'While he read little but the Bible and religious periodicals, his son was working his way through the Rhymney Workmen's Institute Library and Cassell's National Library of 3d paperbacks. MacAulay's essays, Goldsmith's History of England, Far from the Madding Crowd, Self-Help, Josephus, Plutarch, Shakespeare, Pepys, Johnson's Lives of the Poets, and The Sorrows of Young Werther were among the books Jones read, often on his employer's time. (He hid them under the ledger at the Rhymney Iron Works, where he worked a thirteen hour day as a timekeeper for 9s. a week.)'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Jones Print: Book
'As a circuit preacher Pyke introduced farm people to Milton, Carlyle, Ruskin and Tolstoy. His own reading ranged from Shakespeare and Boswell to Shelley's poems and George Henry Lewes's History of Philosophy. He was even prepared to acknowledge the "genius" of Jude the Obscure, though he would have preferred a happy ending'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Richard Pyke Print: Book
'By age fourteen Durham collier Jack Lawson would find... emancipation at the Boldon Miners' Institute... "And didn't I follow the literary trail, once I found it. Like a Fenimore Cooper Indian I was tireless and silent once I started. Scott; Charles Reade, George Eliot; the Brontes; later on Hardy; Hugo; Dumas and scores of others. Then came Shakespeare; the Bible; Milton and the line of poets generally. I was hardly sixteen when I picked up James Thomson's Seasons, in Stead's 'Penny Poets'... I wept for the shepherd who died in the snow".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Jack Lawson Print: Book
Philip Gibbs in The Pageant of the Years (1946), on work as writer of series of articles under name "Self-Help" in early 1900s: "'All the reading I had done as a boy, all my youthful enthusiasm for Shakespeare, Milton, Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot, and Hardy ... was a great source of supply now when I sat down to write aout great books ...'"
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Gibbs Print: Book
'Margaret Wharton's parents were highly literate, and with their encouragement she entered a teaching training college in 1936, but they taught her nothing about sex: "Though we read books like 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' and 'Hatter's Castle' both dealing with defloration of innocence and an ultimate baby, we drew no parallels and made no application to ourselves. I even read Radclyffe Hall's classic story of lesbianism, The Well of Loneliness, without having the faintest idea of what it was about'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Wharton Print: Book
'...[Newman] Flower as a boy read and idolized Hardy ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Newman Flower Print: Unknown
13/3/1904 - "He was able to read on the last morning of his life, asking me to bring him an article on Shakespeare and a new poem by Thomas Hardy."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
'Jude the Obscure, Edward Carpenter's Love's Coming of Age, Grant Allen's The Woman Who Did, H.G. Well's The New Machiavelli and Ann Veronica, as well as the examples of Mary Wollstonecraft and George Eliot all made Eva [Slawson] think furiously about free love.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Eva Slawson Print: Book, Serial / periodical
' ... the refrain in Gladstone's diaries, in his notes on the many controversial books he read, from Hardy to Zola, was his moral anxiety that a society without a Christian framework would lose its ethical bearings.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Ewart Gladstone Print: Unknown
"But if you mean seriously to ask me what critical books I recommend, I can only say that I recommend none. I think as a critic that the less authors read of criticisms the better. You, e.g., have a perfectly fresh and original vein & I think, that the less you bother yourself about critical cannons, the less chance there is of your becoming self-conscious and cramped."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
?I have read your MS with great pleasure; though I had seen most of it before. As you ask me for my opinion I will say frankly that I think the sheepshearing rather long for the present purpose? The chapter on the ?Great Barn? & that called ?merry time? seem to me to be excellent & I would not omit or shorten them.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Manuscript: Unknown
?I have to thank you for the ?Wessex Poems? which came to me with the kind inscription and gave me a real pleasure? I am always pleased to remember that ?Far from the madding crowd? came out under my command. I then admired the poetry which was diffused through the prose; and can recognize the same note in the versified form.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
?I have to thank you for the ?Wessex Poems? which came to me with the kind inscription and gave me a real pleasure? I am always pleased to remember that ?Far from the madding crowd? came out under my command. I then admired the poetry which was diffused through the prose; and can recognize the same note in the versified form.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
