'While he read little but the Bible and religious periodicals, his son was working his way through the Rhymney Workmen's Institute Library and Cassell's National Library of 3d paperbacks. MacAulay's essays, Goldsmith's History of England, Far from the Madding Crowd, Self-Help, Josephus, Plutarch, Shakespeare, Pepys, Johnson's Lives of the Poets, and The Sorrows of Young Werther were among the books Jones read, often on his employer's time. (He hid them under the ledger at the Rhymney Iron Works, where he worked a thirteen hour day as a timekeeper for 9s. a week.)'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Jones Print: Book
"On 27 Feb. 1799, W[ordsworth] told [S. T.] C[oleridge] that 'My internal prejudge[ments con]cerning Wieland and Goethe ... were ... the result of no negligent perusal of the different fragments which I had seen in England.'"
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Manuscript: Unknown
'like the great man [Carlyle] himself, [Mary Smith] studied Fichte, Schiller and Goethe'.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Smith Print: Book
Byron to John Murray, 12 October 1817: 'I heard Mr. Lewis translate verbally some scenes of Goethe's Faust ... last Summer ...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Matthew Gregory Lewis
Byron to John Murray, 7 June 1820: '[Goethe's] Faust I never read -- for I don't know German -- but Matthew Monk Lewis in 1816 at Coligny translated most of it to me viva voce ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Matthew Gregory Lewis Print: Book
Byron's Ravenna Journal (4 January-27 February 1821), 12 January 1821: 'I have read ... much less of Goethe, and Schiller, and Wieland, than I could wish. I only know them through the medium of English, French, and Italian translations.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 22 July 1823, thanking him for 'lines' forwarded by Charles Sterling and received at Leghorn: ' ... [I] arrived here ... this morning ... here ... I found your lines ... and I could not have had a more favourable Omen or more agreeable surprise than a word from Goethe written by his own hand.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Letter
'"One advantage of leaving school at an early age is that one can study subjects of your own choice", wrote Frank Argent, son of a Camberwell labourer. Taking advantage of the public library and early Penguins, he ranged all over the intellectual landscape: Freudian psychology, industrial administration, English literature, political history, Blake, Goethe, Mill, Nietzsche, The Webbs, Bertrand Russell's Essays in Scepticism, and Spengler's "The Decline of the West".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frank Argent Print: Book
'Bookbinder Frederick Rogers read Faust "through from beginning to end, not because I was able at sixteen to appreciate Goethe, but because I was interested in the Devil". Moving on to Don Quixote, "I did not realise its greatness till long after; but its stories of adventure and its romance and humour appealed to me strongly enough".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Rogers Print: Book
Leon Edel, introducing Henry James's letters from 1869-70: " [James] traveled in 1869, reading Goethe, Stendhal, the President de Brosses and Hawthorne."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
'In the morning I partly condensed Liszt's article on Meyerbeer for the Vivian paper. In the evening walked and read aloud the Wahlverwandtschaften.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Began to read Egmont after dinner, then "The Hoggarty Diamond".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Bad headache all day. Gross Cophta in the evening. Looked through Moore's Life of Sheridan in the morning - a first rate specimen of bad biographical writing'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'I read Gotz in the morning. In the afternoon, Liszt, the Marquis de Ferriere and Mr Marshall sat with us. Walked, read the "Burgergeneral", and chatted with Mr M. again in the evening.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Began translating Spinoza's Ethics... Read Wilhelm Meister aloud in the evening'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'In the evening we went to Spargnapini's, and had some chocolate and read the papers. G. finished reading allowed (sic) the Merchant of Venice, and I the first vol. of Wilhelm Meister'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Began the Italianische Reise.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Italianische Reise - Residence in Naples. Pretty passage about a star seen through a chink in the ceiling as he lay in bed. G. read Henry IV'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Hermann and Dorothea - 4 first books. G read 2nd Part of Henry IV'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'I began to read aloud the Wanderjahre'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Came home and copied Goethe's discourse on Shakespeare. Read, at dinner, his wonderful observations on Spinoza. Particularly struck with the beautiful modesty of the passage in which he says he cannot presume to say that he thoroughly understands Spinoza. After coffee read aloud G's M.S. of the Leipsic and beginning of the Strasburg Period. G. finished Lear - sublimely powerful!