Record Number: 29024

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'It was during all these years that he [Conrad] read. Men at sea read an inordinate amount.[...] A large percentage of the letters received by writers from readers come from sailors either in the King's or the merchant service.[...]. It was Conrad's great good luck to be spared the usual literature that attends on the upringing of the British writer. He read such dog-eared books as are found in the professional quarters of ships' crews. He read Mrs. Henry Wood, Miss Braddon — above all Miss Braddon! — the "Family Herald", rarely even going as high as the late William Black or the pseudoliterary writers of his day.[...] Normally he would express the deepest gratitude to the writers of the "Family Herald" — a compilation of monthly novelettes the grammar of which was very efficiently censored by its sub-editors — and above all to Miss Braddon.[...]. Long after this period of seamanship Conrad read "The Orange Girl", a novel placed in the time of Charles II. He recognised in it, so he then said, all the qualities he had found in this novelist's work when he had been before the mast.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

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:

Joseph Conrad

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

3 Dec 1857

Socio-Economic Group:

Gentry
'Szlachta', or Polish landed gentry/nobility

Occupation:

Master mariner and author

Religion:

Roman Catholic

Country of Origin:

Poland

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:

Walter Besant

Title:

The Orange Girl

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

first published Chatto and Windus 1898, many subsequent editions

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

29024

Source:

Print

Author:

Ford Madox Ford (Hueffer)

Editor:

n/a

Title:

Joseph Conrad: A Personal Remembrance

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1924

Vol:

n/a

Page:

92-94

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Ford Madox Ford (Hueffer), Joseph Conrad: A Personal Remembrance, (London, 1924), p. 92-94, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=29024, accessed: 29 April 2024

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Additional Comments:

Ford is mistaken, this novel was not written by Mrs Braddon. See also Susan Jones, '"Stepping out of the narrow frame": Conrad's "Suspense" and the novel of sensation', Review of English Studies, 49 (1998), 306-321.