'[Davies said] "Before I was twelve I had developed an appreciation of good prose, and the Bible created in me a zest for literature", propelling him directly to Lamb, Hazlitt's Essays and Ruskin's The Crown of Wild Olives. Later... he joined the library committee of the Miners' Institute in Maesteg, made friends with the librarian, and advised him on acquisitions. Thus he could read all the books he wanted: Marx, Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Marshall, economic and trade union history, Fabian Essays, Thomas Hardy, Meredith, Kipling and Dickens'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: D.R. Davies Print: Book
'Wil John Edwards...pursued Gibbon, Hardy, Swinburne and Meredith. His reading was suggested by the literary pages of the Clarion, the librarian at the Miners' Institute (who directed him to Don Quixote) and [guidance from fellow pit workers].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wil John Edwards Print: Book
'[Edith] Hall recalled that she discovered Thomas Hardy in a WEA class in the 1920s when "Punch and other publications of that kind showed cartoons depicting the servant class as stupid and 'thick'...[Tess of the d'Urbervilles] was the first serious novel I had read up to this time in which the heroine had not been of gentle birth and the labouring classes as brainless automatons. This book made me feel human".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Hall Print: Book
'[Helen Crawfurd] derived lessons in socialism and feminism from Carlyle, Shaw, Wells, Galsworthy, Arnold Bennett, Ibsen's Ghosts and A Doll's House, Dickens, Disraeli's Sybil, Mary Barton, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Under the Greenwood Tree, Tennyson's The Princess, Longfellow, Whitman, Burns, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, George Sand, the Brontes, Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Crawfurd Print: Book
'[Helen Crawfurd] derived lessons in socialism and feminism from Carlyle, Shaw, Wells, Galsworthy, Arnold Bennett, Ibsen's Ghosts and A Doll's House, Dickens, Disraeli's Sybil, Mary Barton, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Under the Greenwood Tree, Tennyson's The Princess, Longfellow, Whitman, Burns, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, George Sand, the Brontes, Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Crawfurd Print: Book
'[Helen Crawfurd] derived lessons in socialism and feminism from Carlyle, Shaw, Wells, Galsworthy, Arnold Bennett, Ibsen's Ghosts and A Doll's House, Dickens, Disraeli's Sybil, Mary Barton, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Under the Greenwood Tree, Tennyson's The Princess, Longfellow, Whitman, Burns, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, George Sand, the Brontes, Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Crawfurd Print: Book
'Weaver-novelist William Holt extolled the standard greats ("Noble Carlyle; virtuous Tolstoi; wise Bacon; jolly Rabelais; towering Plato...") and, having taught himself German, memorized Schiller while working at the looms. But he did not limit himself to classics: "I read omnivorously, greedily, promiscuously", from dime novels and G.A. Henty to Hardy and Conrad. Holt disparaged popular authors such as Ethel M. Dell and Elinor Glyn for "peddling vulgar narcotics", yet he was closely attuned to the mass reading public. His own autobiography sold a quarter of a million copes and he once owned a fleet of bookmobiles. He reconciled taste with populism through this logic: though most readers consume a certain amount of junk, it does them no harm because they recognize it as junk'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Holt Print: Book
'[Neville] Cardus read only boys' papers until quite suddenly, in adolescence, he dove into Dickens and Mark Twain. "Then, without scarcely a bridge-passage, I was deep in the authors who to this day I regard the best discovered in a lifetime" - Fielding, Browning, Hardy, Tolstoy, even Henry James. He found them all before he was twenty, with critical guidance from no one: "We must make our own soundings and chartings in the arts... so that we may all one day climb to our own peak, silent in Darien".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Neville Cardus Print: Book
'A.E. Coppard, a laundrywoman's son who grew up in dire poverty, left school at nine, ascended the ranks of clerkdom and became (at age forty) a professional author. At fourteen he was still enjoying "Deadeye Dick", by twenty he was reading Henry James...He secured a literary education at the Brighton Public Library, and as a professional runner he used prize money to buy Hardy's poems, Shakespeare, Mackail's translation of "The Odyssey", and William Morris's "The Earthly Paradise". In an undemanding job... he read on company time, though there was a row when his supervisor found "Jude the Obscure" on his desk'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: A.E. Coppard Print: Book
'A.E. Coppard, a laundrywoman's son who grew up in dire poverty, left school at nine, ascended the ranks of clerkdom and became (at age forty) a professional author. At fourteen he was still enjoying "Deadeye Dick", by twenty he was reading Henry James...He secured a literary education at the Brighton Public Library, and as a professional runner he used prize money to buy Hardy's poems, Shakespeare, Mackail's translation of "The Odyssey", and William Morris's "The Earthly Paradise". In an undemanding job... he read on company time, though there was a row when his supervisor found "Jude the Obscure" on his desk'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Edgar Coppard Print: Book