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Came home and copied Goethe's discourse on Shakespeare. Read, at dinner, his wonderful observations on Spinoza. Particularly struck with the beautiful modesty of the passage in which he says he cannot presume to say that he thoroughly understands Spinoza. After coffee read aloud G's M.S. of the Leipsic and beginning of the Strasburg Period. G. finished Lear - sublimely powerful!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read at dinner Goethe's account of his relations with Herder at Strasburg in Dichtung und Warheit. Continued aloud Heine's Salon. G. read Knight's studies of Shakspeare. Twaddling in the extreme'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read Goethe's "Maxims in the Wanderjahre". Then we compared several scenes of "Hamlet" in Schlegel's translation with the original. It is generally very close and often admirably done but Shakespeare's strong concrete language is almost always weakened'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Finished the poetry of the West-Ostliche Divan'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Tried reading the 2nd part of Faust aloud, but gave it up, as it was too difficult for G. to follow it rapidly enough. Read a little of Gervinus on Shakespeare, but found it unsatisfactory. Read some of Stahr's "Ein Jahr in Italien". The description of Florence excellent'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read the wondrously beautiful "Romische Elegien" again and some of the Venetian epigrams. G. began Winter's Tale'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Read the wondrously beautiful "Romische Elegien" again and some of the Venetian epigrams. G. began Winter's Tale'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'In the evening... read the "Zueignung" to the "Gedichte" and several of the Ballads'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
Fanny Kemble, journal letter to Harriet St. Leger, 27 June 1835, listing 'the books just now lying on my table, all of which I have been reading lately':
'Alfieri's "Life", by himself, a curious and interesting work; Washington Irving's last book, "A Tour on the Prairies", rather an ordinary book, upon a not ordinary subject, but not without sufficiently interesting matter in it too; Dr. Combe's "Principles of Physiology"; and a volume of Marlowe's plays, containing "Dr. Faustus". I have just finished Hayward's Translation of Goethe's "Faust", and wanted to see the old English treatment of the subject. I have read Marlowe's play with more curiosity than pleasure. This is, after all, but a small sample of what I read, but if you remember the complexion of my studies when I was a girl at Heath Farm and read Jeremy Taylor and Byron together, I can only say that they are still apt to be of the same heterogenous quality. But my brain is kept in a certain state of activity by them, and that, I suppose, is one of the desirable results of reading.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Kemble Print: Book
'Read Comte and began Hermann and Dorothea'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'Willie first read Goethe's "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister" (later the subject of a major essay) in Heidelberg'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham Print: Book
'Willie first read Goethe's "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister" (later the subject of a major essay) in Heidelberg'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham Print: Book
Harriet Martineau on German studies continued during stay in Kent: 'There I refreshed myself among pretty scenery, fresh air, and pleasant drives [...] and with the study of Faust at night'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'at ten o'clock yesterday evening little Jem Parsons (the cabin boy), and his friend the black terrier, came on deck, and sat themselves on a gun-carriage, to read by the light of the moon. I looked at the boy's book, (the terrier, I suppose, read over the other's shoulder,) and found that it was "The Sorrows of Werter". I asked who had lent him such a book, and whether it amused him? He said that it had been made a present to him, and so he had read it almost through, for he had got to Werter's dying; though, to be sure, he did not understand it all, nor like very much what he understood; for he thought the man a great fool for killing himself for love. I told him I thought that every man a great fool who killed himself for love or for any thing else: but he had no books but "The Sorrows of Werter"? - oh dear yes, he said, he had a great many more; but he had got "The Adventures of a Louse", which was a very curious book, indeed; and he had got besides "The Recess", and "Valentine and Orson", and "Roslin Castle", and a book of Prayers, just like the Bible; but he could not but say that he liked "The Adventures of a Louse" the best of any of them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jem Parsons Print: Book
'Except a brief visit to Ruthwell, I have scarcely been from home since my arrival - my excursions in the world of literature have scarcely been wider... With respect to Goethe's "Faust" - if I were at your side you should hear of nothing else for many hours; and sorry am I that your brows will suddenly contract - if I give free scope to my notions even by this imperfect vehicle.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'[Tuesday] May 29th. [...] Read the 1st Letter in Leiden von Werther.'
