'Farell Lee Bevan's Peep of Day (759,000 copies in print by 1888) supplied him with the frame of a totalistic religious ideology: "It was from these pages that I got my first idea of the moral foundations of the universe, was handed the first key with which to unlock the mysteries of the world in which I found myself. These little books served the purpose of an index or filing system; a framework of iron dogma, if you like, providing an orderly arrangement of the world and its history for the young mind, under two main categories, Good and Evil". But Jones also attended a board school, where he found "salvation" in an old cupboard of books presented by the local MP. They were mainly volumes of voyages and natural history, "which took a Rhymney boy away into the realms of wonder over the seas to the Malay Archipelago, to Abyssinia, to the sources of the Nile and the Albert Nyanza, to the curiosities of natural history, piloted by James Bruce, Samuel Baker and Frank Buckland".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Jones Print: Book
[Sunday, on a bike picnic] 'It began to pour down just as B [unidentified] and I reached a barn... so we stayed there to eat, and curled up on rugs on mouldy straw, and I read "Jerusalem under the High Priests"! Arrived in at 6:30 totally soaked! Maccy [later the cookery writer Jane Grigson] has a tiny book of Shakespeare's Sonnets which I must try and get - they are most lovely and very interesting and soothing.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
E. Fry writes to her husband and daughter, Rachel, of the death of her sister, Priscilla Gurney, dated 25 Mar 1821: 'In the morning she appeared very full of love - put out her hand to several of us - showed much pleasure in your uncle Buxton's being here, and tried to speak to him but could not be understood - expressed her wish for reading, and from her feeling of love and fondness for the chapter and some signs, we believed she meant the thirteenth of 1 Corinthians, and we had a very sweet animating time together, and afterwards our dear brother Fowell spoke very sweetly to her; and besides the Bible she appeared to have some satisfaction in hearing other books read, as it has been her habit during her illness, just like mine when ill ... though she confined it to religious books, yet many of these were of an interesting nature; her hymns [Selection of Hymns, by P. Gurney] interested her much - she liked Samuel Scott's Diary - Piety Promoted - Accounts of the Missions - Watts and How - and many other books of that description ... I think her object in reading was gentle amusement and at times edification - she was very particular not to read the Bible except she felt herself in rather a lively state'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Priscilla Gurney Print: Book
'Delicious day, bit of a roll, following wind pretty strong. Sat on deck all morning and read Bevan's "Scheurus"[??], which I finished, while we passed down Corsica [Corse] and throught the Straits.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'I can see myself now, seated on the nursery floor, hugging my doll while I read "The Peep of Day". Religion held no terrors for me.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emily Lytton Print: Book