'As a ?1-a-week warehouse clerk in the early 1920s, H.E. Bates spent most of the workday with Conrad, Hardy, Wells, Bennett, Galsworthy, Edith Wharton and Willa Cather'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Ernest Bates Print: Book
'To her father she wrote about her term work, the poetry she was reading and with details about new publications. "Do", she urged him, "try to get hold of 'The London Mercury', a new periodical edited by J.C. Squire. The first number has just appeared and is quite excellent, - but I don't suppose it will keep it up. There are hitherto unpublished poems by Rupert Brooke and Thomas Hardy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamond Lehmann Print: Serial / periodical
'Long sections of [Thomas] Hardy's "Memoir" had been read out to two of the [radical society (?London Corresponding Society)] meetings to commemorate the acquittal of the defendants of 1794 which were held annually for at least forty years'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Print: Book
'Charlotte [Mew] [...] was a passionate reader of Thomas Hardy'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Mew Print: Unknown
Penelope Fitzgerald relates how, during Charlotte Mew's stay at his home in December 1918, Thomas Hardy 'read some of his own poems to her, and she read him something which pleased him very much, "Saturday Market".'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Hardy
After Thomas Hardy's death on 11 January 1928, his literary executor Sydney Cockerell 'asked Florence [Hardy] to read aloud to him, chapter by chapter, the manuscript of Hardy's memoirs. This occupied most evenings'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Florence Hardy Manuscript: Unknown
'Bennett selected the things that interested him - notably novelists such as Henry James, Thomas Hardy, and his friend George Paston. It was through a review of a book by H. G. Wells that the two men first became friends, Bennett taking the initiative and writing to Wells in September 1897 to say how much he liked his work, and to ask him how well he knew the Potteries, which Wells had mentioned in several of his stories.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'So that, whatever may have been its deeper cause, the love which filled my imagination was of a kind that seemed, to me, to have little to do with what I meant by sex. "Love" was something I had learned about from "David Copperfield" and "Under the Greenwood Tree" and from the stories in "The Woman's Weekly", which my mother occasionally bought. And of course, from the poetry I was beginning to enjoy. I was naively oblivious to the sexual innuendoes of Keats and Tennyson but their romantic raptures set me trembling like a tuning fork. "Come into the garden, Maud" roused nothing of the derision, or even downright ribaldry, that it would surely rouse in a boy of today.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Norman Nicholson Print: Book
'I began now to borrow from the Sanatorium Library books on nature and the countryside -Hardy, Hudson, Jefferies, Gilbert White; books on birds, animals, snakes and trees. And all these presented a picture of an England which, except in a few secluded spots, no longer survived.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Norman Nicholson Print: Book
'On the wall at the side of the chimney Dad put up the bookshelves which Dodie began to fill with secondhand penny books. Over the years we had Conrad and Wodehouse, Eric Linklater and Geoffrey Farnol, Edgar Wallace, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Mark Twain, Arnold Bennett, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Buchan, and a host of others, good, bad and awful, and we read the lot, some of them over and over.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: family of Rose Gamble Print: Book
'You might, if you care, read my criticism of Hardy?s new novel in Wednesday next?s Woman ?though it contains little actual criticism, I imagine it to give a sort of impression of the book.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
Thursday 7 January 1915: 'We [Virginia Woolf and Janet Case] talked about [...] life in London & Hardy's poems which she can't re-read -- Too melancholy & sordid -- & the subjects not interesting enough'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Janet Case Print: Book
Tuesday 3 September 1918: 'Last night, L[eonard]. read Hardy's poems aloud.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Sunday 5 January 1936: 'My head is quiet today, soothed by reading the Trumpet Major last night'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Jessica Darling, 24 September 1911:
'It's something to be near fine country [Simla] [...] Whether it is something to have the novels of Hardy with you, I doubt. He is a poet, and the few novels of his I've read were unsatisfying. However serious the edifice, the ground plan of it is farce. He's a poet [...] and only comes to full splendour in his poems. In them his narrow view of human, and especially female, character doesn't matter, and Wessex and Destiny at last stand clear out of the mist.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Unknown
