Record Number: 32402

---

Reading Experience:

Evidence:

(1) 'The book you refer to is "How to Form a Literary Taste" by Arnold Bennett: the edition is pretty but the book is not of any value. The very title — as if you set out to "learn" literature the way you learn golf — shews that the author is not a real book-lover but only a priggish hack. I never read any of his novels and I don't want to.' (2) 'As to Bennett's book, if a person was really a book-lover, however ignorant, he wouldn't go and look up a text book to see what to buy, as if literature was a subject to be learned like algebra: one thing would lead him to another & he would go through the usual mistakes and gain experience. I hate this idea of "forming a taste". If anyone like the feuilletons in the "Sketch" better than Spenser, for Heaven's sake let him read them: anything is better than to read things he doesn't really like because they are thought classical.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 19 Sep 1914 and 31 Oct 1916

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

Great Bookham
Surrey
'Gastons'

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

---

Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Clive Staples Lewis

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:

Arnold Bennett

Title:

Literary Taste: How to Form It with Detailed Instructions for Collecting a Complete Library of English Literature

Genre:

Textbook / self-education, Reference / General works

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

borrowed (other)
I think this was one of Mr Kirkpatrick's reference books

---

Source Information:

Record ID:

32402

Source:

Print

Author:

C. S. Lewis

Editor:

Walter Hooper

Title:

C. S. Lewis Collected Letters

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

2000

Vol:

1

Page:

240, 246

Additional Comments:

(1) From a letter to Arthur Greeves, 25 October 1916 (2) From a letter to the same, 1 November 1916 The date range begins with Lewis's arrival at Great Bookham

Citation:

C. S. Lewis, Walter Hooper (ed.), C. S. Lewis Collected Letters, (London, 2000), 1, p. 240, 246, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=32402, accessed: 03 May 2024

---

Additional Comments:

I think Lewis carried out his threat never to read any of Bennett's novels: not one of them is referred to anywhere in his correspondence. Nevertheless, I believe this despised work had a profound effect on Lewis's thought. More than forty years later he published 'An Experiment in Criticism' (Cambridge University Press, 1961) in which he concludes that: 'A ten or twenty years' abstinence both from the reading and from the writing of evaluative criticism might do us all a great deal of good.' (Chapter Xl, final sentence)