Either at school or at home I read all the classics considered necessary for children: 'Treasure Island', 'Kidnapped', 'Little Women', 'David Copperfield', 'Ivanhoe', 'Robinson Crusoe'. I suppose I enjoyed them; I certainly did not resent or avoid them. Very occasionally some incident would seem to connect with my own life: the doings of the Spanish Inquisition in 'Westward Ho!' for example, fitted in exactly with what I had heard about Roman Catholics. But on the whole the themes appeared completely abstract and impersonal, even when the author intended a message to strike home. 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' did not cause me a moment's concern for the plight of Negro slaves in America, and neither did 'The Water Babies' for the sufferings of the child chimney-sweeps, not because these situations had been done away with, but because no book stirred me in that way...
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Patricia Beer Print: Book
Either at school or at home I read all the classics considered necessary for children: 'Treasure Island', 'Kidnapped', 'Little Women', 'David Copperfield', 'Ivanhoe', 'Robinson Crusoe'. I suppose I enjoyed them; I certainly did not resent or avoid them. Very occasionally some incident would seem to connect with my own life: the doings of the Spanish Inquisition in 'Westward Ho!' for example, fitted in exactly with what I had heard about Roman Catholics. But on the whole the themes appeared completely abstract and impersonal, even when the author intended a message to strike home. 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' did not cause me a moment's concern for the plight of Negro slaves in America, and neither did 'The Water Babies' for the sufferings of the child chimney-sweeps, not because these situations had been done away with, but because no book stirred me in that way...
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Patricia Beer Print: Book
'During these early years [Daphne du Maurier] filled her head with tales of adventure, romances, histories and popular novels, including such books as Treasure Island, The Snow Queen, The Wreck of the Grosvenor, Old St Paul's, The Tower of London, Nicholas Nickleby, Mr Midshipman Easy, Bleak House, Robinson Crusoe, The Mill on the Floss, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. The seeds of her own novels were planted during these intensive, sometimes acted-out, reading sessions. The fascination with the sea, the importance of an historical sense of place, the theme of the dual personality, are all reflected in her reading during these formative years'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Daphne du Maurier Print: Book
'During these early years [Daphne du Maurier] filled her head with tales of adventure, romances, histories and popular novels, including such books as Treasure Island, The Snow Queen, The Wreck of the Grosvenor, Old St Paul's, The Tower of London, Nicholas Nickleby, Mr Midshipman Easy, Bleak House, Robinson Crusoe, The Mill on the Floss, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. The seeds of her own novels were planted during these intensive, sometimes acted-out, reading sessions. The fascination with the sea, the importance of an historical sense of place, the theme of the dual personality, are all reflected in her reading during these formative years'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Daphne du Maurier Print: Book
'When old enough to read for herself, Rose Macaulay entered into other realms of fictitious brave adventure. She devoured Masterman Ready, Ivanhoe, The Talisman, Coral Island, Treasure Island, A Tale of Two Cities, The Murders in the Rue Morgoue, The Prince and the Page
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Rose Macaulay Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Private in an infantry regiment, formerly a skilled painter, age eighteen. Spends evenings painting, reading, working on model airplanes. Has attended art school....Patronizes Free Library. Has read The Pickwick Papers, The Old Curiosity Shop, David Copperfield, Bulwer Lytton, Ballantyne, Henty, Robinson Crusoe, Quentin Dirward, Ivanhoe, Waverley, Kidnapped, Treasure Island and Two Years before the Mast, as well as the travels of David Livingstone, Fridtjof Nansen, Matthew Peary and Scott of the Antarctic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Private in an infantry regiment, formerly a skilled painter, age eighteen. Spends evenings painting, reading, working on model airplanes. Has attended art school....Patronizes Free Library. Has read The Pickwick Papers, The Old Curiosity Shop, David Copperfield, Bulwer Lytton, Ballantyne, Henty, Robinson Crusoe, Quentin Dirward, Ivanhoe, Waverley, Kidnapped, Treasure Island and Two Years before the Mast, as well as the travels of David Livingstone, Fridtjof Nansen, Matthew Peary and Scott of the Antarctic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