'Sydney [Larkin's father] gave him free run of his library and his appetite for books grew enormously. "Thanks to my father", he wrote later: "our house contained not only the principal works of most main English writers in some form or other (admittedly there were exceptions, like Dickens), but also nearly-complete collections of authors my father favoured - Hardy, Bennett, Wilde, Butler and Shaw, and later on Lawrence, Huxley and Katherine Mansfield".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Larkin Print: Book
'He [George Gissing] seems to have read Hardy's novels as they appeared and, impressed by "Diana of the Crossways", re-read Meredith in the important first collected edition which began to appear in the same year, that is in 1885'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
'Now [after 1890] he [Gissing] read books that seemed to have had a direct impact on his development, turning him away from working-class subjects (to which he never returned) and making him more interested in the nihilistic or purely intellectual attitudes of his characters than in those of them who had a Walter Egremont type of social conscience. Thus, he re-read Bourget, on [his friend] Bertz's recommendation looked at J.P. Jacobsen's "Niels Lyhne" and "Marie Grube", reread Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" (for the seventh time), reread Dostoevski, whom he recomended to his brother but disliked himself, once again mulled over Hardy's "The Woodlanders" and "The Mayor of Casterbridge" (he later said that "Jude" was poor stuff by comparison with these), and began to ponder Ibsen, starting with "Hedda Gabler".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
'Now [after 1890] he [Gissing] read books that seemed to have had a direct impact on his development, turning him away from working-class subjects (to which he never returned) and making him more interested in the nihilistic or purely intellectual attitudes of his characters than in those of them who had a Walter Egremont type of social conscience. Thus, he re-read Bourget, on [his friend] Bertz's recommendation looked at J.P. Jacobsen's "Niels Lyhne" and "Marie Grube", reread Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" (for the seventh time), reread Dostoevski, whom he recomended to his brother but disliked himself, once again mulled over Hardy's "The Woodlanders" and "The Mayor of Casterbridge" (he later said that "Jude" was poor stuff by comparison with these), and began to ponder Ibsen, starting with "Hedda Gabler".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
'Now [after 1890] he [Gissing] read books that seemed to have had a direct impact on his development, turning him away from working-class subjects (to which he never returned) and making him more interested in the nihilistic or purely intellectual attitudes of his characters than in those of them who had a Walter Egremont type of social conscience. Thus, he re-read Bourget, on [his friend] Bertz's recommendation looked at J.P. Jacobsen's "Niels Lyhne" and "Marie Grube", reread Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" (for the seventh time), reread Dostoevski, whom he recomended to his brother but disliked himself, once again mulled over Hardy's "The Woodlanders" and "The Mayor of Casterbridge" (he later said that "Jude" was poor stuff by comparison with these), and began to ponder Ibsen, starting with "Hedda Gabler".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
'Sometimes when I think ... of the Dream-city, with its grey towers and autumn sunsets, and the little room where surrounded by books I used to read "Tess of the D'Urbervilles before a glowing fire at twelve o'clock at night, I can only cry inwardly: "I [italics] hate [end italics] nursing! How tired I am of this War - will it never end!"'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book, Unknown
'A verse from Thomas Hardy's "In time of the Breaking of Nations" floated into my mind from the volume of his poems that Edward had sent me in Malta:
"Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch grass:
Yet this will go onwards the same
Though Dynasties pass."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'the two poets [Owen and Sassoon] probably talked more about literature than anything else. Owen found that they had been "following parallel trenches all our lives" and "had more friends in common, authors I mean, than most people can boast of in a lifetime". By chance, Sassoon was reading a small volume of Keats which Lady Ottoline [Morrel] had sent him. He shared Owen's interest in the late-Victorian poets, including Housman, whose influence is often apparent in his war poems, but Owen was surprised to discover that he admired Hardy "more than anybody living". No doubt Sassoon persuaded him to start reading Hardy's poems. In return, Owen showed him Tailhade's book'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'the two poets [Owen and Sassoon] probably talked more about literature than anything else. Owen found that they had been "following parallel trenches all our lives" and "had more friends in common, authors I mean, than most people can boast of in a lifetime". By chance, Sassoon was reading a small volume of Keats which Lady Ottoline [Morrel] had sent him. He shared Owen's interest in the late-Victorian poets, including Housman, whose influence is often apparent in his war poems, but Owen was surprised to discover that he admired Hardy "more than anybody living". No doubt Sassoon persuaded him to start reading Hardy's poems. In return, Owen showed him Tailhade's book'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Siegfried Sassoon Print: Book
