'Read Gil Blas'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish Gil Blas - read Livy'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Since the age of five I have been a great reader [...]. At ten years of age I had read much of Victor Hugo and other romantics. I had read in Polish and in French, history, voyages, novels; I knew "Gil Blas" and "Don Quixote" in abridged editions; I had read in early boyhood Polish poets and some French poets, but I cannot say what I read on the evening [in September 1889] before I began to write myself. I believe it was a novel, and it is quite possible that it was one of Anthony Trollope's novels. It is very likely. My acquatance with him was then very recent. He is one of the English novelists whose works I read for the first time in English. With men of European reputation, with Dickens and Walter Scott and Thackeray, it was otherwise. My first introduction to English imaginative literature was "Nicholas Nickleby". It was extraordinary how well Mrs. Nickleby could chatter disconnectedly in Polish [...] It was, I have no doubt an excellent translation. This must have been in the year 1870.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Printed diary[.] The ladies new and polite pocket memorandum-book, for ... 1765, completed in manuscript and containing details of expenditure on clothes and social engagements. The diary was kept by an unnamed girl under the age of 21, who appears to have lived near Rugby, Warwickshire. [...] She also mentions reading Gil Blas de Santillane by Alain-Rene LeSage (1715-1735) and the Tatler ...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group:
