'[Edwin] Whitlock... borrowed books from a schoolmaster and from neighbours: "Most of them would now be considered very heavy literature for a boy of fourteen or fifteen, but I didn't know that, for I had no light literature for comparison. I read most of the novels of Dickens, Scott, Lytton and Mrs Henry Wood, 'The Pilgrim's Progress' and 'The Holy War' - an illustrated guide to Biblical Palestine, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', several bound volumes of religious magazines, 'The Adventures of a Penny', and sundry similar classics". With few books competing for his attention, he could freely concentrate on his favorite reading, "A set of twelve thick volumes of Cassell's 'History of England'".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Whitlock Print: Book
'My mother used to read the novels of Miss Braddon and Mrs Henry Wood, and those in a series called "The Family Story Teller", that she got from the public library. My father got her "East Lynne" through a pub Literary Society, she read it over and over again. I read it when I was about nine. Heavens, the tears I gulped back over the death of Little Willie!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Polly Stamper Print: Book
'My mother used to read the novels of Miss Braddon and Mrs Henry Wood, and those in a series called "The Family Story Teller", that she got from the public library. My father got her "East Lynne" through a pub Literary Society, she read it over and over again. I read it when I was about nine. Heavens, the tears I gulped back over the death of Little Willie!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Stamper Print: Book
'Now that we had gas I found it much easier and pleasanter to read. When I had read all my own periodicals I used to read Mother's literature. Sometimes she bought a novelette; the "Heartsease Library" was one, a penny per week. She was in the public library, too. I read "The Channings" by Mrs Henry Wood, and "Lady Audley's Secret" by Miss Braddon, and others by these two who were my mother's favourite authors.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Stamper Print: Book
'Now that we had gas I found it much easier and pleasanter to read. When I had read all my own periodicals I used to read Mother's literature. Sometimes she bought a novelette; the "Heartsease Library" was one, a penny per week. She was in the public library, too. I read "The Channings" by Mrs Henry Wood, and "Lady Audley's Secret" by Miss Braddon, and others by these two who were my mother's favourite authors.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Polly Stamper Print: Book
'It was during all these years that he [Conrad] read. Men at sea read an inordinate amount.[...] A large percentage of the letters received by writers from readers come from sailors either in the King's or the merchant service.[...]. It was Conrad's great good luck to be spared the usual literature that attends on the upringing of the British writer. He read such dog-eared books as are found in the professional quarters of ships' crews. He read Mrs. Henry Wood, Miss Braddon — above all Miss Braddon! — the "Family Herald", rarely even going as high as the late William Black or the pseudoliterary writers of his day.[...] Normally he would express the deepest gratitude to the writers of the "Family Herald" — a compilation of monthly novelettes the grammar of which was very efficiently censored by its sub-editors — and above all to Miss Braddon.[...]. Long after this period of seamanship Conrad read "The Orange Girl", a novel placed in the time of Charles II. He recognised in it, so he then said, all the qualities he had found in this novelist's work when he had been before the mast.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
‘Reading East Lynne’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Adcock Weston Print: Book