'In respect of contemporary novels he [Tennyson] had a very catholic taste. Latterly he read Stevenson and George Meredith with great interest: also Walter Besant, Black, Hardy, Henry James, Marion Crawford, Anstey, Barrie, Blackmore, Conan Doyle, Miss Braddon, Miss Lawless, Ouida, Miss Broughton, Lady Margaret Majendie, Hall Caine, and Shorthouse. He liked Edna Lyall's Autobiography of a Slander, and the Geier-Wally by Wilhelmina von Hillern; and often gave his friends Surly Tim to read, for its "concentrated pathos." "Mrs Oliphant's prolific work," he would observe, "is amazing, and she is nearly always worth reading."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Unknown
'Another writer D.J. rated highly was Thomas Hardy, whose novel "Jude the Obscure" he used to read and re-read with what Taylor described as 'morbid satisfaction'.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: David John Thomas Print: Book
'Moby Dick'. The present vogue of Hermann Melville is mainly due to two English novelists, Frank Swinnerton and myself. We both of us have great opportunities for publicity and 8 or 10 years ago, in the Reform Club, we decided to convince the world that 'Moby Dick' was the greatest of all sea-novels. And we did! There is a lot more of Melville that you ought to read, if you have not already read it. Some of the ‘Piazza Tales’ are wonderful. And the novel 'Pierre', though while mad and very strange and overstrained, is really original and remarkable. Some of the still stranger books I have not yet read or tried to read. The trouble is that the esoteric books can only be obtained in the complete edition of the works. Happily I possess it. I believe that the original editions of 'Typee' and 'Omoo' are much better than the current editions, which have been expurgated. Please note that I think 'Evan Harrington' is better than 'Beauchamp’s Career' and 'The Woodlanders' better than the 'Mayor of Casterbridge'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'The programme on Thos Hardy & his works was as follows
Mr Binns read an interesting account of the author's life & H.M. Wallis one on the minor poems. F.E. Reynolds read selections from Tess & S.A. Reynolds from Under the Greenwood Tree'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'The programme on Thos Hardy & his works was as follows
Mr Binns read an interesting account of the author's life & H.M. Wallis one on the minor poems. F.E. Reynolds read selections from Tess & S.A. Reynolds from Under the Greenwood Tree'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Florence Reynolds Print: Book
'The programme on Thos Hardy & his works was as follows
Mr Binns read an interesting account of the author's life & H.M. Wallis one on the minor poems. F.E. Reynolds read selections from Tess & S.A. Reynolds from Under the Greenwood Tree'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sylvanus Reynolds Print: Book
'The meeting then considered the works of Thomas Hardy. H.M. Wallis gave a paper outlining the main features of Hardy's life and gave some idea of the succession of works and a general criticism of his writing. The announced programme for the evening then came to an abrupt end - for health kept Mr Evans away & Mr Stansfield also was unable to come, and these two members had arranged to introduce the novels & poems of Hardy & also to start a discussion upon Hardy's religious views. We were very sorry to miss our friends & their contribution & hope that we may have another evening upon Hardy at some future time. To fill this gap in our programme H.M. Wallis told in his graphic way the short story called The 3 Travellers & Rosamund Wallis read the wife auction scene from 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' & the Secretary read a critique by Lawrence Binyon on the poems of Hardy'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'The meeting then considered the works of Thomas Hardy. H.M. Wallis gave a paper outlining the main features of Hardy's life and gave some idea of the succession of works and a general criticism of his writing. The announced programme for the evening then came to an abrupt end - for health kept Mr Evans away & Mr Stansfield also was unable to come, and these two members had arranged to introduce the novels & poems of Hardy & also to start a discussion upon Hardy's religious views. We were very sorry to miss our friends & their contribution & hope that we may have another evening upon Hardy at some future time. To fill this gap in our programme H.M. Wallis told in his graphic way the short story called The 3 Travellers & Rosamund Wallis read the wife auction scene from 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' & the Secretary read a critique by Lawrence Binyon on the poems of Hardy'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'The meeting then considered the works of Thomas Hardy. H.M. Wallis gave a paper outlining the main features of Hardy's life and gave some idea of the succession of works and a general criticism of his writing. The announced programme for the evening then came to an abrupt end - for health kept Mr Evans away & Mr Stansfield also was unable to come, and these two members had arranged to introduce the novels & poems of Hardy & also to start a discussion upon Hardy's religious views. We were very sorry to miss our friends & their contribution & hope that we may have another evening upon Hardy at some future time. To fill this gap in our programme H.M. Wallis told in his graphic way the short story called The 3 Travellers & Rosamund Wallis read the wife auction scene from 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' & the Secretary read a critique by Lawrence [sic] Binyon on the poems of Hardy'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'The Club then listened to a variety of readings from modern poets as follows:
A Rawlings Extracts from "The Art of Poetry"
T.C. Eliott from Chesterton's "Lepanto"
Mrs Evans some verses by Colin D. B. Ellis
R. H. Robson from J. C. Squires "Birds"
D. Brain from Noyes' "Torch Bearers"
C. I. Evans from Thos Hardy
G. Burrow poems by his brother
F. E. Pollard from Siegfried Sassoon
Mrs Pollard from W. Watson's "Lakeland"
C. E. Stansfield from Rupert Brooke
A. Rawlings from E. V. Lucas & Lang Jones'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'F. E. Pollard read an article on Thos Hardy by Arnold Bennett S. A. Reynold [sic] spoke on Hardy's country with books & illustrations & R. H. Robson read from "Far from the Madding Crowd. T. C. Elliott read some of Hardy's poems. Mrs Rawlings read a description of Egdon Heath from "the return of the Native" Muriel B. Smith read from The Mayor of Casterbridge & Miss Brain from Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Geo Burrow gave a short introduction to & some readings from the Dynasts. In conclusion F. E. Pollard made some provocative remarks which achieved their object'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson Print: Book
'F. E. Pollard read an article on Thos Hardy by Arnold Bennett S. A. Reynold [sic] spoke on Hardy's country with books & illustrations & R. H. Robson read from "Far from the Madding Crowd. T. C. Elliott read some of Hardy's poems. Mrs Rawlings read a description of Egdon Heath from "the return of the Native" Muriel B. Smith read from The Mayor of Casterbridge & Miss Brain from Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Geo Burrow gave a short introduction to & some readings from the Dynasts. In conclusion F. E. Pollard made some provocative remarks which achieved their object'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: T. C. Elliott Print: Book
'F. E. Pollard read an article on Thos Hardy by Arnold Bennett S. A. Reynold [sic] spoke on Hardy's country with books & illustrations & R. H. Robson read from "Far from the Madding Crowd. T. C. Elliott read some of Hardy's poems. Mrs Rawlings read a description of Egdon Heath from "the return of the Native" Muriel B. Smith read from The Mayor of Casterbridge & Miss Brain from Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Geo Burrow gave a short introduction to & some readings from the Dynasts. In conclusion F. E. Pollard made some provocative remarks which achieved their object'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Rawlings Print: Book
'F. E. Pollard read an article on Thos Hardy by Arnold Bennett S. A. Reynold [sic] spoke on Hardy's country with books & illustrations & R. H. Robson read from "Far from the Madding Crowd. T. C. Elliott read some of Hardy's poems. Mrs Rawlings read a description of Egdon Heath from "the return of the Native" Muriel B. Smith read from The Mayor of Casterbridge & Miss Brain from Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Geo Burrow gave a short introduction to & some readings from the Dynasts. In conclusion F. E. Pollard made some provocative remarks which achieved their object'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Muriel Bowman Smith Print: Book
'F. E. Pollard read an article on Thos Hardy by Arnold Bennett S. A. Reynold [sic] spoke on Hardy's country with books & illustrations & R. H. Robson read from "Far from the Madding Crowd. T. C. Elliott read some of Hardy's poems. Mrs Rawlings read a description of Egdon Heath from "the return of the Native" Muriel B. Smith read from The Mayor of Casterbridge & Miss Brain from Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Geo Burrow gave a short introduction to & some readings from the Dynasts. In conclusion F. E. Pollard made some provocative remarks which achieved their object'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Brain Print: Book
'F. E. Pollard read an article on Thos Hardy by Arnold Bennett S. A. Reynold [sic] spoke on Hardy's country with books & illustrations & R. H. Robson read from "Far from the Madding Crowd. T. C. Elliott read some of Hardy's poems. Mrs Rawlings read a description of Egdon Heath from "the return of the Native" Muriel B. Smith read from The Mayor of Casterbridge & Miss Brain from Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Geo Burrow gave a short introduction to & some readings from the Dynasts. In conclusion F. E. Pollard made some provocative remarks which achieved their object'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Burrow Print: Book
'The air dark and yellow with sand. Reason preserved by the finding of "Jude the Obscure", which I drank in, on and off, throughout the day. But I fear I should have put Sue across my knee, and have done with her [sic] long before the end of the second book.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'I keep reading Tess and The Return of the Native -- they fit in admirably with my thoughts.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Siegfried Sassoon Print: Book
