Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Thursday 11 February, 1802: 'We made up a good fire after dinner, and William brought his Mattress out, and lay down on the floor. I read to him the life of Ben Jonson, and some short poems of his, which were too interesting for him, and would not let him go to sleep. I had begun with Fletcher, but he was too dull for me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
'In 1911 E. M. Forster read "with mingled joy and disgust" "A School History of England", which Kipling and C. R. L. Fletcher had just published ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'Lancashire journalist Allen Clarke (b.1863), the son of a Bolton textile worker, avidly read his father's paperback editions of Shakespeare and ploughed through the literature section (Chaucer, Marlowe, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Milton, Pope, Chatterton, Goldsmith, Byron, Shelley, Burns, Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt) of the public library. With that preparation, he was winning prizes for poems in London papers by age thirteen...[he] went on to found and edit several Lancashire journals'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Allen Clarke Print: Book
'I devoured poetry and nothing but poetry until I became insensible to poetry. Take an example; I happened upon some fat volumes of Campbell's "British Poets", the complete works of from four to eight poets in each volume which cost me 6d. apiece. They had shabby worn leather bindings, and the type was on the small side and closely set. But I ploughed through them, doggedly, as if reading for a bet, or an imposed task. One volume I remember contained the poetical works of Samuel Daniel, Browne, Giles and Phineas Fletcher, Ben Johnson, Drummond (of Harthornden), John Donne, and some more minor ones. Another contained along with "also rans" Cowley, Milton and "Hudibras" Butler. And, I repeat, I ploughed through them with a stout heart, but little sense, and a dwindling understanding.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas A. Jackson Print: Book
'I devoured poetry and nothing but poetry until I became insensible to poetry. Take an example; I happened upon some fat volumes of Campbell's "British Poets", the complete works of from four to eight poets in each volume which cost me 6d. apiece. They had shabby worn leather bindings, and the type was on the small side and closely set. But I ploughed through them, doggedly, as if reading for a bet, or an imposed task. One volume I remember contained the poetical works of Samuel Daniel, Browne, Giles and Phineas Fletcher, Ben Johnson, Drummond (of Harthornden), John Donne, and some more minor ones. Another contained along with "also rans" Cowley, Milton and "Hudibras" Butler. And, I repeat, I ploughed through them with a stout heart, but little sense, and a dwindling understanding.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas A. Jackson Print: Book
'It being cold, Mr Lee and [I] did sit all the day, till 3 a-clock, by the fire in the Governors house; I reading a play of Flechers, being "A wife for a month" - wherein no great wit or language.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'So anon they went away and then I to read another play, "The Custome of the Country", which is a very poor one methinks.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'but I spent all morning reading of "The Madd Lovers" - a very good play'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'He and I have read the same books, and discuss Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Fletcher, Webster, and all the old authors.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
'Read the Arcadia & Cupids Revenge - S. reads the arcadia'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Shelley reads the first act of the faithful Shepherdess aloud.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Tacitus - The Persian letters - S. reads Homer & writes - reads a canto of Spencer and part of the gentle shepherdess aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S - translates the Symposium and Reads the wife for a Month - We ride out in the morning & after tea S. reads Hume's England'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Friday March 17th. [...] Read [...] the Play of Beggar's Bush.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday March 18th. [...] Read the Woman Hater of Beaumont & Fletcher. Excellent Spy
scene
which would apply to the present ministers.'
[...]
'Sunday March 19th. [...] Finish Woman-Hater of Beaumont & Fletcher. '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday April [...] 19 [...] Finish the fall of Sejanus by Ben Jonson begin the Woman's
prize or the Tamer tam'd by Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday April 22nd. Read Woman's Prize or Tamer tam'd Wit at several weapons also Wit
without money of Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday April 22nd. Read Woman's Prize or Tamer tam'd Wit at several weapons also Wit
without money of Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday April 22nd. Read Woman's Prize or Tamer tam'd Wit at several weapons also Wit
without money of Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Thursday April 27th. [...] Read Noble Gentleman of Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday April 30th. [...] Read Elder Brother [quotes two lines from Act II scene 1]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday May 10th. [...] Read Women Pleased [sic] and tragedy of Thierry & Theodoret of
Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Read the Chances'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. finishes the 1st vol of Clarendon - Read the little Theif [sic]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish 3rd book of Horace's Odes - Madme de Sevignes letters - & Fletcher's Love's Pilgrimage'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 14 December 1836:
'How much ignorance I have to confess in sackcloth, with respect to the old dramatists! -- for
indeed I have had little opportunity of walking with them in their purple & fine linen. Only
[italics]extracts[end italics] from Bea[u]mont & Fletcher -- & Ford, -- have past before my
eyes!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 17 February 1837:
'I have been reading & rejoicing in your Faithful Shepherdess. The general conception & plan are
feeble & imperfect -- do you not admit it? but the work in detail -- how prodigal it is in exquisite
poetry'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Shelley writes an ode to Naples - Reads Mrs Macauly [sic]. finishes Appolonius [sic] Rhodius - Begins Swellfoot the Tyrant - suggested by the pigs at the fair of St Giuliano - Reads the double marriage aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 27-28 March 1842:
'Do you know how Mr Macready has been attacked for trying [...] to suppress [italics]the
saloons[end italics] [...] and how it has been declared that no theatre can exist at the present
day without a saloon -- & how, if it could, the effect wd be to force vicious persons & their
indecencies into full view in the boxes --!! Now this appears to me enough to constitute a
repulsive objection! & I who have read hard at the old dramatists since I last spoke to you
about them, -- Beaumont & Fletcher Massinger Ben Jonson all Dodsley's collection, -- can yet
see that objection in all its repulsiveness! .. & read on!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 22-24 December 1793: 'Monday morning. of last nights verses I have two things to say. the metre is that of Ph. Fletchers purple island. the specimens of the poem in Headleys selection & Warton are beautiful — you promised me some information relative to a late edition. the other remark is that two more letters will probably grow out of this. the last stanza has given birth to a train of thoughts which wait your next for maturity. your last letter I found on my return from Bath — I had prolonged my stay there to enjoy Lovells company. you know the no-ceremony I stand upon when I wish to make a friend — it may be singular but I am sure to me singularly fortunate. as a poet in some walks I do not know his equal — in the plaintive & soft kinds — elegy & sonnet for instance but this is not his only merit — epistles & various other species he has handled with peculiar delicacy. I do not scruple to say that for elegance & simplicity of versification I know no Author in our language that surpasses him. most probably we shall soon publish together.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
F. E. Pollard gave a short introduction to the play of The Two Noble Kinsmen and in the ensuing reading took the part of Arcite Thos C Elliott taking Palamon and Mrs Evans and Miss Brain taking respectively the character of Emilia and her maid
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: T. C. Elliott Print: Book
F. E. Pollard gave a short introduction to the play of The Two Noble Kinsmen and in the ensuing reading took the part of Arcite Thos C Elliott taking Palamon and Mrs Evans and Miss Brain taking respectively the character of Emilia and her maid
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katharine S. Evans Print: Book
F. E. Pollard gave a short introduction to the play of The Two Noble Kinsmen and in the ensuing reading took the part of Arcite Thos C Elliott taking Palamon and Mrs Evans and Miss Brain taking respectively the character of Emilia and her maid
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: E. Dorothy Brain
