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

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Record Number: 5380


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

"And how fared the growth of this child's mind the while? Thanks to the care of his mother, who had sent him to the penny school, he had learnt to read, and the desire to read had been awakened. Books, however, were very scarce. The Bible and Bunyan were the principle; he committed many chapters of the former to memory, and accepted all Bunyan's allegory as bona fide history. Afterwards, he obtained access to 'Robinson Crusoe', a few old Wesleyan magazines and some battle histories. These constituted his sole reading, until he came up to London, at the age of fifteen, as an errand boy."

Century:

1800-1849

Date:

Between 1828 and 1833

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

county: Middlesex

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:

Gerald Massey

Age:

Child (0-17)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

29 May 1828

Socio-Economic Group:

Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder

Occupation:

Chartist poet and prose writer

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

England

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

n/a


Additional Comments:

n/a



Text Being Read:

Author:

Daniel Defoe

Title:

Robinson Crusoe

Genre:

Other religious, Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown


Source Information:

Record ID:

5380

Source:

Print

Author:

Gerald Massey

Editor:

Samuel Smiles

Title:

Poetical Works

Place of Publication:

n/a

Date of Publication:

1861

Vol:

n/a

Page:

xi

Additional Comments:

The quotation comes from Samuel Smiles' introduction to Massey's "Poetical Works", entitled "A Biographical Sketch of Gerald Massey, 1851 (when he was only 23)".

Citation:

Gerald Massey, Samuel Smiles (ed.), Poetical Works, (1861), p. xi, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=5380, accessed: 28 March 2024


Additional Comments:

None

   
   
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