecies & foretells the most dismal scenes of devastation. “Oh I could prophesy” says Hotspur & so say I but to prophecy no good evil is melancholy — & good impossible, when indeed after evil. Belsham is elected Pastor in his place & by the little I know of this man he is more qualified to succeed, Joseph Priestley than the generality of dissenting preachers. he is the author of one or two very good works —thoughts on parliamentary reform & Memoirs of the house of Brunswick—Lunenburg. my knowledge of this is from the reviews.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Serial / periodical
I have read 'Roasted Angels' and I now return it. It is a very unusual and even a very remarkable play. It is full of wit and fancy and most admirably written. I should like to know who H. Hamer is. He, or she, must have been writing for quite some little time.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, c. 1-10 October 1795, 'Curious beginning of an alchemistical receipt. “In the name of God! take an urinal".'
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 23-27 April, 1796 'The Poetry of Spain & Portugal wants taste, & generally, feeling. I should have thought Camoens deficient in feelings if I had only read his Lusiad — but the Sonnets of Camoens are very beautiful. those given by Hayley in his notes to the Essay on Epic P. tho among the best are but a wretched specimen to the English reader. the translations are detestable — & the originals so printed as to be unintelligible. I bought some ballads in Spain in remembrance of Rio Verde — but they prove bad enough. but six months after my return I will tell you more.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 16 January 1797: 'I begin to think that our opinions upon poetry are not consonant. I am no friend to the harmony with which we have been cloyed since the days of Pope. Churchill is too rough: but there is a medium, & I am on the side of Bowles versus Reviewers: who by the by are in general a set of stupid fellows.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Serial / periodical
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 16 January 1797: 'I begin to think that our opinions upon poetry are not consonant. I am no friend to the harmony with which we have been cloyed since the days of Pope. Churchill is too rough: but there is a medium, & I am on the side of Bowles versus Reviewers: who by the by are in general a set of stupid fellows.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Serial / periodical
Robert Southey to John James Morgan, 6 March, 1797: 'My mornings are devoted to Law; I allow the evening for pleasanter employments & divide it between the German Grammar & [writing] Madoc. with both of which I am getting forwards. I am fond of learning languages. nothing exercises a mans ingenuity more, he sees the progress he makes, & this at once gratifies & encourages. it is my intention to learn Welsh.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, 16 March, 1797: 'We have been here now nearly a month. I read much Law — & find time to write. for company I have neither leisu[re or MS torn] inclination, & therefore confine myself to a very fe[MS torn] friends.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 12 September 1797: 'I much want the latter books of Amadis, subsequent to those which Tressan has abridged & prior to Amadis of Greece: you know my great attachment to the old romances. I know the Portugueze Palmerin. it has fine parts but deserves not the praise of Cervantes.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 22 September 1797: 'I see Roughs Lorenzino reviewed. I had not expected much.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Serial / periodical
'After Lights Out, Bayley reads a poem - anonymous. "J'y suis, j'y reste" about the war in Malaya. It is good and comprehensive. I disagree with the part, which mentions rape and looting by our troops. I have never heard of rape by them, but looting - ye gods - they were past masters'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Kitching
From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. Dated Garrow, 1823, is transcribed the traditional Scottish folk song "Chevy Chase", beginning "God prosper long our noble King/ Our lives and safeties all."
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon
From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. Transcription of 'A Conservative Song, to the tune of "There's nae luck about the House"', beginning 'How happy we, the sun and moon/ Are placed so very high...' At the end of the song is written "Essex Standard, Feb. 2 1833"
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Newspaper
From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. 'These very pretty rhymes were written in the times of Elizabeth and James!!'. Follows a transcription of 'The Old Courtier', beginning 'An old song made by an aged fate,/ Of an old worshipful Gentleman that had a great estate...' and 'The Young Courtier', beginning 'Like a flourishing young gallant, newly come to his land'.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon
From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. Transcription of 'Ballad "The old English Gentleman" sung by Mr Phillips, May 10th 1833 - at Mr Anderson's concert', and beginning 'We sing you an ancient song, which was made in ancient days...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon
'This day I was in the Advocates Library seeking German Books, and I found (directed by Dr Irving) the first Article in the Monthly Review devoted to our "German Romance". The man is little better than an ass; but a well-disposed one; and never dreams that his ears are long. He calls me point-blank by the name of the city Carlisle, without apology or introduction...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Serial / periodical
'Read an account of Dorothea Trudel's mother to my mother.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Slept well, and read grand book - "Darkness and Dawn" at coffee time.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Rest in room and discovered "History of Fair Rosamond".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of lines entitled ‘Stanzas Addressed to the Greeks’ [unattributed] beginning 'On, on! To the just and glorious strife! With your swords your freedom shielding; Nay, resign, if it must be so, even life; But die, at least, unyielding…’.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of Lines by a Lady at a Ball', beginning 'So, Sir, you really do declare, / You’ll dance with none but ladies fair...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of lines beginning 'Black eyes may dazzle at a ball'.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
'The Secretary then read a paper upon English Miracle & Morality Plays. He described the Miracle Cycle at York with some illustrative readings from one or two of the earlier episodes. Then briefly traced the growth of the religious drama through the stages of its association with the Liturgy to its divorce from the Church & its elaboration by the city guilds. The development of Moralities was referred to & Mrs Unwin gave a reading from 'Everyman'.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ursula Unwin Print: Book
'The Secretary then read a paper upon English Miracle & Morality Plays. He described the Miracle Cycle at York with some illustrative readings from one or two of the earlier episodes. Then briefly traced the growth of the religious drama through the stages of its association with the Liturgy to its divorce from the Church & its elaboration by the city guilds. The development of Moralities was referred to & Mrs Unwin gave a reading from 'Everyman'.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ernest E. Unwin Print: Book
'The following miscellaneous programme was then gone through. This change in the subject was caused by the imposibility of getting cheap copies of The Dynasts.