[analysis of a female respondent in Arnold Freeman's 1918 Sheffield Survey] 'Cutlery worker, age seventy-two...Fond of Longfellow, Stevenson, Ruskin, William Morris and Charles Dickens'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
Bartlett's picture of the Hispaniola lying beached in the Caribbean, on the clean-swept sand, its poop, round house, mainsails and fore-tops easily identified, had grown out of the flat print words of Treasure Island. Bartlett was a good painter in water-colour. When we read Kidnapped he made us paint the Scottish moors. We laughed over Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Sawdon Pritchett Print: Book
Bartlett's picture of the Hispaniola lying beached in the Caribbean, on the clean-swept sand, its poop, round house, mainsails and fore-tops easily identified, had grown out of the flat print words of Treasure Island. Bartlett was a good painter in water-colour. When we read Kidnapped he made us paint the Scottish moors. We laughed over Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Sawdon Pritchett Print: Book
"I have read with great interest your article on Victor Hugo & also that which appeared in the last number of Macmillan."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
'... King Kalakava [of Hawaii] ... was an avid reader of [R. L.] Stevenson's romances ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: King Kalakava Print: Unknown
?I have read with great interest your article on Victor Hugo & also that which appeared in the last number of Macmillan. I shall be happy to accept Hugo & if I have been rather long in answering you, it is only because I wished to give a second reading to the article? I think very highly of the promise shown in your writing & therefore think it worth while to write more fully than I often do to contributors.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
'As a boy George Acorn [an] East Londoner, read "all sorts and conditions of books from 'Penny Bloods' to George Eliot" with "some appreciation of style", enough to recognise the affinities of high and low literature. Thus he discerningly characterised "Treasure Island" as "the usual penny blood sort of story, with the halo of greatness about it".'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: George Acorn Print: Book
[imaginative role play] 'One chauffeur's daughter alternated effortlessly between heroes and heroines: "I have plotted against pirates along with Jim Hawkins and I have trembled with Jane Eyre as the first Mrs Rochester rent her bridal veil in maddened jealousy. I have been shipwrecked with Masterman Ready and on Pitcairn Island with Fletcher Christian. I have been a medieval page in Sir Nigel and Lorna Doone madly in love with 'girt Jan Ridd'".
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Wharton Print: Book
'Last night I spent with Charles Strachey; we each had an arm chair with a chair between us to hold books as we passed judgment on them. I am sending you Stevenson's last book which came out a few days ago, which I bought and read this afternoon (I had a meddlesome red pencil with which I slightly disfigured it) and which I think spendidly spirited.' [followed by a judgment on the book]
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Walter Raleigh Print: Book
'Masefield obtained his first copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island" on the Conway and was soon enraptured by the possibility that such South Sea adventures might overtake him'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Masefield Print: Book
'Before his departure for his native land he had read some of Dickens and Stevenson... and William Morris. John Masefield's debt to William Morris as a constructive thinker is considerable. It may be that Morris has been the formative influence, in his limitations as well as his liberations, on Masefield's view of life'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Masefield Print: Book
'I have only now realised that the reason Blind Pew in "Treasure Island" frightened me so extremely was that I gave him the face of our own Blind Man' [seen regularly in Cambridge and looking "most evil"]'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gwen Raverat Print: Book
'Aunt Ellen and her friends seemed to me wonderfully up-to-date and literary. She used to read Stevenson and Henley to us, which was the height of modernity then'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ellen Crofts Print: Book
Leon Edel, introducing vol 1 of Henry James's Letters, on James's feelings regarding publication of letters: "He opposed truncation. 'One has the vague sense of omissions ... one smells the thing unprinted,' he remarked after reading [Sidney] Colvin's edition of Stevenson's letters."
