'Maybe to neutralise the Penny Dreadful, Cassells brought out the Penny Classics. These had a bluish-green cover and were world famous novels in abridged form, but sixty or seventy pages. And W.T. Stead brought out the Penny Poets. The covers of these were pimply surface-paper, a bright orange colour, and they contained selections from Longfellow, Tennyson, Keats, and many others. I first read "Hiawatha" and "Evangeline" in the Penny Poets and thought them marvellous; so marvellous that I began to write 'poetry' myself. Stead also brought out another penny book; this had a pink cover and contained selections from the ancient classics: stories from Homer, the writings of Pliny the younger, Aesop's "Fables". I took a strong fancy to Aesop, he was a Greek slave from Samos, in the sixth century BC, and workpeople were only just beginning to be called "wage slaves". I read all these; non-selective and Catholic my reading...'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Stamper Print: Book
'Meeting held at Hilliers, Northcourt Avenue. 26. ii. 40Meeting held at Hilliers,
Northcourt Avenue. 26. ii. 40.
Rosamund Walis in the Chair
1. Minutes of last read + approved
2. Minute 7 of 19th Dec. – relating to the accounts – was continued
[...]
5. The subject of letters was introduced by Roger Moore, and led to a desultory but
amusing discussion ranging from the Pastons to modern family letters and
scurrilous blackmailing letters.
[...]
7. Margaret Dilkes read from Lord Chesterfield’s letters to his son.
8. Ethel Stevens read letters which she had cut out of the papers from time to
time, notably one from a child of thirteen to John Ruskin.
9. H. R. Smith read some four or five short letters from E. V. Lucas, “The Second
Post.”
10. Mary Pollard read Pliny’s account of the Eruption of Vesuvius.
11. Roger Moore read some of Keats’s letters which were much enjoyed, and a
Keats evening was suggested for some future meeting.
[signed as a true record:] S A Reynolds
18/3/40'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard Print: Book