1. Pianoforte solo. Selection from Debusy [sic] Miss Bowman Smith
2. Reading. Modern Froissart Chronicles Mrs W.H. Smith
3. Reading. Migrations. Anon. Contrib. from Punch by Alfred Rawlings
4. Recitation. In a Gondola (Browning) Miss Cole
5. Song. 2 French Bergerettes. Mrs Unwin
6. Essay. 'The Pious Atrocity' R.B. Graham
7. Reading. Wedding Presents (Punch) Mrs Reynolds
8. Song. My dear Soul. Mrs Robson
9. Reading 'How the Camel got his Hump' W.H. Smith
10. Song. The Camel's hump. E.E. Unwin
11. Reading. The Man of the Evening (A.A. Milne Punch) Miss R. Wallis
12. Song. Hebrides Galley Song. Miss Bowman Smith
13. Reading. Arms of Wipplecrack S.A. Reynolds
14. Reading. Joints in the Armour. E.V. Lucas. H.M. Wallis
15. Song-Chant Folk Song [ditto]
16. Essay. 'Bad morality & bad art' R.H. Robson
17. Song. Winter. Miss Bowman Smith
18. Essay 'Etaples & the air raids' H.R. Smith
19. Recitation. These new fangled ways. E.E. Unwin
20. Song. Goodnight. Mrs Robson'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings Print: Serial / periodical
'Shortly afterwards Victor Gollancz issued a pamphlet, entitled "Fascists at Olympia", which contained statements from eye-witnesses, vistims of assault, and doctors who attended the injured.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain
'Various anonymous essays by members of the Club were then read with the following titles and at the conclusion of the meeting whilst the authorship of some was quickly acclaimed others proved very difficult to locate.
Some thoughts on Racing attributed to R. Wallis
One Generation & the next or Jobson on False Freedom C.E. Stansfield
Intimations of Immortality R.H. Robson
The Lady of the Marsh Mrs R.B. Graham
If Christianity had Won R.B. Graham
The Revolt of the Innocents Geo Burrow
Thoughts on the Construction of Cathedrals H.M. Wallis
Revenge or Justice C Evans
Five minutes Thoughts upon present Condition H.M. Wallis
A Scandalous Affair [illegible symbol]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: members of XII Book Club Manuscript: Unknown
'We are to make roads for the next few days. Out occasionally on work parties. Those officers
not on duty all stayed in bed (valises!) and so did the men. We ate, slept, read in our valises. It
was so cold outside. We had no fires, absolutely nothing, yet I really believed we enjoyed
ourselves. There was practically no shelling.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Lindsay Mackay
[Letter, Summer 1867]
'I took the ''Lancashire Wedding or Darwin moralized'' to read in the carriage. The moral is that it is not wise to give up a pretty, poor, healthy girl you love and marry a sickly, rich, cross one you don't care for ... It is too dull to give to the [village] library...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'I wish you would send me the Daily Mail every other day, & also magazines (Pearsons etc)
would be immensely appreciated. I see by a paper of the 18th that Whitby and Scarborough have
been bombarded. The photographs in it are very similar to sights very common here.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Newspaper
'The newspapers amuse us here immensely — we read of the Ger[mans] being driven
back by our chaps — in reality he is walking away of his own free will, as slowly and as fast as
he likes to.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Newspaper
'I received on the 3rd a parcel from you with biscuits and bulls eyes, and same time books and
jersey with letter. The books are very welcome. I shall enjoy reading what I read before the war,
but no matter.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry William Williamson Print: Book
'Do you know, these wet afternoons I have been reading the story of Aladdin to myself for pleasure, without a dictionary! It's not very difficult, I must confess, still it's ordinary good Arabic, not for beginners, and I find it too charming for words. Moreover, I see that I really have learnt a good deal since I came for I couldn't read just for fun to save my life. It is satisfactory, isn't it. I look forward to a time when I shall just read Arabic — like that!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Sat on deck and read Buddhist Birth Stories and slept.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'The evening being bright and moonlight and very still, we all went out, and walked through the whole village, where not a creature moved; — through the principal little square, in the middle of which was a sort of pillar or Town Cross on steps, and Louis read, by the light of the moon, a proclamation for collections of charities which was stuck on it. We walked on along a lane a short way, hearing nothing whatever — not a leaf moving — but the distant barking of a dog! Suddenly we heard a drum and fifes! We were greatly alarmed, fearing we had been recognized.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Prince Louis of Hesse Print: Broadsheet, Poster
'Still, it is a very fine tragedy. So is the Greek play that we are doing. It is quite unlike all that
stiff bombast which we are accustomed to associate with Greek tragedy. There is life and
character in it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'I wonder did you notice the article on Nietzsche in last Sunday's Times Literary Supplement,
which demonstrates that although we have been told to regard Nietzsche as the indirect author
of this war, nothing could be farther removed from the spirit and letter of his teaching? It just
shows how we can be duped by an ignorant and loud mouthed cheap press. Kirk, who knows
something about N., had anticipated that article with us, and is in high glee at seeing the
blunder
"proclaimed on the housetops".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Newspaper, Serial / periodical
'Last week I got a copy of that little book of yours on Icelandic Sagas, which I found very
interesting, and as a result I have now bought a translation of the "Laxdaela Saga" in the
Temple
Classics edition.... they are tip top and justify the boast of 'elegance' made in their
advertisements.... As to the Saga itself I am very pleased with it indeed: if the brief, simple,
nervous style of the translation is a good copy of the original it must be very fine. The story,
tho', like most sagas, it loses unity, by being spread over two or three generations, is
thoroughly
interesting.... after the "Roots" a real saga is interesting. I must admit that ... the primitive
type
is far better than Morris's reproduction.'I
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'I have been reading nothing since Othello but a translation from the Icelandic'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'I went to a play that would have appealed to you — "Disraeli", which you will remember to have
seen reviewed in Punch's "At the play". If the real man was at all like the character in the piece
he certainly must have been a prince of cards. I suppose that most of the bons mots that I heard
at the Royalty are actual historic ones, preserved in his letters and so forth.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Serial / periodical
'I hope you noticed the leader in this week's Literary Supplement — on Edgar Allan Poe? I never
heard such affectation and preciosity; the man who thinks the "Raven" tawdry just because it is
easily appreciated, and says that in "The choice of words Poe has touched greater heights than
De Quincy" ought — well, what can we say of him?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Serial / periodical
'Besides this [i.e. Sidney's "Arcadia"] I have read nothing lately, except a foolish modern novel
which I read at one sitting — or rather one lying on the sofa, this afternoon in the middle of a
terrible thunderstorm. I think, that if modern novels are to be read at all, they should be
taken like this, at one gulp, and then thrown away — preferably into the fire (that is if they
are not in one's own edition). Not that I despise them because they are modern, but really
most of them are pretty sickly with their everlasting problems.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'... remember that nearly all your reading is confined to about 150 years of one particular