[Also records reading this text on 31 May 1821, and on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 June].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday Oct [...] 17th. [...] Begin Faust by Goethe [goes on to quote part i lines 590-593 and
lines 602-605 from this]'
[readings in this text also recorded in journal entries for 18, 19, 21 ('Read Faust all day'), 23
October 1821].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday March 9th. [...] Translate [...] a little of the life of Goethe.'
[readings/translation/copying of translation from this text also recorded in journal entries for 11,
12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 March 1822, and 3, 7, 8, 10 April].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrrett to Lady Margaret Cocks, 19 August 1837:
'I scarcely ever do anything -- in the way of [italics]business[end italics] I mean -- except
writing [...] even the German has not been studied or looked at much -- except a few
tragedies of Schiller's & Goethe's seen by glimpses. Of these, I like Jean better than Mary
Stuart, & him of the Iron hand less than Egmont'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrrett to Lady Margaret Cocks, 19 August 1837:
'I scarcely ever do anything -- in the way of [italics]business[end italics] I mean -- except
writing [...] even the German has not been studied or looked at much -- except a few
tragedies of Schiller's & Goethe's seen by glimpses. Of these, I like Jean better than Mary
Stuart, & him of the Iron hand less than Egmont'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'I am staggering through Goethe as fast as I can - that is very slowly - Schiller was nothing to this - Goe[z] puzzled me so excessively that I thought it adviseable to let it alone for a little and try something else - I chose Stella as I had read it in french and with great difficulty I have got through it and part of Clavigo - I do not think I shall like Goethe much unless he improves greatly-'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: Book
'I am staggering through Goethe as fast as I can - that is very slowly - Schiller was nothing to this - Goe[z] puzzled me so excessively that I thought it adviseable to let it alone for a little and try something else - I chose Stella as I had read it in french and with great difficulty I have got through it and part of Clavigo - I do not think I shall like Goethe much unless he improves greatly-'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: Book
'I have finished the second volume of Gibbon the article on Christianity is real capital - Goethe gets no easier. I am near the end of Egmont which I like infinitely better than then two following pieces - At last I am begnining to recognise the Goethe you admire -'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: Book
'The other afternoon, as I was lying dozing in a brown study after dinner, a lord's lackey knocked at the door and delivered me a little blue parcel, requiring for it a ntoe of delivery. I opened it, and found two pretty stitched little books, and a letter from - Goethe! I copy it from the fractur [Gothic script] hand it was written in, and send it for your edification. The patriarchal style of it pleases me much.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Manuscript: Letter
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, 15 January 1846:
'Papa used to say .. "Dont read Gibbon's history -- it's not a proper book -- Dont read "Tom Jones" -- & none of the books on [italics]this[end italics] side, mind -- So I was very obedient & never touched the books on [italics]that[end italics] side, & only read instead, Tom Paine's Age of Reason, & Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, & Hume's Essays, & Werther, & Rousseau, & Mary Woolstonecraft [sic] .. books, which I was never suspected of looking towards, & which were not "on [italics]that[end italics] side" certainly, but which did as well.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Print: Book
The Hon. Stephen Spring Rice to Alfred Tennyson, 27 November 1833:
'I have read Wilhelm Meister for the first time, with which I find as many faults and beauties as every one does.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: The Hon. Stephen Spring Rice Print: Book
'[from] April 25th [...] [Tennyson] "copied out 'Maud' for the press, and read 'The Lady of the Lake,' having just finished Goethe's 'Helena.'"'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
Alfred Tennyson to Lady Augusta Bruce, 12 May 1863, after being sent an 'Album' belonging to Queen Victoria, with the request that he write something in it before returning it:
'I had not time yesterday to overlook the volume which Her Majesty sent me. I did but see the inscription in the beginning by the Duchess of Kent and Goethe's "Edel sei der Mensch" in the Prince's handwriting -- a poem which has always appeared to me one of the grandest things which Goethe or any other man has written.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Manuscript: Unknown, Written by Prince Albert into Album belonging to Queen Victoria.
