Record Number: 32387
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
'I should advise you to get the 2/6 volume containing Milton's minor poems, which I am now reading.... I am at "Comus", which is an absolute dream of delight. I am sure you would love it: it is like a play written on an episode from the Faerie Queene, all magic and distressed ladies and haunted woods.'
Century:1900-1945
Date:Between 18 Sep 1916 and 12 Oct 1916
Country:England
Timen/a
Place:Great Bookham
Surrey
'Gastons'
(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: Age:Child (0-17)
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:29 Nov 1898
Socio-Economic Group:Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation:Student
Religion:Church of England
Country of Origin:Northern Ireland
Country of Experience:England
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:Paradise Regained
Genre:Drama, Poetry, Biblical epic
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication DetailsEdited by F. E. Bumby
Provenanceowned
Source Information:
Record ID:32387
Source:C. S. Lewis
Editor:Walter Hooper
Title:C. S. Lewis Collected Letters
Place of Publication:London
Date of Publication:2000
Vol:1
Page:225
Additional Comments:
From a letter to Arthur Greeves, 27 September 1916. in a letter to Greeves dated 12 October 1916 he writes:'"Comus" being finished', giving an endpoint to the date range. He does not refer to any of the other poems in the book.
Citation:
C. S. Lewis, Walter Hooper (ed.), C. S. Lewis Collected Letters, (London, 2000), 1, p. 225, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=32387, accessed: 03 November 2024
Additional Comments:
This reading was not part of Lewis's formal study, but one of his 'week-end books' (Letter to Greeves, 12 October 1916, v.1, p. 232). His studies, which he loved, were purely literary; nevertheless, in the same letter, he remarks 'that I read seriously only on week-ends'! Hooper gives the publication date as 1910 and the editor as F. E. Bumby, but the British Library Calalogue's sole entry for this edition is in the Harrap Library series and dated 1927. Bumby was a lecturer in English at University College Nottingham from 1898 until 1917, so an edition published in 1910 is quite plausible.