country.... And so, if you suddenly go back to an Anglo-Saxon gleeman's lay, you come up
against something absolutely different — a different world. If you are to enjoy it, you must
forget your previous ideas of what a book should be and try and put yourself back in the
position of the people for whom it was first made. When I was reading it I tried to imagine
myself as an old Saxon thane sitting in my hall of a winter's night, with the wolves & storm
outside and the old fellow singing his story. In this way you get the atmosphere of terror that
runs through it — the horror of the old barbarous days when the land was all forests and when
you thought that a demon might come to your house any night & carry you off. The description
of Grendel stalking up from his "fen and fastness" thrilled me. Besides, I loved the simplicity
of the old life it represents: it comes as a relief to get away from all complications about
characters & "problems" to a time when hunting, fighting, eating, drinking & loving were all a
man had to think of it. And lastly, always remember it's a translation which spoils most
things.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'As a matter of fact I am at present reading a real "old french" romance "The High History of the
Holy Graal" translated in the lovely "Temple Classics". If I dared to advise you any longer -. It is
absolute heaven: it is more mystic and eerie than the "Morte" & has [a] more connected plot. I
think there are parts of it even you'd like.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'After wandering about the place and buying a second-hand copy of the "Gesta Romanorum"
(of which more anon) I took my courage in both hands and knocked up the Master of
University.... The "Gesta Romanorum" ... is a collection of mediaeval tales with morals
attached to them: they are very like the Arabian Nights, tho' of course the characters and
setting are chivalric instead of Eastern. It is not a first class book but it only cost me 1/- and
helps to while away an hour or so between serious things.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
‘The other day I read a Biography of Tennyson, which says he was
unhappy, even in the midst of his fame, wealth, and domestic serenity.
Divine discontent! I can quite believe he never knew happiness for one
moment such as I have … But as for misery, was he ever frozen alive, with
dead men for comforters. Did he ever hear the moaning at the bar, not at
twilight and evening bell only, but at dawn, noon, and night, eating and
sleeping, walking and working, always the close moaning of the Bar; the
thunder, the hissing and the whining of the Bar?’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'I am a week late in thanking you for your parcel and letter … and specially for
the book of sonnets which has been constantly either in my pocket or hand. It
is just the kind of thing one wants—that can be opened and closed again for
five or ten minutes that may come to hand. It contains many fine ones which I
had not met before: and altogether its possession is a great boon.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Hamilton Sorley Print: Book
'Did not get up until 7A.M. as I lay in the bed reading ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams
'I rec'd a letter and some newspapers from J. P. Prout with a letter enclosed
from my wife. I read a good bit from the papers & then wrote this it is now
time to go to bed about 8 P.M.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'After reading a good bit I went to bed about 10 A.M.'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams
'Got out of the mine about 6 A.M. had some tea & read the paper a bit & saw
in the list of deaths, the death of Mary Ann wife of Lot Brewer. I think it is my
old school-mistress from Trelowth, St Austell.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'I went in & read a good bit from the news-papers
then Bob his Wife & baby came in & we stayed
chatting for a good while.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'Got up about 7A.M. had some tea & commenced to read.
I read a Christian Age & some from a book by Thos
Guthrie, 'Man & the Gospel' which I enjoy very much.
I then went down & read a good while to Mr Bennett
who is still very sick. I did not go out very much
for the day. After dinner I read to him again went
to bed about 7-30.'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams
' ... read some papers to the old man ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams
'I read a good bit to the old man then came in & had
my tea & off to bed about 8-30 P.M.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams
'I wrote a letter and read some news to the old man ...'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams
' ... went to see the old man and read the newspaper to
him ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'I read some papers & then went to bed ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
' ... had my dinner & read the Newspaper & boiled a pot of
potatoes ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Bennetts Williams Print: Newspaper
'Started raining at 6.0, so returned on board.
Reading & writing in gun room till 10.0, when we
turned in.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'Lunch 12.0, & afterwards went on leave, while hands
washed up the decks. Had a tremendous blow out at
Swiss Cafe, & purchased many items ... Went & read
at room at the disposal of the Cadets at Tower's
House. Returned on board at 7.45.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'General Quarters till 10.30. Went to Navigator's
cabin to write up log. When I finished I couldn't
find any cadets, so went back to Navigator's cabin &
eat chocolate, then went down to gun room & read.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'Fog did not lift, so we did not begin [patrol].
Spent afternoon in writing, reading etc. Leave for
Officers from 4.30-6.15. Went ashore ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'Came down and had breakfast at 8.0. Divisions at
9.45 & no General Quarters but physical training
from 11.15 till 12.0 ... Lunch at 12.0, & afterwards
I retired to the Comforts cabin, & had a ripping hot
bath. Smoked a pipe & then came up to Gun Room &
read a thrilling book.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer Print: Book
'Church at 10.30. Stopped a large & lusty ship at
12.0, but it turned out to be a false alarm as
usual. Lunch at 12.0. I read all the afternoon, &
got the PMO's gramophone during the evening.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer Print: Book
'Hoped to have 1" aiming rifle practice, but after
getting up ammunition & lots of fuss we cleared off
to lunch. Read during the afternoon & tea at 3.30.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'Sketched till 10.45, & then went to the Captain's
Cabin, where the P.M.O. gave us a long lecture on
diseases. Lunch at 12.0, & afterwards I read in the
Gun Room till tea time. No history lessons.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'... nothing much to do all morning, except for a
fairly short stay at General Quarters. There was
nothing for me to do at all in the afternoon, so I
simply sat in the Gun Room & read.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
' ... foul morning ... altogether rotten. I came up
for breakfast to find everyone feeling sick, &
nothing to eat. After some time I partook of a
frugal meal, in the middle of which Control Parties
was sounded off ... Frightfully thrilling. I had
nothing at all to do during the afternoon so I sat
in the Gun Room & read.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'... frightfully dull ... During the afternoon I
went out to the after superstructure for a time &
then came down to the Gun Room & read.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer
'I woke up feeling extremely bored with life ... it
was a foul day, like yesterday. I did exactly the
same things ... During the forenoon the sea gave
signs of going down much to my disgust, as I am
enjoying myself immensely as I am. We had lunch at
12.0, & I started another magazine in the afternoon.
