'A neighbour lent me [Miss Bremer's] novel, "Brothers and Sisters," the first volume of which we thought admirable: but the latter part about Socialism, Mesmerism, and all manner of [italics]isms[end italics] which she did not understand, made us blush as we read.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau and neighbour Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 3 December 1842:
'My thoughts have lately been of Frederica Bremer?s "Neighbours" instead of my own?I mean of the very charming novel which Mrs Howitt has just "done into English" from the Swedish ? or German peradventure ? it being probably a translation from the German ? Read it my dearest friend, & agree with me that it is delightful. "Like Miss Austen" says Mrs Howitt - & "like Miss Austen" being the best introduction to you possible, "I echo her" ? altho? in my private & individual opinion & saving your presence, I do consider the book of a higher & sweeter tone than Miss Austen had voice and soul for. There is more poetry, more of the inner life, more of the ideal aspiration more of a Godward tendency in the book than we need seek for or than even you my beloved friend, can, I think, imagine in any book or books of Miss Austen considered in a moment of your most enthusiastic estimation. I am pleased, & touched .. charmed for the better, by the book. The serenity, the sweetness, the undertone of Christian music,
affect me the more for coming to me in the midst of my lion & tiger hunting with La jeune
France [ie her reading of lurid, recent French fiction]; & the impression will not pass, it
appears to me, with the reading of the last page.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 24 May 1843:
'Mary Howitt's last translation from Frederika Bremer's swedish, "The Home" charms me even
more than "The Neighbours" did.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 December 1844:
'Ah! dearest love, Frederika Bremer! I did read half "The Neighbours," and really you are the
only person of a high class of mind whom I have found liking her works.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford Print: Book
'Gissing read as widely as ever, with the same unbridled curiosity as during his youth but now with an intelligence tempered by experience. Of course he continued to read the Latin, Greek, English and French classics, but of the particular titles he noted in his diary during the second part of 1889 there are a number that indicate fairly and squarely the direction in which his thoughts were carrying him. Besides books like J.P. Jacobsen's "Niels Lyhne" and Frederick [sic]Bremer's "Hertha", he also read Taine's "English Literature", Bourget's "Etudes et Portraits" as well as the "Essais Psychologiques", A.H. Buck's "Treatise on Hygiene", W. B. Carpenter's "Principles of Mental Physiology" and the books he just mentions as Ribot's "Hereditie".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte to her publisher, W. S. Williams, 1 February 1849:
'The parcel [of books, from Williams] came yesterday [...] The choice of books is perfect. Papa is at this moment reading Macaulay's "History," which he had wished to see. Anne is engaged with one of Frederika Bremer's tales.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Brontë Print: Book
From Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte:
'"I recollect [...] [Bronte's] saying how acutely she dreaded a charge of plagiarism when, after
she had written "Jane Eyre," she read the thrilling effect of the mysterious scream at midnight
in Mrs Marsh's story of "The Deformed." She also said that, when she read "The Neighbours,"
she thought every one would fancy that she must have taken her conception of Jane Eyre's
character from that of "Francesca," the narrator of Miss Bremer's story. For my own part, I
cannot see the slightest resemblance between the two characters"'.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë Print: Book