From F. T. Palgrave's 'Personal Recollections' of Tennyson:
'Tennyson often spoke of Goethe, in regard to his poetry. Much might be inferior: but as a lyrist certain pieces put him in the first rank. Among these favourites, which he gladly would read, were the "Nachgefuhl": "Der Abschied," admired for its exquisite tenderness: he had les larmes dans la voix by the time he reached the second stanza [...] and perhaps even more did he prize the beautiful song "An den Mond," where I find he has in my copy tremulously pencil-marked the last two stanzas'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
From F. T. Palgrave's 'Personal Recollections' of Tennyson:
'Tennyson often spoke of Goethe, in regard to his poetry. Much might be inferior: but as a lyrist certain pieces put him in the first rank. Among these favourites, which he gladly would read, were the "Nachgefuhl": "Der Abschied," admired for its exquisite tenderness: he had les larmes dans la voix by the time he reached the second stanza [...] and perhaps even more did he prize the beautiful song "An den Mond," where I find he has in my copy tremulously pencil-marked the last two stanzas'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
From F. T. Palgrave's 'Personal Recollections' of Tennyson:
'Tennyson often spoke of Goethe, in regard to his poetry. Much might be inferior: but as a lyrist certain pieces put him in the first rank. Among these favourites, which he gladly would read, were the "Nachgefuhl": "Der Abschied," admired for its exquisite tenderness: he had les larmes dans la voix by the time he reached the second stanza [...] and perhaps even more did he prize the beautiful song "An den Mond," where I find he has in my copy tremulously pencil-marked the last two stanzas'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
From F. T. Palgrave's 'Personal Recollections' of Tennyson:
'Tennyson often spoke of Goethe, in regard to his poetry [...] Another poem, valued for its stately beauty and tender feeling for a friend, was that upon Schiller's skull; which he read out in the Inn at York (1853)'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, December 1896 - March 1897, taken from his list of books requested and then sent by his friends. Source author notes that Wilde read and re-read everything available to him in prison. 'Gaston de Latour by Walter Pater, MA (Macmillan), Milman's History of Latin Christianity, Wordsworth's Complete Works in one volume with preface by John Morley (Macmillan, 7/6), Matthew Arnold's Poems. One volume complete. (Macmillan, 7/6), Dante and other Essays by Dean Church (Macmillan, 5/-), Percy's Reliques, Hallam's Middle Ages (History of), Dryden's Poems (1 vol. Macmillan. 3/6), Burns's Poems ditto, Morte D'Arthur ditto, Froissart's Chronicles ditto, Buckle's History of Civilisation, Marlowe's Plays, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (edited by A. Pollard 2 vols 10/-) Macmillan, Introduction to Dante by John Addington Symonds, Companion to Dante by A.J. Butler, Miscellaneous Essays by Walter Pater, An English translation of Goethe's Faust'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
'With my own share of the Packet I feel not less contented. Especially glad was I to find my old favourite the Wanderjahre so considerably enlarged: the new portions of the Book it was my very first business to read; and I can already discover no little matter for reflexion in that wonderful Makarie, and the many other extensions, and new tendencies, which that most beautiful of all Fragments has hereby acquired.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'The Farbenlehre [The Theory (or Science) of Colour], which you are so good as to offer me, I have never seen, and shall thankfully accept, and study, it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to her publisher, W. S. Williams, 10 September 1849:
'You are right about Goethe [...] he is clear, deep, but very cold. I acknowledge him great, but cannot feel him genial.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
'The sergeant of the guard one day asked me to lend him a book to read. I said I was afraid I'd nothing he'd care for, but I'd look. This was my Detention Cell Library: Fellowship Hymn Book and Weymouth; Rauschenbusch Christianity and the Social Crisis; The Meaning of Prayer, The Manhood of the Master, and Prayers for Students (S.C.M.); Otto's and Hugo's German grammars; Luther's Testament, and Goethe's Faust!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Corder Pettifor Catchpool Print: Book
'He had a pretty full translation of Schiller's Aesthetic Letters. which we read together, as well as the second part of Faust.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Unknown
'Hermann und Dorothea'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Good Print: Book