I really must remember to send home for some books.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Richard Romer Print: Serial / periodical
'Thou kindly asks whether I am pursuing my favourite reading. To this I must return a decided no
— several books from our Book Society having come upon us suddenly, and one which I
particularly wish to read, has prevented my exclusive reading on Geology.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Ellis Print: Book
'I have scarcely read anything except an occasional short pity article in some review, on looked
within the pages of some book, and turned away with an oppressed heart when I recollected, that
at least for the present, books are a hidden treasure beyond my reach.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Ellis Print: Serial / periodical
'I have scarcely read anything except an occasional short pity article in some review, on looked
within the pages of some book, and turned away with an oppressed heart when I recollected, that
at least for the present, books are a hidden treasure beyond my reach.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Ellis Print: Book
'Do you take Chambers's Journal? The opening article I like very much, on that beautiful line from
Keats, 'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever'; another of the leading articles pleased me greatly, as it
so precisely coincides with my view of the question; it is on Female Education, and is really
excellent and full of truth.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eliza Ellis Print: Serial / periodical
'Just reading a book called Us and the Americans ... what they do not understand, and what they
like. Our gardens impress everyone.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vere Hodgson Print: Book
'Off parade there was little enough to do. La
Thieuloye was a desolate hole, a mere hamlet with
hardly a shop for miles ... Our barn was a fine
roomy one and we were quite comfortable there ...
leaving our rifles and bulkier equipment in our
places in the barn, we pitched a sort of camp in a
field or orchard at the back of the barn and
mainly lived out there ... the Bachelor's Debating
Society continued to be in very good form and our
time off parade was a jolly one. "G.R."
[unidentified] was at this time supplying us with
reading matter in the shape of Sheffield
Telegraph threepenny novelettes, some of which
caused considerable hilarity. Billy was much
amused, in his perusal of one, to find the
following brilliant epigram put in the mouth of
one of the characters: "Misogyny covers a
multitude of past indiscretions". As "G.R." had
been giving vent to certain anti-feminist
sentiments lately it pleased Billy to apply this
saying to him and we pulled his leg by inventing a
fairly lurid, Don Juan-ish past for our friend.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Geoffrey Ratcliff Husbands Print: Newspaper
'We set off early along a dry river-bed green with
date palms on either bank, pursued by thousands of
flies which we could not get rid off until we
reached the colder climate of the plateaux [...]
we halted for lunch while it was still quite
early, and their beduin spread out carpets on the
sandy river bed in the shade of a large rock, and
placed cushions for our backs. I realized then
that the Hadhramis had a better idea about travel
comfort than cluttered-up safari-minded Europeans,
for it was all so simple and yet so adequate.
Seiyid Salim inhaled long puffs from the hubble-
bubble while Seiyid Hamid read aloud an ode to a
railway train from a book of poems, and so the
time passed pleasantly until our lunch of rice and
dried shark was ready. This was followed by green
tea.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Doreen Ingrams Print: Book, Read in Arabic
'When we returned to Mukalla from the East Indies
there was more work than ever; the war meant a
number of new regulations which had to be enforced
including the censorship of letters. Every morning
Muhammad Ba Matraf, the Residency interpreter, and
I sat down to large batches of letters addressed
to East Africa, India, Aden, or the East Indies.
They were sad letters, mostly written on behalf of
women whose husbands had left them penniless and
to soften the heart of an errant husband they
often included the footprint of a child he had
perhaps never seen; but the letters were unlikely
to be of interest to an enemy, though just
occasionally there were remarks about local events
which had to be cut out.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Doreen Ingrams Manuscript: Letter
'The chief of the post, pushing his long hair out of
his eyes and leaning on his gun, slowly read the
address of my letter of introduction to the
Governor at Alishtar. This letter was an "Open
Sesame": its quite insignificant contents were
luckily sealed up but the name on the envelope had
already served to get me through the entanglements
of the Nihavend police.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Manuscript: Letter
'The Squire of Bijeno was a reader. We spent the
evening over the history of Alexander and over
'"Memoirs of the Boxer Rising", translated into
Persian from the French - a strange waif of a book
that I came upon again in a wild part of Luristan,
amusing the leisure hours of a tribal chief.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
'The Squire of Bijeno was a reader. We spent the
evening over the history of Alexander and over
"Memoirs of the Boxer Rising", translated into
Persian from the French - a strange waif of a book
that I came upon again in a wild part of Luristan,
amusing the leisure hours of a tribal chief.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
'Rutba is the palace planted in the wilderness when
Aladdin's uncle rubbed the lamp; how else can it
have got there? It is 200 empty miles from
anywhere. It has beds to sleep in and waiters who
spontaneously think of hot water. You walk into a
room and dine on salmon mayonnaise and other
refinements and read notices on the walls like
those of an English club house in the country. The
British, returning from summer leave, are all
talking shop or shootings and look nice and clean.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Manuscript: Sheet, notices on walls
'He had the daily paper folded under his arm with
his forage cap or sidara, and his latchkey, as
long and as heavy, and in fact an exact duplicate
of mine, in his hand. Having climbed to my room,
smoked a cigarette, drunk a cup of coffee and
exchanged the news of the day, he would open the
paper out upon my table and lead me, with many
halts and interruptions, through the Baghdad
journalist' flowers of invective, chiefly directed
against our British crimes. It was the fashionable
thing to be anti-British in Baghdad at the time.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Newspaper
'I lie contentedly enough, and amuse myself with a
book which Qasim, seeing me in pain, has brought
me in his kindness. It is his most treasured
possession, a life of the Prophet in big lettering
on rough paper, brown-black on brown-white, with
flowered borders and headlines with the name of
Allah, the author's name in a lunette at the top
of every page, and the number of the page in a
little flowered frame of its own on the margin. It
gives one pleasure to handle anything done, even
by mechanical means, with so much loving care. The
book itself is written guilelessly, and tells the
legends of Muhammad; how Amina, his mother, bore
him without weight or discomfort, and in sleep saw
the prophets month by month in turn, and in the
last month the Prophet Jesus - for the substance
of Muhammad, a drop from the River of Paradise,
had been in the bodies of all the Prophets before
him, beginning with Adam.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
'In the evenings, if I have no one else below, I
climb upstairs to sit in comfort except for
mosquitoes - enormous creatures with white rings
round their legs - that infest this region.