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
[alone in the sick bay] 'Read "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", as I always do when in the sick room.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[alone in the sick bay] 'Read "Kidnapped". Not up to much... Dr came and said I couldn't go down [into lessons] until Monday. Damn. Felt miserable. Read "Trail of the Sandhill Stag" and tidied out the book cupboard.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 5 December 1884: "I read only last night your paper in the December Longman's in genial rejoinder to my article in the same periodical on Besant's lecture, and the result ... is a friendly desire to send you three words."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Serial / periodical
Henry James to Wiliam James, 29 November 1888: " ... I have had in my hands the earlier sheets of the Master of Ballantrae, the new novel ... [R. L. Stevenson] is about to contribute to Scribner, and have been reading them with breathless admiration."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Manuscript: Sheet
Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 12 January 1891: "To-day what I am grateful for is your new ballad-book, which has just reached me by your command. I have had time only to read the first few things ... As I turn the pages I seem to see that they are full of charm ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 12 January 1891: "I read with unrestrictive relish the first chapters of your prose volume (kindly vouchsafed me in the little copyright-catching red volume) and I loved 'em and blessed them quite."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 13 January 1891 (in letter begun 12 January 1891): "Since yesterday I have ... read the ballad book -- with the admiration that I always feel as a helplessly verseless creature ..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 15 April 1892: "... I have just read the last page of the sweet collection of some of your happiest lucubrations put forth by the care of dear [Sidney] Colvin."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 8 June 1893: "It was only when I came back [from travels abroad] the other day that I could put my hand on the Island Nights, which by your generosity ... I found awaiting me on my table ... I read them as fondly as an infant sucks a stick of candy."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
'Out of all that reading only one memory survives now. The story itself I have forgotten but the scene was laid in Italy, and there was a chapter in which a beggar arrived at a cottage carrying a heavy sack, which he left in a corner while he went, as he said, to the barn to get some sleep. The woman of the house, who lived by herself, happened to touch the sack, felt it moving, and knew at once that there was a man in it who had come to murder her... When I read "Treasure Island" a few years later the horrible figure of the blind seaman Pew brought back again the terrors of that dream.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Muir Print: Book
'On the wall at the side of the chimney Dad put up the bookshelves which Dodie began to fill with secondhand penny books. Over the years we had Conrad and Wodehouse, Eric Linklater and Geoffrey Farnol, Edgar Wallace, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Mark Twain, Arnold Bennett, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Buchan, and a host of others, good, bad and awful, and we read the lot, some of them over and over.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: family of Rose Gamble Print: Book
'In my new vol. of the Edinburgh Stevenson, there is a luminous essay, reprinted for the first time from a Fortnightly Review of 1881, on ?some technical elements of style in literature.? You must read it when you come up; it is profoundly interesting to a craftsman. . . . I read the thing last night in bed?after an evening at Chapman?s?& was made to think thereby.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'My favourite masters & models: 1. Turgenev, a royal first (you must read 'On the Eve'?flawless I tell you. Bring back such books of mine as you have; I have others you must read). 2. de Maupassant. 3. de Goncourts. 4. George Moore?the great author who can neither write nor spell!
Stevenson only helps me in minute details of style.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
Louis announced that he had written something he wanted us to hear. When we had taken our seats round the centre table he stood before us with a manuscript in his hand...then in his deep voice vibrant with emotion, with heightened colour and blazing eyes he read aloud the 'Father Damien Letter.' Never in my life have I heard anything so dramatic, so magnificent. There was deep feeling in every sentence - scorn, indignation, biting irony, infinite pity - and invective that fairly scorched and sizzled. The tears were in his eyes when he finished. Throwing the manuscript on the table he turned to his wife. She who had never failed him, rose to his feet, and holding out both hands to him in a gesture of enthusiasm, cried: 'Print it! Publish it!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Unknown
After lunch was always a pleasant time at Vailima...that was the time Louis usually chose to read aloud something he had written. We were an eager, attentive audience, and when he had finished he welcomed suggestions and we were free to say whatever we liked. Usually we were unanimously enthusiastic, especially over chapters of 'Weir of Hermiston'...once, however, he read a story called 'The Witch Woman' that none of us cared for very much. My mother said it showed the influence of a Swedish author Louis had been reading, and was not in his own clear, individual style. She made no comment when he sent it to his publisher, and nothing more was heard of 'The Witch Woman'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Unknown
After lunch was always a pleasant time at Vailima...that was the time Louis usually chose to read aloud something he had written. We were an eager, attentive audience, and when he had finished he welcomed suggestions and we were free to say whatever we liked. Usually we were unanimously enthusiastic, especially over chapters of 'Weir of Hermiston'...once, however, he read a story called 'The Witch Woman' that none of us cared for very much. My mother said it showed the influence of a Swedish author Louis had been reading, and was not in his own clear, individual style. She made no comment when he sent it to his publisher, and nothing more was heard of 'The Witch Woman'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson
One day, as Louis was leaving the hotel, he stopped to send a message up to my mother by one of the 'Buttons', as they were called. The only boy present was sitting, deeply engrossed in a book. When Louis spoke to him, he made no answer but went on reading. Impatient, Louis plucked the book out of the boy's hand. It was 'Treasure Island'. Returning it instantly, he said: 'Go right on reading, my little man. Don't let anyone disturb you.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