'Meeting held at 39, Eastern Avenue, 10.2.41
A. B. Dilks in the chair
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
4. The subject for this evening was “Winter – in Poetry & Prose”. [...]
The programme was as follows:
Dickens – extract from “A Christmas Carol”
read by R. D. L. Moore
Hardy – “The Mellstock Carols” from ‘Under the Greeenwood Tree’
read by Mrs. H. R. [Edith] Smith
Shakespeare – “Blow, blow thou winter wind”
sung by F. E. Pollard
V. Sackville West – extract from a poem “The Land”
read by Margaret Dilks
H. M. Wallis – Account of the Blizzard of 1881
read by Howard Smith
Dickens – The Pickwick Club on the Ice
read by A. B. Dilks
Mendelssohn – The Hebrides overture
played by Beecham & the L.P.O. (on gramophone records)'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith B. Smith Print: Book
'One sat or stood waiting, humbly, through hours
which scarcely melted, for something to happen,
something which would bring this eternity to a
conclusion: but, one felt, there would be no end.
Beset by the aromas of humanity, German and
British, cooking, and foreign cigars ... I tried
to read Jude the Obscure, and found the
tragedy of the young craftsman extravagantly
mawkish beside the long crucifixion of the men in
the front line. Above our head five tanks petered
out and stuck immovable in the mud. Their presence
induced an extra jointure of shells from the
distance.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Guy Patterson Chapman Print: Book
'I hope you are well, and are finding some solace in your duties. You must
find it hard to console aliens in England. They probably love England, and
now they are aliens indeed. There was a letter in the Northcliffe Times not
long ago from a lady who would make Bach an alien, a difficult job … You
spoke of the Jewish persecution by the Russians. The English papers are
allowed to speak of it now; at least there was a strong condemnation in a
book-review in the Daily News … The Times published a special supplement
of War-Poems on Monday. Did you see it? I think Hardy’s poem [“Song of
the Soldiers”) is most likely to survive. It stirs me much more than it first
did. On route marches now to occupy my mind, I am learning Wordsworth’s
Sonnetts and the first lines of Paradise Lost, for which I can find no praise.
It is too colossal. Too Bach-like.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Newspaper
‘Have you read "Harry Richmond" lately? I like the first part of the book
immensely, but skipped afterwards—copiously and vigorously. On the
whole, "Evan Harrington" pleased me more … "War and Peace" will always
hold me in its thrall. But next time I skip the chunks of History, and read
about Pierre and Natasha. As for "Return of the Native", God seems to have
arranged with Hardy to do his cunning-worst. But how rich are the country
scenes! … I am glad to say that my health goes on improving, but slowly.
Still, now I know what neurasthenia is; I realise and fight it—a great step …
Is D’Annunzio worth reading, if I could collar a book of his?’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘There is an excellent article in this week Saturday Westminster, a paper of
which I am very fond. It is a review by Walter de la Mare, and is that poet’s
confession of Faith … My leave starts on Thursday—5 whole days … Do you
not like Laurence Binyon’s verses in the Times Supplement? Those and
Hardy’s and Kipling’s are the best of the bunch. Though I like Watson
Grenfell and Noyes. Hardy’s grows on one. Did you ever read his last book
of Short Stories—"The Changed Man"? … Have you read any of D F
Lawrence? I have just finished an extraordinary book called "The White
Peacock", full of arresting studies of character and most essentially
breathing of earth and clouds and flowers—though not a pleasant book …
we had Zeps here about a fortnight ago. Two bombs were dropped on
Chelmsford itself, both on or near the Glosters billeting area. The damage
was perhaps 5£ worth. It cured an old lady of muscular rheumatism, indeed
it made an athlete, a sprinter of her—she went down the street in her
nightgown like a comet or some gravity-defying ghost.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Newspaper
‘There is an excellent article in this week Saturday Westminster, a paper of
which I am very fond. It is a review by Walter de la Mare, and is that poet’s
confession of Faith … My leave starts on Thursday—5 whole days … Do you
not like Laurence Binyon’s verses in the Times Supplement? Those and
Hardy’s and Kipling’s are the best of the bunch. Though I like Watson
Grenfell and Noyes. Hardy’s grows on one. Did you ever read his last book
of Short Stories—"The Changed Man"? … Have you read any of D F
Lawrence? I have just finished an extraordinary book called "The White
Peacock", full of arresting studies of character and most essentially
breathing of earth and clouds and flowers—though not a pleasant book …
we had Zeps here about a fortnight ago. Two bombs were dropped on
Chelmsford itself, both on or near the Glosters billeting area. The damage
was perhaps 5£ worth. It cured an old lady of muscular rheumatism, indeed
it made an athlete, a sprinter of her—she went down the street in her
nightgown like a comet or some gravity-defying ghost.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘Thanks very much indeed for the letter and Lit. Sups, and especially for
"Satires of Circumstance". I had not got it or ordered it but had often been
thinking of doing so. So it came most welcomely … Needless to say, I do not
agree with your criticism’s of [Hardy’s] later work. The actual “Satires of
Circumstance” which come in the middle of the book I thought bad poetry.