Alinur, now recovered, is by the table with a
book, in a comfortable domestic atmosphere; the
Archaeologist is on a terrace in the distance,
with 'Time and Tide' and the 'Spectator' (very
old) strewn about her. A lantern on her right hand
and the moon on her left illuminate the neat
blouse, and grey hair whose brushed waves still
keep a faint rebellious grace of girlhood.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elinor Wight Gardner Print: Book
'I have a copyist now - a thin-faced student in a
long gown who writes out for me the manuscript of
the Sultan of Qatn for which I have no time: it is
six hundred pages and tells, under red and green
headings, the history of sixteenth century in
Yemen. It is called the Sirat al Mutawakkiliya and
was written in A.D. 1600, and in it are described
scraps with the Ferangi (probably the Dutch) in
the Red Sea, and a mission from Yemen to Abyssinia
and news too of this land. Whether it is known or
not in Europe I have no means of telling, but it
is good enough in itself to be worth the copying,
and it is a pleasure to perpetuate learning by
this slow and ancient means. It is very expensive,
for every two sheets of paper cost a quarter of a
dollar (4 1/2d.), apart from the scribe's time;
and it is difficult too to deal with, for none of
the pages are numbered.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Manuscript: Codex, Arabic history of Yemen
'In the evening all the boys came rushing excited to
my terrace with baskets full of pots. They are
rough and ugly, but they have pre-Islamic letters
scratched on them, which will presumably help to
date them: one has the word "mat" (he died),
incised upon its edge.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
'Hasan, smoking wisps of paper filled with green
tobacco, walked on reciting poems composed by his
father about Harold and the R.A.F. and chucked his
long brown fingers to explain the verses to us and
to the donkey behind him [12 lines of verse are
translated and quoted by Stark, with an
interruption from her midway, showing this is a
reactive listening experience]'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
When I reached home I found a man with a qasida in
praise of Harold in his hand. 'He has broken the
horns of the wicked', it says. I wonder if this has
any relationship with the Bible phrase: 'His horn
shall be exalted?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Manuscript: Sheet
I have spent a meandering day taking last pictures
in the town with the Qadhi, who read out the carved
inscriptions of the tombs, and standing with
upturned palms while he chanted his prayer for the
dead, smiled in his gentle way as I said 'Amen'.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
It is a huge citadel, nearly a mile in length I
should guess, on a low and stony ridge going east
and west [...] the inscription is inside the
southern gateway and tells how the governor of the
fortress rebuilt the wall with stone and wood and
binding (mortar), and calls it by the name of
Meifa'a, which has not changed. I sat and copied
and kept a running flow of conversation to hold my
crowd in hand, telling them the Arabic names of the
letters as I wrote them down.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
Great black blocks, roughly cut, show the seawall
protecting the citadel's approach; and on a ledge
east of the causeway the two inscriptions in the
rock are clear as on the day that they were cut
[...] as through a rift in clouds, they show for a
moment the history of Cana in the past. The
citadel itself was called Mawiya, and the Governor
of Cana here, in the shorter inscription, recorded
his presence. The longer one was dated and tells
how the tribes of Himyar, having made an
expedition into Abyssinia, were harassed by the
Abyssinians in their turn; with their lands
invaded, their king killed, they shut themselves
up in this fortress, and restored its single
gateway, its cisterns and walls in the year A.D.
625 or thereabout, many centuries after the
Periplus speaks of the ancient harbour [...] these
things I turned idly over while copying out the
inscriptions through the quiet solitary hours of
the afternoon.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
I was also pained but amused at the pink, paper-
bound novels that went about: I asked my neighbour
to read me a paragraph, and this was it: "'Good
God,' said Susanna: 'what will my mother say when
she hears that I have dropped my new eyelashes into
the champagne?'"
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
The people in the beds near me also kept quiet
during the days before the operation, when I lay
busily reading about South Arabia, and this
delicacy I have always remembered with gratitude.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
I have been rather feeble and depressed all
summer, and it will probably do a lot of good to
walk about the hills of Arabia. I have been
reading books about it and it sounds a good
country though uncomfortable.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
I am reading the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea
(how much prettier a name than Red Sea): it was an
old commercial chart by an unknown Greek of
Alexandria in the first century - the first
account of these shores, which the Arabian traders
tried to keep wrapped in mystery so that Roman
commerce should not enter. It is very pleasant to
sit and read it on deck while the gulfs and bays
unroll before one.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
'Last night I sent a field service card just to
let you know that I received the parcel alright
on Sunday. It was packed very well. There was a
lot of stuff in it, and it was quite exciting
exploring it, which I did just before going to
Church ... Now I must thank you for all the
good things you have sent ... It is quiet here
now. Not many patients in. One in our ward was
shot in the side below the ribs, and the bullet
is up in his neck. He was digging at the time
in the dark. He is propped up in bed and quite
cheerful, eating, reading and sleeping ... The
Advertisers were interesting. I read them both
yesterday afternoon, and all of young
Corbishley's letters.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Anon Anon Print: Unknown
'Well, I have got another change. Am on night
duty again, but among the officers. Have been
doing it just a week ... It is 5.45 now and I
will soon take a cup of tea to each patient.