One day, as Louis was leaving the hotel, he stopped to send a message up to my mother by one of the 'Buttons', as they were called. The only boy present was sitting, deeply engrossed in a book. When Louis spoke to him, he made no answer but went on reading. Impatient, Louis plucked the book out of the boy's hand. It was 'Treasure Island'. Returning it instantly, he said: 'Go right on reading, my little man. Don't let anyone disturb you.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
On one occasion, he came to me, flourishing a paper wildly in the air...I thought he had suddenly inherited a fortune, or that something of an extreme value had fallen in his way. 'What in heaven's name is it?' I asked. 'This, my friend. For years a certain critic has practically damned my works - said there was nothing really in them - and now this person, whose ability I have always admired despite the fact that I have suffered, has declared: "Stevenson has at last produced one of the best books of the season, and the claim of his friends seems fully justified, for the work is full of genius."' His face was all aglow with feverish excitement. 'Who is this wonderful critic, Stevenson, whose praise you so enjoy? And what bitter things has he said of you before?' 'We will drop the severe things, Moors. You would never guess, if I gave you all morning, who it is who has at last admitted me to be in the front rank of my profession. It is Mrs Oliphant, my dear sir - Mrs Oliphant!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Oliphant Print: Book, Serial / periodical
'My brothers and I have lived the book ["Treasure Island"] many times and the Bois de Boulogne is full of places that we re-christened with Treasure Island names such as Skeleton Island ? Treasure Island itself is that inaccessible island in the fairly large lake at the back of the Jardin d?Acclimatation. I gave it that name because there are no boats on the lake and we were never able to get anywhere near it. We were only little boys. I peopled the Bois de Boulogne with many strange tribes. We used to wonder if there was a ?Ben Gunn? marooned on the Treasure Island and for many hours we have gazed at it lying in the grass hoping for a signal of distress. You have no idea how the B de B is full of imaginary perils, adventures, Indians, Pirates, Cannibals, Outlaws and all of the hundred and one things that come into a boy?s life through books of adventure. What virgin forests we have explored in this way. Some day I must show you the Grand Canyon of Colorado at St. Cloud. How many times was the coach held up here and the passengers taken captive, to be rescued after fierce fights with Outlaws, Redskins and Renegades. Our coach was a Swiss condensed milk packing case, two broomsticks for shaft, and two old pram wheels; all of it painted a gorgeous but rather horrible brown. My youngest sister, Ethel, was usually the fair lady passenger. To young boys the spot really seemed fraught with danger and romance because very few people ever pass that way. There is an old bridge over this canyon, and steep banks barely scalable in places. ?. I was always planning some new affair, getting up some wild scheme. It was a good life for us. We were very, very poor boys but few were as rich as we were in imagination and few rich boys ever got as much spice out of life as we did. It was a healthy life too, always trotting about in the open. I really love the B de B and St Cloud woods; B de B as a little kid up to 12 or 13, then St Cloud, which grew dearer still in all my strenuous cross country days. I can remember many a pleasurable thrill in cross country when the trail led us over old familiar spots where our camp fires had burned (not really) and where we had seen stirring scenes of ?daring do?'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arthur Vanson Print: Book
?Morley has accepted the "Fables" and I have seen it in proof and think less of it than ever.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Sheet, Proof of the article
?Yesterday, by the bye, I received the proof of "Victor Hugo"; it is not nicely written, but the stuff is capital, I think. Modesty is my most remarkable quality, I may say in passing.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Proof copy of RLS?s essay on ?Victor Hugo?s Romances?
'"Victor Hugo" has come; I like all your alterations vastly, except one which I don?t like, tho? I own something was needed there also.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Proof copy of RLS?s essay on ?Victor Hugo?s Romances?
?Goodbye. I am at "Knox and the Women", which seems good stuff when I come to put it down; but the arrangement cost me some trouble.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book, Presumably numerous works by, and of general and specific reference to, Knox
'Many thanks. I have received the 15 quid, and the "Portfolio" proof.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Proof copy of RLS?s essay
'I have another letter from Groves [sic] about my ?John Knox?, which is flattering in its way: he is a very gushing and spontaneous person.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Grove Manuscript: Unknown
'I have the "PTFL" proof; and it is very fourth rate, I am afraid; not quite [italics] dead [end italics] you know, but ailing − very ailing.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Proof copy of RLS?s essay.
'I found the proof of ?John Knox? waiting me here, and have despatched it.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Proof copy.
'Piano again disentangled; and some hope, not for it only, but for the tale. I have read it to my mother, who thought it was the only one of mine she had ever heard, that promised any possible success: I have read some of it also to Baxter who was pleased and counselled me to go on with it. I suppose with these two opinions I should feel strengthened.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Unknown, Seems to refer to one of a set of stories that RLS had at various stages of planning and completion, see Letter 329.
'I have found what should interest you dear. A paper in which I had sketched out my life, before I knew you. Here is the exact copy even to spelling.[?]'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Sheet
'Well, I was at the annual dinner of my old Academy schoolfellows last night. We sat down ten, out of seventy-two.[?] I read them some verses. It is great fun: I always read verses, and in the vinous enthusiasm of the moment they always propose to have them printed; [italics]ce qui n?arrive jamais, du reste[end italics]: in the morning, they are more calm.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Unknown, Probably sheets of paper or pages from a notebook.
