Record Number: 31882

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Meeting held at 39, Eastern Avenue: 24. 11. 39.
    A Bruce Dilks in the chair.

1. Minutes of last [two meetings] read & approved.

[...]

7. F. E. Pollard gave a brief introduction to American literature, introducing a large number of names including Benjamin Franklin, John Woolman, Tom Paine, Washington Irving, Fennimore Cooper, the poet Bryant, the historians Bancroft, Prescott and Motley, Louisa M. Alcott, Emerson, Longfellow & Whittier, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thoreau, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Hermann Dick, J. R. Lowell, Walt Whitman, Henry Hames, Winston Churchill, O. Henry, & Mark Twain. He attempted very briefly to assess the place of these & some others.

8. C. E. Stansfield read from the Autocrat at the Breakfast Table an extract in praise of Meerschaums, Violins & Poems. We felt from the caressing tones of his voice that like the Autocrat he gave pride of place to the Meerschaums.

9. A. B. Dilks, after a brief reference to the career and mystical experience of Walt Whitman read from his Poems on the Sea.

10. R. D. L. Moore read a dramatic passage from the ‘Bridge of San Luis Rey[’], describing the last hours of Brother Juniper.

11 We were, finally, introduced to Babbitt – those of us who had not previously met him — by R. H. Robson. We were suitably amused at the manner in which St.Clair Lewis makes his hero rise and shave.


[signed] R. D. L. Moore
19.XII.39'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

19 Dec 1939

Country:

England

Time

evening

Place:

city: Reading
county: Berkshire
specific address: School House, Leighton Park School

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:

Roger Moore

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

n/a

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

n/a

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

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Victor Alexander

Title:

Minutes of the meeting of the XII Book Club held 24 November 1939

Genre:

Minutes

Form of Text:

Manuscript: Unknown, Notebook

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

reading group

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Source Information:

Record ID:

31882

Source:

Manuscript

Author:

Victor Alexander

Title:

XII Book Club Minute Book, Vol. 4 (1938-1943)

Location:

private collection

Call No:

n/a

Page/Folio:

49–51

Additional Information:

Victor Alexander’s authorship is inferred from the fact that he was secretary to the XII Book Club at this time, and from the handwriting.

Citation:

Victor Alexander, XII Book Club Minute Book, Vol. 4 (1938-1943), private collection, 49–51, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=31882, accessed: 24 April 2024

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Additional Comments:

This is the reading, possibly brief and cursory, implied by the Chair's act of signing these minutes. It probably followed immediately after listening to the public reading of the minutes by the Secretary.
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).