Then take water round for them to wash. At
seven I finish. In the night I get an easy
chair out of the sitting room and a book, and
sit here in the small kitchen till a bell rings
for me. Two Australian officers came in a night
or two ago. One is a chaplain and now
dangerously ill with bronchitis. I have to wear
a clean white coat and look as clean as
possible ... This job is all very well for a
change, but I don't think I shall be satisfied
with it for too long.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Book
'This letter will probably not be finished this
evening, for I am writing it in the YMCA hut at 6
o'clock and there is such a noise of chairs and
tables being moved in preparation for a concert by
men from a neighbouring hospital ... The piano is
now playing and the hut is full. Am writing this
on a book. The concert has begun ... Do you read
much? I have taken it up a bit since I was sick
and I've read some nice stories. It helps one
forget troubles.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Book
'Yesterday I was given half the day off. In the
afternoon I went to my tent and lay down to read
and sleep. In the evening I sat in the Salvation
Army room and read, for it was raining, and being
on "Fire Picket" this week, I am not allowed to
leave the hospital vicinity.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Book
'This afternoon I was off duty so got into my
blankets at 1.45 and read a book until I fell
asleep, and woke at 4.30.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Wainwright Print: Book
'I would not, I could not, give up the rides and
rambles that took up so much of my time, but I
would try to overcome my disinclination to serious
reading. There were plenty of books in the house —
it was always a puzzle to me how we came to have
so many. I was familiar with their appearance on
the shelves — they had been before me since I
first opened my eyes — their shape, size, colours,
even their titles, and that was all I knew about
them. A general Natural History and two little
works by James Rennie on the habits and faculties
of birds was all the literature suited to my wants
in the entire collection of three or four hundred
volumes. For the rest I had read a few story-books
and novels: but we had no novels; when one came
into the house it would be read and lent to our
next neighbour five or six miles away, and he in
turn would lend to another twenty miles further
on, until it disappeared into space'. I made a
beginning with Rollin's "Ancient History" in two
huge quarto volumes; I fancy it was the large
clear type and numerous plates [...] that
determined my choice. Rollin the good old
priest, opened a new, wonderful world to me, and
instead of the tedious task I feared the reading
would prove,it was as delightful as it had
formerly been to listen to my brother's endless
histories of imaginary heroes and their wars and
adventures. Still athirst for history, after
finishing Rollin I began fingering other works of
that kind: there was Whiston's "Josephus", too
ponderous a book to be held in the hands when read
out of doors; and there was Gibbon in six stately
volumes. I was not yet able to appreciate the lofty
artificial style, and soon fell upon something
better suited to my boyish taste in letters - a
"History of Christianity" in, I think, sixteen or
eighteen volumes of a convenient size. [...] These
biographies sent me to another old book, "Leland
on Revelation", which told me much I was curious
to know about the mythologies and systems of
philosophy of the ancients [...]. Next came
Carlyle's "French Revolution", and at last Gibbon,
and I was still deep in the "Decline and Fall"
when disaster came to us, my father was
practically ruined.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
'It was not strange in these circumstances
[suffering from cardiac complications of rheumatic
fever] that I became more and more absorbed in the
religious literature of which we had a good deal
on our bookshelves — theology, sermons,
meditations for every day in the year, "The Whole
Duty of Man", "A Call to the Unconverted", and
many other old works of a similar character. Among
these I found one entitled, if I remember
rightly,"An Answer to the Infidel", and this work,
which I took up eagerly in the expectation that it
would allay those maddening doubts perpetually
arising in my mind [...] reading one of the
religious books entitled "The Saints Everlasting
Rest" in which the pious author, Richard Baxter
expatiates on and labours to make his readers
realize the condition of the eternally damned
[....]'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
'One of the books I read then for the first time
was White's "Selborne", given to me by an old
friend of the family, a merchant in Buenos Ayres
[sic], who had been accustomed to stay a week or
two with us with us once a year when he took his
holiday. He had been on a visit to Europe, and one
day, he told me, when in London on the eve of his
departure, he was in a bookshop, and seeing this
book on the counter and glancing at a page or two,
it occurred to him that it was just the right
thing to get for that bird-loving boy out on the
pampas. I read and re-read it many times, for
nothing so good of its kind had ever come to me,
but it did not reveal to me the secret of my own
feeling for Nature [...] I found it in other
works: in Brown's "Philosophy" — another of the
ancient tomes on our shelves, and in an old volume
containing appreciations of the early nineteenth
century; also in other works.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
I am reading some Yemeni legends and tales. One
nice one about two rival doctors, a good and a bad
one: the King said he would take as his family
physician the one who succeeded in poisoning the
other [summary of the tale follows]
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
I have been studying the little pamphlet [on the
Arabs] in the train and feel that, though you have
improved the language, the whole thing is so
ineffective that it is not worth bothering about.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
A delightful Persian in Basra, Mirza Muhammed,
keeps — entirely for his own pleasure — a
priceless collection of Persian and Arabian MSS. I
can't tell you what a lovely morning I spent
there. An MS. belonging to Saladin, with his name
in it, an MS. of the 8th century A.D., and one
stamped by the 4th Sultan of the family of
Tamerlane — and such lovely illuminated pages in
the later ones — treasures beyond price.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Manuscript: Codex
A delightful Persian in Basra, Mirza Muhammed,
keeps — entirely for his own pleasure — a
priceless collection of Persian and Arabian MSS. I
can't tell you what a lovely morning I spent
there. An MS. belonging to Saladin, with his name
in it, an MS. of the 8th century A.D., and one
stamped by the 4th Sultan of the family of
Tamerlane — and such lovely illuminated pages in
the later ones — treasures beyond price.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Manuscript: Codex
A delightful Persian in Basra, Mirza Muhammed,
keeps — entirely for his own pleasure — a
priceless collection of Persian and Arabian MSS. I
can't tell you what a lovely morning I spent
there. An MS. belonging to Saladin, with his name
in it, an MS. of the 8th century A.D., and one
stamped by the 4th Sultan of the family of
Tamerlane — and such lovely illuminated pages in
the later ones — treasures beyond price.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Manuscript: Codex, illuminated manuscript
We went to St. Tropez to see my Alsatian friends
and pushed on to lunch at Paradou, and found A.