'I have been working all the morning at my second ?John Knox? proof, and got it pretty right, I fancy.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Serial / periodical, Proof copy of RLS's essay.
'I have also got ?An Autumn Effect? in proof: I shall send it to you to read, I think.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Serial / periodical, Proof copy of RLS's essay.
'And now I have taken up an old story, begun years ago; and I have now rewritten all I had written of it then and mean to finish it. What I have lost and gained is odd. As far as regards simple writing, of course I am in another world now; but in some things, though more clumsy, I seem to have been freer and more plucky: this is a lesson I have taken to heart. I have got a jolly new name for my old story. I am going to call it ?A Country Dance?: the two heroes keep changing places, you know; and the chapter, where the most of this changing goes on, is to be called: ?Up the Middle, down the Middle?. It will be in six, or (perhaps) seven, chapters. I have never worked harder in my life, than these last four days. If I can only keep it up.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Earlier draft of one of his stories.
'My mother started to read to me when I was very young indeed. She read aloud beautifully and never got tired, and she would never, from the first, read anything that she could not enjoy herself, which cut out all the poor quality writing which every right-minded child loves when he can get it. Her only concession was one weekly comic, "Rainbow". But apart from that, I was reared on a fine mixed diet of Beatrix Potter, A.A. Milne, Dickens, Stevenson, Hans Andersen, Kenneth Grahame and Kipling – especially Puck of Pook’s Hill whose three magnificent stories of Roman Britain were the beginning of my own passion for the subject, and resulted in the fullness of time in The Eagle of the Ninth. Hero myths of Greece and Rome I had, in an unexpurgated edition which my mother edited herself as she went along, and Norse and Saxon and Celtic legends. There were Whyte Melville’s The Gladiators and Bulwer Lytton’s Last Days of Pompeii and Weigal’s Egyptian Princess; for my mother loved historical novels – history of any kind, though her view of it was always the minstrel’s rather than the historian’s.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosemary Sutcliff Print: Book
'My discouragement is from many causes: among others the re-reading of my Italian story. Forgive me, Colvin, but I cannot agree with you; it seems green fruit to me, if not really unwholesome; it is profoundly feeble, damn its weak knees!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Manuscript: Unknown
'It was at this time, too, in the 'silent' reading periods at school, that - conventionally enough, I suppose, for a bookish child - I came upon Stevenson's "Treasure Island", "Don Quixote", "David Copperfield", all in abridged versions'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Causley Print: Book
'In respect of contemporary novels he [Tennyson] had a very catholic taste. Latterly he read Stevenson and George Meredith with great interest: also Walter Besant, Black, Hardy, Henry James, Marion Crawford, Anstey, Barrie, Blackmore, Conan Doyle, Miss Braddon, Miss Lawless, Ouida, Miss Broughton, Lady Margaret Majendie, Hall Caine, and Shorthouse. He liked Edna Lyall's Autobiography of a Slander, and the Geier-Wally by Wilhelmina von Hillern; and often gave his friends Surly Tim to read, for its "concentrated pathos." "Mrs Oliphant's prolific work," he would observe, "is amazing, and she is nearly always worth reading."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Unknown
'[At Mrs Ward's Passmore Edwards Settlement] One class, too, she kept as her very own - a weekly reading aloud for boys between eleven and fourteen, in the course of which she read them a great deal of Stevenson and Kipling'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Augusta Ward Print: Book
'An excellent programme illustrative of R.L. Stevenson's work was then proceeded with. A biographical paper was read by H. R. Smith & a critical appreciation of the works by J. Ridges & selections by several members.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Members of the XII Book Club Print: Book
'An excellent programme illustrative of R.L. Stevenson's work was then proceeded with. A biographical paper was read by H. R. Smith & a critical appreciation of the works by J. Ridges & selections by several members.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ridges Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was given over to R.L. Stevenson & his work.
[the format of the evening's discussion on the question of whether Stevenson's work will live is explained]
To enable us to review his work readings were given as under
from the Essays - 'An Apology for Idlers' by Alfred vice Janet Rawlings
Poems - 'Christmas at Sea'
'Tropic Rain'
'Vagabond' [all read by] Mrs W.H. Smith
Travel Books - 'Travels with a Donkey' by E.E. Unwin
Novels - 'Master of Ballantrae' by H.M. Wallis
Letters - Mr & Mrs Evans.
