Record Number: 30416

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Meeting held at 7, Marlborough Avenue. 15th Jan, 1944     A. G. Joselin in the chair.

[...]

2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed

[...]

5. Howard Smith opened the evening on Shelley with a biographical sketch. [...]

6. We adjourned for refreshment[.]

7. F. E. Pollard read “Ode to the West Wind”

8. Margaret Dilks gave brief appreciation of Shelley’s poetry. This started a general discussion in which nearly all took part — whether he influenced or was influenced by his contempor[ar]ies , & what effect he had, if any, on future poets. On these questions opinion varied, but all agreed with F. E. Pollard that Shelley’s verse is supremely ‘poetical’.

9. To illustrate Shelley’s passion for liberty and reform Bruce Dilks read from “The Masque of Anarchy” which was inspired by the Peterloo Massacre in 1819.

10. Rosamund Wallis read some stanzas from “Adonais”. F. E. Pollard read a short poem entitled “A Lament”[.] Thus, our thoughts being with the departed, the meeting ended on a lighter note. One member quoted a touching little verse from the Berkshire Chronicle In Memoriam notices, which another capped by some lines written by a school-boy on the relative merits of perpetual roasting and eternal hymn-singing. Lines which gained the boy a severe reprimand from his head-master, and a ‘Fiver’ from his father.

[signed as a true record by] S A Reynolds 14/2/44'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

15 Jan 1944

Country:

England

Time

evening

Place:

city: Reading
county: Berkshire
specific address: 7, Marlborough Avenue

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary reactive unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Francis E. Pollard

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

1872

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Formerly schoolmaster, now occasional lecturer and supply teacher, and supported also by wife's unearned income

Religion:

Quaker or associated with the Friends

Country of Origin:

n/a

Country of Experience:

England

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

Members of the XII Book Club

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Title:

Ode to the West Wind

Genre:

Poetry

Form of Text:

Unknown

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

30416

Source:

Manuscript

Author:

Margaret Dilks

Title:

XII Book Club Minute Book, Vol. 4 (1944-1952)

Location:

private collection

Call No:

n/a

Page/Folio:

0-2

Additional Information:

Margaret Dilks was secretary to the XII Book Club from 1940 to 1970. It is inferred from this, and from the handwriting, that she was the author of this set of minutes.

Citation:

Margaret Dilks, XII Book Club Minute Book, Vol. 4 (1944-1952) , private collection, 0-2, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=30416, accessed: 25 April 2024

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Additional Comments:

Material by kind permission of the XII Book Club. For further information and permission to quote this source, contact the Reading Experience Database (http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/contacts.php).