'"Blind Henry's Life of Wallace was the first book that stirred my mind, and set me on a career of reading and thinking that will only terminate with my life, or the complete prostration of my faculties," wrote the Dundee Factory Boy'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'I am reading Henry's History of England, which I will repeat to you in any manner you may prefer, either in a loose, disultary [sic], unconnected strain, or dividing my recital as the Historian divides it himself, into seven parts...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Book
'Miss Aldridge gave us Henry's "Communicant's Companion" - a fearful book filled with questions which it would have taken months to answer - and I tried to find time for self-examination out of school hours, and at first thought myself obliged to answer every question, and at last gave up the attempt in despair. my own sense told me it was in vain'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eliazbeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
'It was while serving here [Willenslee at the farm of Mr Laidlaw] , in the eighteenth year of my age, that I first got a perusal of "The Life and Adventures of Sir William Wallace", and "The Gentle Shepherd"; and though immoderately fond of them, yet (which you will think remarkable in one who hath since dabbled so much in verse) I could not help regretting deeply that they were not in prose, that every body might have understood them; or, I thought if they had been in the same kind of metre with the Psalms, I could have borne with them. The truth is, I made exceedingly slow progress in reading them. The little reading that I had learned I had nearly lost, and the Scottish dialect quite confounded me; so that, before I got to the end of a line, I had commonly lost the rhyme of the preceding one; and if I came to a triplet, a thing of which I had no conception, I commonly read to the foot of the page without perceiving that I had lost the rhyme altogether. I thought the author had been straitened for rhymes, and had just made a part of it do as well as he could without them. Thus, after I got through both works, I found myself much in the same predicament with the man of Eskdalemuir, who had borrowed Bailey's Dictionary from his neighbour. On returning it, the lender asked him what he thought of it. "I dinna ken man", replied he: "I have read it all through, but canna say that I understand it; it is the most confused book that ever I saw in my life!".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
Tuesday, 10 February 1829:
'I read over Henry's History of Henry VI and Edward IV. He is but a stupid historian after all.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
'In the latter part of her life devoted the most of her secret and leisure hours to Mr Henrys Annotations which she would often say were the most plain, profitable and pleasant she ever read and the last books (next to the Bible) she would ever part with'
Century: 1600-1699 / 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Bury Print: Book
'My literature has been “The Pit”, Frank Norris’s wheat hoarding story, and the two books of riff-raff, very tangy, cynical and amusing, by O. Henry. One story, "Roads of Destiny" struck me as first-class, but the majority of his work, though clever, is too topical to last very long.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Blunden Print: Book
'Lunched alone at the hotel, reading with indecent hilarity O. Henry's "Gentle Grafter", as good short stories as you want; almost worthy to rank with Maupassant, Kipling and Wells.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'Wrote up, finished O. Henry's "Cabbages and Kings" (an inferior S. American "South Wind" but good) and some more G. [Geoffrey] Scott. Bed 10.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'You ask me whether I prefer a long letter or a
short letter. I prefer a long letter to a short
letter. No, I am not reading Shakespeare just at
present. I am reading the complete works of O. Henry
who is the American Shakespeare and the American
Chekhov and the American Gorki and the American
Kipling. And the American Maupassant.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Maurice Baring Print: Book
‘We make another sally today … I have the parcel, and the letters and J.
Oxenham’s books … "The V.[Vision] Splendid" contains several real poems:
those indeed which you [i.e., Owen’s mother] have marked. But the
majority of the things have no poetic value at all. The “Cross Roads” is very
very good. Otherwise the book has little Pacific Value, if you understand me
… "Barbe of Grand Bayou" seems a little too idyllic so far. Oxenham’s aim
seems to be to unsophisticate the reader. It is very pleasant to be
reminded of Brittany, which seems not to be of this continent at all … The
book is at the opposite pole from the O. Henry books which Leslie sent me.
Impossible to read them together … At the same time I am at p. 50 of A. &
E. Castle’s recent book: "The Hope of the House", which promises well, and
which I can recommend … I am in haste to pack … I crave Travel and shall
be pleased like any infant to get into a puff-puff again.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'Eleanor in great pain. Very brave but
collapsed—throat ghastly. O Henry ... no good
as a pick-me-up. Tried gramophone—better ...
One feels so isolated all alone with a very
sick girl. Every one is away and I want the sea—the sea. Went for a walk in Kensington
Gardens. Read Bertrand Russell, Problems of
Philosophy. Remembered my throat paint. Tried
it, did Eleanor good. We sat & watched her
cough up matter into the basalt bowl. Normally
it would have made us both sick, as it was we
were wild with interest.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Franeis Butts Print: Book