[some remarks on songs sung by various members]
It is difficult for any one to sum up the results of the discussion - it was soon apparent that to some members his essays were the one & only thing worth having, to others his stories, 'Treasure Island', 'Island Nights Entertainments' & so on reveal his greatness: to others, his letters are the thing & so one might proceed'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred and Janet Rawlings Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was given over to R.L. Stevenson & his work.
[the format of the evening's discussion on the question of whether Stevenson's work will live is explained]
To enable us to review his work readings were given as under
from the Essays - 'An Apology for Idlers' by Alfred vice Janet Rawlings
Poems - 'Christmas at Sea'
'Tropic Rain'
'Vagabond' [all read by] Mrs W.H. Smith
Travel Books - 'Travels with a Donkey' by E.E. Unwin
Novels - 'Master of Ballantrae' by H.M. Wallis
Letters - Mr & Mrs Evans.
[some remarks on songs sung by various members]
It is difficult for any one to sum up the results of the discussion - it was soon apparent that to some members his essays were the one & only thing worth having, to others his stories, 'Treasure Island', 'Island Nights Entertainments' & so on reveal his greatness: to others, his letters are the thing & so one might proceed'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Ann Smith Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was given over to R.L. Stevenson & his work.
[the format of the evening's discussion on the question of whether Stevenson's work will live is explained]
To enable us to review his work readings were given as under
from the Essays - 'An Apology for Idlers' by Alfred vice Janet Rawlings
Poems - 'Christmas at Sea'
'Tropic Rain'
'Vagabond' [all read by] Mrs W.H. Smith
Travel Books - 'Travels with a Donkey' by E.E. Unwin
Novels - 'Master of Ballantrae' by H.M. Wallis
Letters - Mr & Mrs Evans.
[some remarks on songs sung by various members]
It is difficult for any one to sum up the results of the discussion - it was soon apparent that to some members his essays were the one & only thing worth having, to others his stories, 'Treasure Island', 'Island Nights Entertainments' & so on reveal his greatness: to others, his letters are the thing & so one might proceed'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Ann Smith Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was given over to R.L. Stevenson & his work.
[the format of the evening's discussion on the question of whether Stevenson's work will live is explained]
To enable us to review his work readings were given as under
from the Essays - 'An Apology for Idlers' by Alfred vice Janet Rawlings
Poems - 'Christmas at Sea'
'Tropic Rain'
'Vagabond' [all read by] Mrs W.H. Smith
Travel Books - 'Travels with a Donkey' by E.E. Unwin
Novels - 'Master of Ballantrae' by H.M. Wallis
Letters - Mr & Mrs Evans.
[some remarks on songs sung by various members]
It is difficult for any one to sum up the results of the discussion - it was soon apparent that to some members his essays were the one & only thing worth having, to others his stories, 'Treasure Island', 'Island Nights Entertainments' & so on reveal his greatness: to others, his letters are the thing & so one might proceed'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Ann Smith Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was given over to R.L. Stevenson & his work.
[the format of the evening's discussion on the question of whether Stevenson's work will live is explained]
To enable us to review his work readings were given as under
from the Essays - 'An Apology for Idlers' by Alfred vice Janet Rawlings
Poems - 'Christmas at Sea'
'Tropic Rain'
'Vagabond' [all read by] Mrs W.H. Smith
Travel Books - 'Travels with a Donkey' by E.E. Unwin
Novels - 'Master of Ballantrae' by H.M. Wallis
Letters - Mr & Mrs Evans.
[some remarks on songs sung by various members]
It is difficult for any one to sum up the results of the discussion - it was soon apparent that to some members his essays were the one & only thing worth having, to others his stories, 'Treasure Island', 'Island Nights Entertainments' & so on reveal his greatness: to others, his letters are the thing & so one might proceed'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ernest E. Unwin Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was given over to R.L. Stevenson & his work.
[the format of the evening's discussion on the question of whether Stevenson's work will live is explained]
To enable us to review his work readings were given as under
from the Essays - 'An Apology for Idlers' by Alfred vice Janet Rawlings
Poems - 'Christmas at Sea'
'Tropic Rain'
'Vagabond' [all read by] Mrs W.H. Smith
Travel Books - 'Travels with a Donkey' by E.E. Unwin
Novels - 'Master of Ballantrae' by H.M. Wallis
Letters - Mr & Mrs Evans.
[some remarks on songs sung by various members]
It is difficult for any one to sum up the results of the discussion - it was soon apparent that to some members his essays were the one & only thing worth having, to others his stories, 'Treasure Island', 'Island Nights Entertainments' & so on reveal his greatness: to others, his letters are the thing & so one might proceed'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was given over to R.L. Stevenson & his work.
