Record Number: 28010

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

Aaron Hill to Samuel Richardson, 29 December 1740: 'We have a lively little boy in the family [...] quite unfriended, and born to no prospect. He is the son of an honest, poor soldier [...] the boy [...] is so pretty, so gentle, and gay-spirited, that we have made him, and designed him, our own, ever since he could totter and aim at words [...] He is an hourly foundation for laughter [...] ever since my first reading of Pamela, he puts in for a right to be one of her hearers; and, having got half her sayings by heart, talks in no other language but hers; and what really surprises, and has charmed me into a certain foretaste of her influence, he is, at once, become fond of his books, which (before) he could never be brought to attend to -- that he may read Pamela, he says, without stopping. The first discovery we made of this power, over so unripe and unfixed an attention, was one evening, when I was reading her reflections at the pond to some company. The little rampant intruder [...] had crept under my chair, and was sitting before me on the carpet [...] on a sudden we heard a succession of heart-wrenching sobs, which, while he strove to conceal from our notice, his little sides swelled as though they would burst [...] All the ladies in the company were ready to devour him with kisses, and he has since become doubly a favourite, and is, perhaps, the youngest of Pamela's conquests.'

Century:

1700-1799

Date:

Between 17 Sep 1740 and 29 Dec 1740

Country:

n/a

Time

evening

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:

Aaron Hill

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

n/a

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Writer

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

n/a

Country of Experience:

n/a

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

Included Harry Campbell (aged c. 6 years old), and 'ladies.'

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Samuel Richardson

Title:

Pamela

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

28010

Source:

Print

Author:

n/a

Editor:

Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Title:

The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson [...] Selected from the Original Manuscripts Bequeathed by him to his Family

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1804

Vol:

1

Page:

56-58

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Anna Laetitia Barbauld (ed.), The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson [...] Selected from the Original Manuscripts Bequeathed by him to his Family, (London, 1804), 1, p. 56-58, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=28010, accessed: 19 April 2024

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Additional Comments:

Child listener named at p.63 and 71 in source.