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

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Record Number: 20036


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 29 July 1911: 'I have been reading Kipling's child's history of England with mingled joy and disgust. It's a fine conception, but oh is it necessary to build character on a psychological untruth? In other words to teach the young citizen that he is absolutely unlike the young German or the young Bashahari -- that foreigners are envious and treacherous, Englishmen, through some freak of God, never --? Kipling and all that school know it's an untruth at the bottom of their hearts -- as untrue as it is unloveable. But, for the sake of patriotism, they lie. It is despairing [...] 'I couldn't on the other hand read the New Machiavelli, finding it too fretful and bumptious, and very inartistic, but must try again -- the more so as Wells, in an article in Le Temps has mentioned me among the authors qui meritent etre mieux connus en France [...] The best novels I have come across in the past year are Rosalind Murray's The Leading Note [...] and Wedgwood's Shadow of a Titan -- unfortunately written in an affected and unreadable style.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 1 Jul 1911 and 29 Jul 1911

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:

Edward Morgan Forster

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

1 Jan 1879

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Writer

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:

Rudyard Kipling

Title:

Puck of Pook's Hill

Genre:

Fiction, History, Children's Lit

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

1906

Provenance

unknown


Source Information:

Record ID:

20036

Source:

Print

Author:

E. M. Forster

Editor:

Mary Lago and P. N. Furbank

Title:

Selected Letters of E. M. Forster

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1983

Vol:

1

Page:

123-124; 123

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

E. M. Forster, Mary Lago and P. N. Furbank (ed.), Selected Letters of E. M. Forster, (London, 1983), 1, p. 123-124; 123, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=20036, accessed: 28 March 2024


Additional Comments:

Text identified by source eds.

   
   
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