[the format of the evening's discussion on the question of whether Stevenson's work will live is explained]
To enable us to review his work readings were given as under
from the Essays - 'An Apology for Idlers' by Alfred vice Janet Rawlings
Poems - 'Christmas at Sea'
'Tropic Rain'
'Vagabond' [all read by] Mrs W.H. Smith
Travel Books - 'Travels with a Donkey' by E.E. Unwin
Novels - 'Master of Ballantrae' by H.M. Wallis
Letters - Mr & Mrs Evans.
[some remarks on songs sung by various members]
It is difficult for any one to sum up the results of the discussion - it was soon apparent that to some members his essays were the one & only thing worth having, to others his stories, 'Treasure Island', 'Island Nights Entertainments' & so on reveal his greatness: to others, his letters are the thing & so one might proceed'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles and Katherine Evans Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was given over to R.L. Stevenson & his work.
[the format of the evening's discussion on the question of whether Stevenson's work will live is explained]
To enable us to review his work readings were given as under
from the Essays - 'An Apology for Idlers' by Alfred vice Janet Rawlings
Poems - 'Christmas at Sea'
'Tropic Rain'
'Vagabond' [all read by] Mrs W.H. Smith
Travel Books - 'Travels with a Donkey' by E.E. Unwin
Novels - 'Master of Ballantrae' by H.M. Wallis
Letters - Mr & Mrs Evans.
[some remarks on songs sung by various members]
It is difficult for any one to sum up the results of the discussion - it was soon apparent that to some members his essays were the one & only thing worth having, to others his stories, 'Treasure Island', 'Island Nights Entertainments' & so on reveal his greatness: to others, his letters are the thing & so one might proceed'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: members of XII Book Club Print: Book
'The remainder of the evening was given over to R.L. Stevenson & his work.
[the format of the evening's discussion on the question of whether Stevenson's work will live is explained]
To enable us to review his work readings were given as under
from the Essays - 'An Apology for Idlers' by Alfred vice Janet Rawlings
Poems - 'Christmas at Sea'
'Tropic Rain'
'Vagabond' [all read by] Mrs W.H. Smith
Travel Books - 'Travels with a Donkey' by E.E. Unwin
Novels - 'Master of Ballantrae' by H.M. Wallis
Letters - Mr & Mrs Evans.
[some remarks on songs sung by various members]
It is difficult for any one to sum up the results of the discussion - it was soon apparent that to some members his essays were the one & only thing worth having, to others his stories, 'Treasure Island', 'Island Nights Entertainments' & so on reveal his greatness: to others, his letters are the thing & so one might proceed'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: members of XII Book Club Print: Book
Books read by William Lygon, seventh Earl Beauchamp (politician, 1872-1938) to his daughters Lettice (1906-73) and Sibell (1907-2005) between June 1915 and December 1916 at Madresfield Court, Worcestershire:
The Tapestry Room (Mrs Molesworth)
The Pigeon Pie (Charlotte M. Yonge)
Lilian’s Golden Hours (Eliza Meteyard)
The Christmas Child (Hesba Stretton)
Wandering Willie (from Scott’s Redgauntlet?)
The Talisman (Walter Scott)
Ivanhoe (Walter Scott)
St Ives (Robert Louis Stevenson)
Theodora Phranza (J. M. Neale)
The House of Walderne (A. D. Crake)
The Black Arrow (Robert Louis Stevenson)
The Caged Lion (Charlotte M. Yonge)
The Little Duke (Charlotte M. Yonge)
The Jungle Books (Rudyard Kipling)
The Maltese Cat (Rudyard Kipling)
Boscobel (William Harrison Ainsworth)
Puck of Pook’s Hill (Rudyard Kipling)
Rewards and Fairies (Rudyard Kipling)
The Armourer’s Apprentice (Charlotte M. Yonge)
and some poetry.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Lygon, seventh Earl Beauchamp Print: Book
Books read by William Lygon, seventh Earl Beauchamp (politician, 1872-1938) to his daughters Lettice (1906-73) and Sibell (1907-2005) between June 1915 and December 1916 at Madresfield Court, Worcestershire:
The Tapestry Room (Mrs Molesworth)
The Pigeon Pie (Charlotte M. Yonge)
Lilian’s Golden Hours (Eliza Meteyard)
The Christmas Child (Hesba Stretton)
Wandering Willie (from Scott’s Redgauntlet?)
