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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Record Number: 34029


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Thank you for "Punch" and all the letters of the last few days [...]. I send you a copy of today's "Statesman" since you care to read my stuff. If when you come up you can bring it with you I can post it to my sister and so escape the additional expense of another copy: I always keep one for myself to file. [...] Hardy is an artist—I'm just reading his "Changed Man", newly published; but what a pitiful creed was his, is his, compared with that of our grand old Wallace.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 7 Dec 1913 and 8 Dec 1913

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

city: London
specific address: 40 St Luke's Road

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:

William Henry Hudson

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

4 Aug 1841

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Field naturalist and author

Religion:

Protestant (Anglican) in childhood only

Country of Origin:

Argentina

Country of Experience:

England

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

n/a


Additional Comments:

n/a



Text Being Read:

Author:

Thomas Hardy

Title:

A Changed Man, the Waiting Supper and Other Tales: Concluding with the Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

New York: Harper, 1913

Provenance

unknown


Source Information:

Record ID:

34029

Source:

Print

Author:

William Henry Hudson

Editor:

Denis Shrubsall

Title:

The Unpublished Letters of W. H. Hudson, the First Literary Environmentalist, 1841-1922

Place of Publication:

Lewiston, N.Y.

Date of Publication:

2006

Vol:

2

Page:

481

Additional Comments:

Letter from Hudson to Margaret Brooke, Dowager Ranee of Sarawak, 8 November 1913, 40 St. Luke's Road, W. London

Citation:

William Henry Hudson, Denis Shrubsall (ed.), The Unpublished Letters of W. H. Hudson, the First Literary Environmentalist, 1841-1922, (Lewiston, N.Y., 2006), 2, p. 481, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=34029, accessed: 29 March 2024


Additional Comments:

This evidence is submitted in detail since it also provides information about the circulation of texts (Hudson's sister Mary Ellen lived in Argentina), attesting to the rich interchange of reading material, including periodicals, between Hudson and Lady Brooke (who regularly travelled up to London from Ascot, and exchanged several letters each week with Hudson); it also makes allusion to their undoubted repeated reading of the works of Alfred Russel Wallace who had died the day before. The actual reading experience reported here is however the Hardy volume of short stories and a novella which had appeared just the month before.

   
   
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