Switch to English Switch to French

The Open University  |   Study at the OU  |   About the OU  |   Research at the OU  |   Search the OU

Listen to this page  |   Accessibility

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

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Record Number: 19366


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'You can't think how much I shall value Fireside Travels, (which only reached me during this past week,) now that I have got it of my "very very own" (as the children say,) and with that charming little bit of writing from you at the beginning. I don't mean that I did not delight in the book from the very first time I read a page in it; but the sense of property in it gives a double value, and the sense of successful beggary is very charming, though perhaps I ought to be ashamed. Only I am [italics] not [end italics], because I [italics] am [end italics] successful. I have known you so long! I knew serious poems of yours long ago, - twenty years or so; but my personal knowledge of you began in Rome 1857, - when (did you know it?) you and one other went about with the dear Storys, and me and mine up and down Rome [in the sense, it seems, that Charles Eliot Norton spoke much of Lowell - this is elaborated on...] Well then the Bigelow papers - I think I could stand a Civil Service Examination in them; and we had three copies of our own, till a little daughter married, and carried off one.'

Century:

1850-1899

Date:

Between 1 Jan 1845 and 8 Sep 1865

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


Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

29 Sep 1810

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

writer and clergyman's wife

Religion:

Unitarian

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

England

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

n/a


Additional Comments:

n/a



Text Being Read:

Author:

James R. Lowell

Title:

Biglow Papers, The

Genre:

Fiction, Politics, satire

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

owned


Source Information:

Record ID:

19366

Source:

Print

Author:

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Editor:

J.A.V. Chapple

Title:

Letters of Mrs Gaskell, The

Place of Publication:

Manchester

Date of Publication:

1997

Vol:

n/a

Page:

775-6

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, J.A.V. Chapple (ed.), Letters of Mrs Gaskell, The, (Manchester, 1997), p. 775-6, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=19366, accessed: 02 June 2024


Additional Comments:

Additional editor, Arthur Pollard. Letter from Mrs Gaskell to James R. Lowell.

   
   
Green Turtle Web Design