The Talisman (Walter Scott)
Ivanhoe (Walter Scott)
St Ives (Robert Louis Stevenson)
Theodora Phranza (J. M. Neale)
The House of Walderne (A. D. Crake)
The Black Arrow (Robert Louis Stevenson)
The Caged Lion (Charlotte M. Yonge)
The Little Duke (Charlotte M. Yonge)
The Jungle Books (Rudyard Kipling)
The Maltese Cat (Rudyard Kipling)
Boscobel (William Harrison Ainsworth)
Puck of Pook’s Hill (Rudyard Kipling)
Rewards and Fairies (Rudyard Kipling)
The Armourer’s Apprentice (Charlotte M. Yonge)
and some poetry.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Lygon, seventh Earl Beauchamp Print: Book
'Letters & Letter writing were then proceeded with.
Mrs Burrow read three letters of William Cowper characteristically interesting & amusing.
Mrs C. Elliott read in French two amusing letters one by Madame de Sevigny & one by Victor Hugo.
C. I. Evans read two [?] Ladies Battle & K.S. Evans two by R.L. Stevenson
F.E. Pollard read letters by G.B. Shaw & J.M. Barrie to Mrs Patrick Campbell on the death of her son killed in action.
Geo Burrow read several characteristic epistles of Charles Lamb & Howard R. Smith part of a letter by Lord Chesterfield to his son.
The Club were also much interested by seeing a number of Autograph letters from famous folk shown by various members of the Club.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Evans Print: Unknown
'We read aloud one of the ''New Arabian Nights'' you mention, which is very amusing ... I particularly admire the ending of the bandbox story...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'In one letter, written in June 1893, he logs Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, Lorna Doone ("seventh or eighth time"), Saintsbury's Essays on French Novelists, Dumas's Tulipe Noire, Maupassant, and some poems of Hugo and Gautier. A month later he is reporting on Andrew Lang's Lectures on Literature ("very good"), P. G. Hamerton's Intellectual Life ("excellent"), the poems of Robert Bridges ("very good") Henry James's Madonna of the Future ("peculiar"), R. L. Stevenson's Kidnapped and Master of Ballantrae ("fourth or fifth time"), Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris, and Ibsen's Doll House, League of Youth and Pillars of Society. "I am beginning to like Ibsen more than I did. I understand him better."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan Print: Book
I had a snug evening with Mildred reading part of the broken last novel of L. Stevenson, in which he gives most elaborate descriptions of characters you don't care for. He has no notion of what is tiresome or not.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'After lunch they all went to the Eiffel Tower and I stayed at home and read Stevenson and wrote letters.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Lunched at Troyes, reached Bale at 7.30. Hotel Euler. Read Stevenson's "Men and Books" and Miss Warlson's "Horace Chase".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'Mr [Horatio] Brown showed us all sorts of interesting Stevenson things yesterday — particularly a little paper book of poems, with all the Stevenson grace about them, written at Davos and printed by Lloyd Osbourne in his own printing press there. I enjoyed our luncheon very much.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'We were coasting down Corsica — I saw it out of my bathroom window — in perfect weather, mild and calm and sunny. We passed through the Straits of Bonifac[c]io about 11 and were soon out of land. I sat on deck all day without any rugs or wraps and read Stevenson's charming letters, walked about with the Austrian a little and talked to the Australians.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'The ... grandiloquent "education programme" we were able to satisfy sufficiently. A number of the "boys" were barely literate and Miss Nettleton could deal with the three R's. Some of them were not at all too old to sit around her on the floor like children while she read them Treasure Island or The Wind in the Willows: this could be counted as an hour of "English".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Irene Nettleton Print: Book
'Not many miles away to the left lies Landrecies, which R. L. Stevenson refers to, in "An Inland Voyage," as, "a point in the great warfaring system of Europe which might on some future day be ranged about with cannon, smoke, and thunder." That evening, the prophecy was fulfilled.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ian Vivian Hay Print: Book
'On many nights I would sit beside the kitchen fire, listening to my father reading or telling tales. There was no wireless then and no gramophones, and our fireside talk was little different from that which had been going on for generations by any Connaught fireside ... At other times my father would read to me from a book. These tales were usually of the "creepy" variety—Thrawn Janet; or one of Marion Crawford's uncanny stories; or Green Tea, or The Watcher, by that master of the macabre, Sheridan Le Fanu; or the most vivid ghost story in English, Bulwer Lytton's The Haunted and the Haunters; and many another tooth-chattering tale, as Stevenson called them.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Desmond Malone Print: Book
'The sergeant was a small chap, and all night was so tireless that I thought of Alan Breck Stewart in Kidnapped.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Hugh Kiernan Print: Book
