Record Number: 12912

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

[Carlyle tells how he was trying to write a learned exegesis and came to a dead halt] 'One cannot long be idle - you will not wonder that I took up the first book that came in my way - and tho' it was the dullest of all dull books, yet by a fatality attendant on those things, I could not give it up. It purported to be a "history of a lover" - showing how Cecilia (somebody) being poor but honest went to Paris, with some Brandy Irish Dowager (of Tipperary) and was much astounded at their goings on - yet very much liked by the beaux. Shewing how after divers trials and temptations she married with a lord (something) who had been a very great rascal in his early days but was now become a most delectable personage; how the[y] lived in great harmony of souls till the honest man one day riding on som[e] wold and happening to fall from his beast in the presence of this notable lady, she fell into hystericks or convulsions and was taken home in a wo[e]ful plight - where she loitered on till she was "brought to bed", when she took her leave of the good man and all the world - Would you believe me, I read & read this horrid story & might have been reading yet had not a most dolorous ode to Matrimonial - no "Monody on the Death of a beloved" &c compelled me to throw past the book; and set to writing you a letter.'

Century:

1800-1849

Date:

24 Mar 1815

Country:

Scotland

Time

n/anight

Place:

city: Annan

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Thomas Carlyle

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

4 Dec 1795

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

teacher, later man of letters

Religion:

Christian

Country of Origin:

Scotland

Country of Experience:

Scotland

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

[unknown]

Title:

[unknown novel]

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

12912

Source:

Print

Author:

n/a

Editor:

Charles Richard Sanders

Title:

The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle

Place of Publication:

Durham, NC

Date of Publication:

1970

Vol:

I

Page:

42

Additional Comments:

Letter to Robert Mitchell

Citation:

Charles Richard Sanders (ed.), The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, (Durham, NC, 1970), I, p. 42, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=12912, accessed: 19 March 2025

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Additional Comments:

editors suggest this was a novel by a Maria Edgeworth imitator.