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

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Record Number: 8224


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Charles Shaw's dependance upon a small Sunday school library in Tunstall [...] imparted a magnificent if involuntary scope to his education: '"I read "Robinson Crusoe" and a few other favourite boys' books [...] After these the most readable I could find was Rollin's "Ancient History". His narratives opened a new world [...] [which] I regarded as remote from Tunstall and England as those other worlds I read of in Dick's "Christian Philosopher," which book I found in the library too ... Then I read Milton's "Paradise Lost", Klopstock's "Messiah", and later on, Pollock's "Course of Time", and Gilfillan's "Bards of the Bible".These books may look a strange assortment for a boy of fourteen or fifteen to read, but [...] they just happened to fall into my hands"'.

Century:

1800-1849

Date:

unknown

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Tunstall

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:

Charles Shaw

Age:

Child (0-17)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

n/a

Socio-Economic Group:

Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder

Occupation:

n/a

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:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

borrowed (institution library)


Source Information:

Record ID:

8224

Source:

Print

Author:

David Vincent

Editor:

n/a

Title:

Bread, Knowledge and Freedom: A Study of Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Autobiography

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1981

Vol:

n/a

Page:

119-20

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

David Vincent, Bread, Knowledge and Freedom: A Study of Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Autobiography, (London, 1981), p. 119-20, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=8224, accessed: 29 March 2024


Additional Comments:

Quotation from (Charles Shaw), When I Was a Child by An Old Potter (London, 1903) p.218.

   
   
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