'"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
'An emancipated working woman like Elizabeth Ring was free to read the works of Freud, Havelock Ellis and Bertrand Russell in the late 1920s, but she was familiar with these books only because her schoolteachers had her exchange them at the Finsbury Public Library'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Ring Print: Book
'Taxi driver Herbert Hodge...knew that years on the dole only produced apathy, and that out-of-work men wanted practical help in dealing with the Board of Guardians far more than ideology. That experience plus his eclectic reading (Bergson, Nietzsche, William McDougall, Bertrand Russell, the new Testament, and Herbert Spencer as well as Marx) led him out of the [Communist] Party towards a socialism that would be brought about by individual volition...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Hodge Print: Book
Virginia Woolf to Julian Bell, 14 November 1936:
'Politics are still raging faster and fiercer [...] Leonard is trying to convince the labour party that
the policy of isolation is now the only one. Berties book convinced him.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
4 March 1918: 'I found a silent group at the [1917] Club, all men, & unknown to me, with the
exception of Alix who sat still as a statue reading one of Berty Russell's books.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alix Sargant-Florence Print: Book
6 June 1918: 'I've seen Alix [...] She is able to conceive the possibility of one day finding
some book to read. She has tried Bertie's mathematics, relinquished it, but did not altogether
dismiss my suggestion of legal history.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alix Sargant-Florence Print: Book
'I had a nice day yesterday lying out under the trees in a deck-chair reading Bertie Russell's "On Education". A good firm book.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harold Nicolson Print: Book
'Many thanks. I've just read the first chapter at once to take possession and have laid the book ["The Problems of Philosophy"] aside till Monday -- when the short story will be off my hands.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I am glad I read the little book ["The Problems of Philosophy"] before coming to your essays ["Philosophical Essays"]. If in reading the first I felt moving step by step, with delight, on the firmest ground, the other gave me the sense of an enlarged vision in the clearest, the purest atmosphere.' Hence follow another 10 lines of praise and gratitude.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'As for yourself — I have been dwelling with you mentally for several days between the covers of your book [...].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'When your book ["The Problem of China"] arrived we were away for a few days. Perhaps [...] I should have acknowledged the receipt at once. But I preferred to read it before I wrote. Unluckily a very unpleasant affair was sprung on me and absorbed all my thinking energies for a fortnight. I simply did not attempt to open the book till all the worry and flurry was over, and I could give it two clear days.'
[Hence follow three pages of commentary.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad 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
'Read Betrand Russell all morning, wrote, ate
apples—applied more work NCCL [National Council
for Civil Liberties]. 2 o'clock met John
[Rodker]. Walked to Dorking. Told each other
classic stories. Tea & Home in evening, told
our confessions with as few lies as possible
... Supper together, went over to Trevelyans
... Emma & peace. Then a policeman to
see registration cards, especially John's. Mrs
Trevelyan saved us all, engaging him in light
conversation. Card given back without comment.
More Emma to sooth our nerves. Tried to
appear "calm and well-bred." Doubtful success.
Walked home with him along the cypress road.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Franeis Butts Print: Book
