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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Record Number: 146


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Princess Charlotte wrote of reading as a "great passion"; in a poignant attempt to construct bourgeois domestic intimacy in the dysfunctional household of the divorced Prince Regent she discussed and exchanged books with her friend Margaret Mercer Elphinstone, including memoirs and recent history, Byron's poems, and novels including Gothic fiction and works by Anne Plumptre and Jane Austen. (The perceptive Charlotte especially enjoyed "Sense and Sensibility" because she discerned in herself"the same imprudence" as Marianne's).'

Century:

1800-1849

Date:

Between 1811 and 1817

Country:

n/a

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

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


Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Princess Charlotte

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

1796

Socio-Economic Group:

Royalty / aristocracy

Occupation:

n/a

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

n/a

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

n/a


Additional Comments:

n/a



Text Being Read:

Author:

Jane Austen

Title:

Sense and Sensibility

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown


Source Information:

Record ID:

146

Source:

Print

Author:

Jacqueline Pearson

Editor:

n/a

Title:

Women's Reading in Britain 1750-1835. A Dangerous Recreeation

Place of Publication:

Cambridge

Date of Publication:

1999

Vol:

n/a

Page:

181

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Jacqueline Pearson, Women's Reading in Britain 1750-1835. A Dangerous Recreeation, (Cambridge, 1999), p. 181, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=146, accessed: 19 March 2024


Additional Comments:

See Arthur Aspinall (ed.) "The Letters of the Princess Charlotte", 1811-1817 (1949). Charlotte also wrote, in response to "Sence and Sencibility" [sic]: 'I think Maryanne and me are very like in disposition.'

   
   
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