But I think you are too hard on the rest … I have been lately reading a
great deal of "The Dynasts", which I bought three weeks ago. His poetry
there is at its very best, especially in the choruses and battle-songs … I
cannot help thinking that Hardy is the greatest artist of the English
character since Shakespeare: and much of "The Dynasts" (except its
historical fidelity) might be Shakespeare … His lyrics have not the
spontaneity of Shakespeare’s or Shelley’s: they are rough-hewn and
jagged: but I like them, and they stick.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Hamilton Sorley Print: Book
‘Thanks very much indeed for the letter and Lit. Sups, and especially for
"Satires of Circumstance". I had not got it or ordered it but had often been
thinking of doing so. So it came most welcomely … Needless to say, I do not
agree with your criticism’s of [Hardy’s] later work. The actual “Satires of
Circumstance” which come in the middle of the book I thought bad poetry.
But I think you are too hard on the rest … I have been lately reading a
great deal of "The Dynasts", which I bought three weeks ago. His poetry
there is at its very best, especially in the choruses and battle-songs … I
cannot help thinking that Hardy is the greatest artist of the English
character since Shakespeare: and much of "The Dynasts" (except its
historical fidelity) might be Shakespeare … His lyrics have not the
spontaneity of Shakespeare’s or Shelley’s: they are rough-hewn and
jagged: but I like them, and they stick.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Hamilton Sorley Print: Book
‘I am still revelling in "The Dynasts". The amount of historical reading and
travelling that must have gone to compose such a work must have been
tremendous … the characters, especially Napoleon, are finely drawn: and the
minor scenes, like the madness of George III and the abdication of Josephine,
are as good as Shakespeare.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Hamilton Sorley Print: Book
'I have spoken of his affection for Dickens. Trollope he liked. Thackeray I
think not over much, though he had a due regard for such creations as Major
Pendennis. Meredith's characters were to him "seven feet high," and his style
too inflated. He admired Hardy's poetry. He always spoke with appreciation
of Howells, especially of the admirable "Rise of Silas Lapham". His
affectionate admiration for Stephen Crane we know from his introduction to
Thomas Beer's biography of that gifted writer. Henry James in his middle
period--the Henry James of "Daisy Miller", "The Madonna of the Future",
"Greville Fane", "The Real Thing", "The Pension Beaurepas"--was precious to
him. But of his feeling for that delicate master, for Anatole France, de
Maupassant, Daudet, and Turgenev, he has written in his "Notes on Life and
Letters". I remember too that he had a great liking for those two very
different writers, Balzac and Mérimée. Of philosophy he had read a good
deal, but on the whole spoke little. Schopenhauer used to give him
satisfaction twenty years and more ago, and he liked both the personality
and the writings of William James.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I wonder if by any chance you saw Hardy's poem in
the last or the December "Harper's Magazine". It is
a wonderful story of a master builder who built or
greatly added to the cathedral.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Serial / periodical
'Thank you for "Punch" and all the letters of the
last few days [...]. I send you a copy of today's
"Statesman" since you care to read my stuff. If when
you come up you can bring it with you I can post it
to my sister and so escape the additional expense of
another copy: I always keep one for myself to file.
[...] Hardy is an artist—I'm just reading his
"Changed Man", newly published; but what a pitiful
creed was his, is his, compared with that
of our grand old Wallace.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
