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
'music, "Arabian Nights", and Darwin.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes Print: Book
'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
'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
'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
'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 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 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
'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
'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
'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
'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. 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
'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
'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