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

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Record Number: 21836


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'His books, over three hundred of which are preserved as he left them in 1918, show the range - and limitations - of his interests at school and later. Shakespeare, Scott, Keats and Dickens predominate, but he also worked on Milton, several eighteenth-century authors, and some Elizabethan and late Medieval poets. About two thirds of his library can be classified as "English literature", including biographies of at least twenty authors [explanatory sentence about dominance of biography not criticism in those days]. There are also nearly fifty books in or about French, a high proportion for someone of Owen's respectable but ordinary educational background. the rest are mostly botany, history and classics. The imprints are often those of the popular "libraries" of the time - Everyman's Library, the People's Books, the Home University Library, Penny Poets - cheap editions aimed at the growing market of young people like himself who were keen on self-improvement'.

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 1 Jan 1907 and 4 Nov 1918

Country:

England or France

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:

Wilfred Owen

Age:

Unknown

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

18 Mar 1893

Socio-Economic Group:

Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder

Occupation:

schoolboy, lay cleric, later soldier and poet

Religion:

Christian

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

England or France

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

n/a


Additional Comments:

n/a



Text Being Read:

Author:

John Milton

Title:

n/a

Genre:

Poetry

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

probably a cheap edition

Provenance

owned


Source Information:

Record ID:

21836

Source:

Print

Author:

Dominic Hibberd

Editor:

n/a

Title:

Owen the Poet

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke

Date of Publication:

1986

Vol:

n/a

Page:

4

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Dominic Hibberd, Owen the Poet, (Basingstoke, 1986), p. 4, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=21836, accessed: 02 November 2024


Additional Comments:

None

   
   
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