Record Number: 32406

---

Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'I like last week's "Romance" by the Student in Arms very much - in some ways as much as the other, tho' perhaps you will not agree with me.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 4 Nov 1916 and 9 Nov 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:

Donald Hankey

Title:

'Romance'

Genre:

Autobiog / Diary, Reflection on the lives of privates and officers in the First World War

Form of Text:

Print: Serial / periodical

Publication Details

Article in 'The Spectator', vol. 117 (4 November 1916), pp.554-5

Provenance

unknown

---

Source Information:

Record ID:

32406

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:

251

Additional Comments:

From a letter to his father, 9 November 1916

Citation:

C. S. Lewis, Walter Hooper (ed.), C. S. Lewis Collected Letters, (London, 2000), 1, p. 251, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=32406, accessed: 04 May 2024

---

Additional Comments:

I have marked the provenance 'unknown' because no detail is given, but Lewis's father subscribed to 'The Spectator' and may have sent this copy to him. He had certainly done so three weeks before: 'Many thanks for the "Spectator" which I shall certainly keep...' (Letter to his father, 19 October 1916, v.1, p.237). In a footnote to the letter of 9 November, Hooper notes that the sentiments expressed by Hankey are very like those Lewis was later to hold: 'We men are never content! In the dull routine of normal life we sigh for Romance, and sometimes seek to create it artificially, stimulating spurious passions, plunging into muddy depths in search of it. Now we have got it we sigh for a quiet life. But some day those who have not died will say: "Thank God I have lived! I have loved, and endured, and trembled, and trembling, dared. I have had my romance."' (Last sentences of the essay, which was later published by Andrew Melrose as Chapter V of 'A Student in Arms', Second Series, 1917.