the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Click check box to select all entries on this page:

Christian Isobel Johnson : Elizabeth de Bruce

Tuesday, 23 January 1827: 'Betwixt dinner and tea while husbanding a tumbler of whisky and water I read the new novel Elizabeth de Bruce -- part of it that is'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott      Print: Book

Christian Isobel Johnson : Elizabeth de Bruce

Saturday, 27 January 1827: 'Read Elizth. de Bruce -- it is very clever but does not show much originality: the characters though very entertaining are in the manner of other authors and the finishd and filldup portraits of which the sketches are to be found elsewhere. One is too apt to feel on such occasions the pettied resentment that you might entertain against one who had poachd on your manor. But [...] a claim set up on having been the first who betook himself to the illustration of some particular class of characters or department of life is no more a right of monopoly than that asserted by the old buccaneers by setting up a wooden cross and killing an Indian or two on some new discovered Island.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott      Print: Book

Click check box to select all entries on this page: