'The Primitive Methodists may have been the most anti-intellectual of the Wesleyans, yet miners' MP John Johnson "found their teaching the strongest possible incentive to trying to improve myself, not only morally, but mentally, and towards the latter end I took to serious and systematic study." He read deeply in history and philosophy, as well as such this-worldly tracts as The Wealth of Nations, John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy, and Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Johnson Print: Book
'She read Renan's Life of Jesus, which had proved so critical to George Eliot's subsitution of Duty for God. As a corollary text, Rose discovered the rousing, hopeful words of Mill, who argued for the sacredness of her larger duty to herself'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rose Macaulay Print: Book
'"One advantage of leaving school at an early age is that one can study subjects of your own choice", wrote Frank Argent, son of a Camberwell labourer. Taking advantage of the public library and early Penguins, he ranged all over the intellectual landscape: Freudian psychology, industrial administration, English literature, political history, Blake, Goethe, Mill,Nietzsche, The Webbs, Bertrand Russell's Essays in Scepticism, and Spengler's "The Decline of the West".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frank Argent 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
Deborah Epstein Nord, The Apprenticeship of Beatrice Webb (1985) noted as "especially interesting ... in its discussion of Webb's ... reading of autobiographies (such as John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, Harriet Martineau's Autobiography, George Sand's Histoire de ma vie, and Wordsworth's Prelude ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Beatrice Webb Print: Book
'After a miserable Catholic school education...periodic unemployment allowed [Joseph Toole] to study in the Manchester Reference Library. There he discovered, Adam Smith, Ricardo, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Mill, Emerson, Dickens, Morris, Blatchford, Shaw and Wells, and of course John Ruskin..."Study always left me with a deep feeling that there was so much amiss with the world. It seemed that it had been started at the wrong end, and that it was everybody's business to put the matter right".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Toole Print: Book
?There were other books which I then read and studied with care, including Adam Smith?s "Wealth of Nations" and Mill?s "Political Economy". This was not a kind of literature to borrow from public libraries, but to have in one?s possessions.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Burt Print: Book
'Today we have been to the London Library and I have read J. Mill's article on "The American Conquest".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'Finished Bamford's "Passages from the life of a Radical". Have just begun again Mill's "Political Economy", and Comte's "Social Science" in Miss Martineau's edition'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'I have been reading Fawcett's Economic condition of the Working Classes, Mill's Liberty, looking into Strauss's Second Life of Jesus, and reading Neale's History of the Puritans of which I have reached the fourth volume'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'I am reading Mill's Logic again, Theocritus still, and English History and Law'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'Read J.S. Mill on Socialism'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
Wednesday 3 January 1940: 'I have just put down Mill's autobiography, after copying certain sentences in the volume I call, deceptively, the Albatross.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'after reading the dedication of your Essay on Liberty I can understand how any word expressing a meaning only conjectured that was derogatory to your wife would wound you most deeply. And therefore I now write to express my deep regret that you received such pain through me.' [Gaskell is referring to the printing of a letter about John Stuart Mill's future wife in her Life of Charlotte Bronte, to which he had reacted angrily].
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
George Grote to Harriet Grote (wife), 14 October 1853:
'I immediately sent for the "Edinburgh Review," and have read [italics]the[end italics] article
with much satisfaction and even delight.
'It seems to me executed in John's best manner [...] It is certainly complimentary to me, in a
measure which I fear will bring down upon me the hand of the reactionary Nemesis.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Serial / periodical
George Grote to John Stuart Mill (January 1862):
'I have just been reading your three articles in "Fraser's Magazine," upon the Principle of Utility, having waited until I could peruse them all de suite. I consider the essay altogether a most useful and capital performance.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Serial / periodical
'Meeting held at School House 31st May 1941
R. D. L. Moore in the chair
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
[...]
3. The Chairman read a letter of greetings and regret for her absence from Janet
Rawlings in which she suggested “Modern Poetry” as a possible subject for one of
our meetings.
[...]
5. The Subject of the meeting was “Autobiography” & it proved a very varied and
interesting one. Readings were given as follows:
1) My Life of Music by Sir Henry J. Wood
read by A. B. Dilks
2) My days of strength by Dr. Anne Fearn
read by S. A. Reynolds
Autobiography by John Stuart Mill
read by F. E. Pollard
Vanished Pomps of Yesterday by Lord Frederick Hamilton
read by Rosamund Wallis
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
read by Arnold Joselin.
A Great Experiment by Lord Robert Cecil
read by J. Knox Taylor.
[signed as a true record] AB Dilks'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Print: Book
'With his first wages Conrad bought a volume of Shakespeare, and at sea he also read
Mill's "Principles of Political Economy".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