Besse very cheerful with 7 ladies (including
ourselves) around him, therefore fully in his
element [...] spent the afternoon reading accounts
from his agents in Abyssinia which made me quite
sick almost physically.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
I sat on my roof and went on with my manuscripts,
distracted by bevies of women wanting medicines
for what they call 'wind', i.e. pains from sitting
in their perpetual draughts with no clothes under
their gowns. The manuscripts are pleasant to read
here: all the raids and battles, talk of the
places I know, and the turbulent medieval life
rises vivid before one.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Manuscript: Unknown
I am getting hold of a copyist as there are
various exciting manuscripts here and I can't deal
with all myself. I have nearly finished one and it
is full of useful information — for instance it
gives the date when the old Himyaritic ruin we
went to see east of Tarim was renovated by the
Arabs and finally ruined.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Manuscript: Unknown
'By the time my wife goes to bed at 9 or soon after,
I feel too tired to do anything except sit by the
fire and read a little poetry, then go to bed
myself—without doing any work or answering a
letter.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
'...and in the little bays I have damaged myself on rocks. I had
been reading there on a cliff seat I constructed for about 5
hours on Sunday afternoon, when I woke up to the knowledge
that the tide had cut me off; of course I had chosen a place
where the cliff was climable (?), but it took rather long with all
my books in my hand.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edward Lawrence Print: Book, 'books' 'with all my books in my hand'
'To fill up this rather mixed letter I will give you a sketch of one
of my days here. I wake at 7. and get up at 7.30. At eight I take
"petit dejuner", and after inspecting my bicycle I read and write
till a few minutes to twelve'.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edward Lawrence
'"The day was fair and sunny, sea and sky
"Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind
"Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves."
I went to my seat on the cliff and read; beneath this
projecting rock the sea
"On bare black pointed islets ever beats
"With heaving surge."' [The quotation however is 'On black
bare pointed islets ever beat / With sluggish surge']. 'As I
have started giving quotations you will have to endure
more, or burn the letter [...] I reached there before two today
and stayed till seven. I think an August afternoon is the best
time of the year...'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edward Lawrence
'While walking about there before continuing my reading I
fell into a little lake, between two rocks, and I wet all my
legs. It was
"A still salt pool, locked in with bars of sand
"Left on the shore." [Quoted from "The Palace of Art",
Tennyson]
From my reading desk
"I see the waves upon the shore
"Like Light dissolved in star-showers thrown."'[Quoted from
"Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples", Shelley].
'...I have got into the habit of quoting any appropriate lines
to myself, and this time I thought I would put them on
record'.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edward Lawrence
'I rode to Montbard...and thence here, which is a tiny village
about 15 miles from Vezelay "the grandest Norman church in
Europe" (or outside it I presume) the guide-books all sing in
chorus. I'll let you know tomorrow about that'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edward Lawrence Print: Book
I sat at my table and studied verbs and nouns,
wrapped in more clothes than I wore to climb the
Matterhorn, and looked with a wary eye at the
sunshine outside, dazzling and hard, and able to
freeze one to the bone. In spite of this
inclemency, I flourished, attended to by Mlle Rose
with the same care as that which she devoted to
her begonias; they flowered in the middle of the
winter on her marble floor.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark Print: Book
I am grateful for the leisure of my years,
whether voluntary or enforced — for long
stretches of sickness or of holiday, and also for
small snippets like those produced by the habit
of dressing for the evening. It meant a casting
away as it were of the day's business. After
dinner, in Asolo, Herbert Young would read aloud
while we embroidered; later on, he and my mother
took to bridge; and in any case all solitary
activities were laid aside and a sort of
emptiness built around the folding of the day.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark
I am grateful for the leisure of my years,
whether voluntary or enforced — for long
stretches of sickness or of holiday, and also for
small snippets like those produced by the habit
of dressing for the evening. It meant a casting
away as it were of the day's business. After
dinner, in Asolo, Herbert Young would read aloud
while we embroidered; later on, he and my mother
took to bridge; and in any case all solitary
activities were laid aside and a sort of
emptiness built around the folding of the day.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Flora Stark
I am grateful for the leisure of my years,
whether voluntary or enforced — for long
stretches of sickness or of holiday, and also for
small snippets like those produced by the habit
of dressing for the evening. It meant a casting
away as it were of the day's business. After
dinner, in Asolo, Herbert Young would read aloud
while we embroidered; later on, he and my mother
took to bridge; and in any case all solitary
activities were laid aside and a sort of
emptiness built around the folding of the day.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Young
'I have lately re-read here the complete works of Conrad and Henry James and am engaged on
reading all the books of Stephen Crane that I can lay my hands on—for the to me astounding
fact is that the works of these three writers are here out of print and practically unobtainable,
such being glory! I had to borrow the Conrad and James from Doubleday and Scribner's
respectively and Knopf has only been able to lend me Crane’s "George's Mother". . . after ringing
up more than twenty new and second hand booksellers. Of Conrad I was most re-impressed by
"Under Western Eyes", "Nostromo" and the "Secret Agent"; of James the "Spoils of Poynton", the
"Wings of the Dove", the "Turn of the Screw" and a dozen short stories. I have also been reading
during a fortnight in Tennessee from which I have just returned, the "Agricultural Census" of the
United States, several lives of Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Boone, Crockett and minor Southern
Notabilities, the new (as yet unpublished) volume of poems by Allen Tate; the new (as yet
unpublished) novel of Robert Penn Warren—both these admirable; and a number of other works
in ms. Of lately published work I have vivid recollections of and admiration for “Aleck Maury,
Sportsman”, by Caroline Gordon, “Act of Darkness” by John Peale Bishop,” Walls Against the
Wind” by Frances Park, “Little Candle’s Beam” by Isa Glenn and Graham Greene’s “It’s a
Battlefield” and Arnold Gingrich’s “Cast Down the Laurel”.'
[Ford then indicates his intended shipboard reading between New York and Naples on the S.S.
"Roma" including Crane and W. H. Hudson over the next week or so.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford Print: Book
'I have lately re-read here the complete works of Conrad and Henry James and am engaged on
reading all the books of Stephen Crane that I can lay my hands on—for the to me astounding
fact is that the works of these three writers are here out of print and practically unobtainable,
such being glory! I had to borrow the Conrad and James from Doubleday and Scribner's
respectively and Knopf has only been able to lend me Crane’s "George's Mother". . . after ringing
up more than twenty new and second hand booksellers. Of Conrad I was most re-impressed by
"Under Western Eyes", "Nostromo" and the "Secret Agent"; of James the "Spoils of Poynton", the
"Wings of the Dove", the "Turn of the Screw" and a dozen short stories. I have also been reading
during a fortnight in Tennessee from which I have just returned, the "Agricultural Census" of the
United States, several lives of Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Boone, Crockett and minor Southern
Notabilities, the new (as yet unpublished) volume of poems by Allen Tate; the new (as yet
unpublished) novel of Robert Penn Warren—both these admirable; and a number of other works
in ms. Of lately published work I have vivid recollections of and admiration for “Aleck Maury,
Sportsman”, by Caroline Gordon, “Act of Darkness” by John Peale Bishop,” Walls Against the
Wind” by Frances Park, “Little Candle’s Beam” by Isa Glenn and Graham Greene’s “It’s a
Battlefield” and Arnold Gingrich’s “Cast Down the Laurel”.'
[Ford then indicates his intended shipboard reading between New York and Naples on the S.S.
"Roma" including Crane and W. H. Hudson over the next week or so.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford Print: Book
'I have lately re-read here the complete works of Conrad and Henry James and am engaged on
reading all the books of Stephen Crane that I can lay my hands on—for the to me astounding
fact is that the works of these three writers are here out of print and practically unobtainable,
such being glory! I had to borrow the Conrad and James from Doubleday and Scribner's
respectively and Knopf has only been able to lend me Crane’s "George's Mother". . . after ringing
up more than twenty new and second hand booksellers. Of Conrad I was most re-impressed by
"Under Western Eyes", "Nostromo" and the "Secret Agent"; of James the "Spoils of Poynton", the
"Wings of the Dove", the "Turn of the Screw" and a dozen short stories. I have also been reading
during a fortnight in Tennessee from which I have just returned, the "Agricultural Census" of the
United States, several lives of Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Boone, Crockett and minor Southern
Notabilities, the new (as yet unpublished) volume of poems by Allen Tate; the new (as yet
unpublished) novel of Robert Penn Warren—both these admirable; and a number of other works
in ms. Of lately published work I have vivid recollections of and admiration for “Aleck Maury,
Sportsman”, by Caroline Gordon, “Act of Darkness” by John Peale Bishop,” Walls Against the
Wind” by Frances Park, “Little Candle’s Beam” by Isa Glenn and Graham Greene’s “It’s a
Battlefield” and Arnold Gingrich’s “Cast Down the Laurel”.'
[Ford then indicates his intended shipboard reading between New York and Naples on the S.S.
"Roma" including Crane and W. H. Hudson over the next week or so.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford Print: Book
'I have lately re-read here the complete works of Conrad and Henry James and am engaged on
reading all the books of Stephen Crane that I can lay my hands on—for the to me astounding
fact is that the works of these three writers are here out of print and practically unobtainable,
such being glory! I had to borrow the Conrad and James from Doubleday and Scribner's
respectively and Knopf has only been able to lend me Crane’s "George's Mother". . . after ringing
up more than twenty new and second hand booksellers. Of Conrad I was most re-impressed by
"Under Western Eyes", "Nostromo" and the "Secret Agent"; of James the "Spoils of Poynton", the
"Wings of the Dove", the "Turn of the Screw" and a dozen short stories. I have also been reading
during a fortnight in Tennessee from which I have just returned, the "Agricultural Census" of the
United States, several lives of Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Boone, Crockett and minor Southern
Notabilities, the new (as yet unpublished) volume of poems by Allen Tate; the new (as yet
unpublished) novel of Robert Penn Warren—both these admirable; and a number of other works
in ms. Of lately published work I have vivid recollections of and admiration for “Aleck Maury,
Sportsman”, by Caroline Gordon, “Act of Darkness” by John Peale Bishop,” Walls Against the
Wind” by Frances Park, “Little Candle’s Beam” by Isa Glenn and Graham Greene’s “It’s a
Battlefield” and Arnold Gingrich’s “Cast Down the Laurel”.'
[Ford then indicates his intended shipboard reading between New York and Naples on the S.S.
"Roma" including Crane and W. H. Hudson over the next week or so.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford Print: Book
'Notes on Colossians'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Unknown
'Notes on Thessalonians'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Unknown
'David Watson, M.A. of St. Andrews University, used to spend every spare moment of his day
and whole Sundays on end with this writer [Ford] standing beside him at his pulpit and
construing for him every imaginable kind of book from “Ataxerxes” of Madame de Scudéry and
“Les Enfants de [sic] Capitaine Grant” by Jules Verne, to ode after ode of Tibullus, Fouqué’s
“Udine”, all of the “Inferno”, the greater part of “Lazarillo de Tormes” and “Don Quixote” in the
original[…]
In addition, Mr. Watson had this writer translate for him orally into French “The Two Admirals”,
“The Deerslayer”, and “The Last of the Mohicans”—which made this writer appreciate what a
magnificent prose writer Cooper was.’
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford Print: Book
'Lottie's kind of reading, though I could
manage
it, was not mine; it was usually fiction
conducive
of the domestic virtues. At the club, my father
discovered a number of volumes which to me were
very heaven. The author was Jules Verne. I was
quite convinced that he told the truth, and in
The
Mysterious Island (with an organ on a
submarine) I
lived in perfect joy and felicity. [...] He
eclipsed Marryat and Ballantyne and Kingston
for
me; and Henty never fully caught my attention.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Margaret Blunden Print: Book
