Record Number: 17396

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 December 1844: 'The only work of Eugene Sue which I have read among those you ask about, is "Le Salamandre" [...] The only remarkable thing is the preface, in which [...] he says that to represent good people as successful in this world and rogues as unsuccessful would take away the chief argument for a future life. Now I really do hold that virtue, although not always prosperous, is yet upon the whole far happier than vice [...] I am quite sure that to represent systematically vice as fortunate, and goodness as wretched, tends to make selfish people vicious; and it is really wicked in Balzac to give one the pain he does in this way. In "Une Tenebreuse Affaire," for instance, I was so provoked with him for making Napoleon kill Michu and forgive those dolts of gentlemen, that I could have flung the book at his (Balzac's) head, if luckily that wonderful head had been within reach.'

Century:

1800-1849

Date:

unknown

Country:

England

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

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Mary Russell Mitford

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

16 Dec 1787

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Writer

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

England

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

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Honore de Balzac

Title:

Une tenebreuse affaire

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

17396

Source:

Print

Author:

n/a

Editor:

Philip Kelley and Scott Lewis

Title:

The Brownings' Correspondence

Place of Publication:

Winfield

Date of Publication:

1991

Vol:

9

Page:

261

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Philip Kelley and Scott Lewis (ed.), The Brownings' Correspondence, (Winfield, 1991), 9, p. 261, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=17396, accessed: 27 April 2024

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Additional Comments:

None