Record Number: 28636
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
Charlotte Bronte to W. S. Williams, 5 April 1849:
'The Cornhill books are still our welcome and congenial resource while Anne [sister, in terminal decline] is well enough to enjoy reading. Carlyle's "Miscellanies" interest me greatly. We have read "The Emigrant Family." The characters in the work are good, full of quiet truth and nature, and the local colouring is excellent; yet I can hardly call it a good novel. Reflective, truth-loving, and even elevated as is Alexander Harris's mind, I should say he scarcely possesses the creative faculty in sufficient vigour to excel as a writer of fiction. He creates nothing he only copies. "The Testimony to the Truth [of Christianity]" is a better book than any tale he can write will ever be.'
1800-1849
Date:Between 1 Jan 1849 and 5 Apr 1849
Country:England
Timen/a
Place:n/a
Type of Experience(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reading Group: Age:Adult (18-100+)
Gender:Female
Date of Birth:n/a
Socio-Economic Group:Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation:n/a
Religion:n/a
Country of Origin:n/a
Country of Experience:England
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:The Emigrant Family
Genre:Fiction
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication Detailsn/a
Provenanceunknown
Source Information:
Record ID:28636
Source:n/a
Editor:Thomas James Wise and John Alexander Symington
Title:The Brontes: Their Lives, Friendships and Correspondence
Place of Publication:Oxford
Date of Publication:1980
Vol:1:2
Page:322
Additional Comments:
n/a
Citation:
Thomas James Wise and John Alexander Symington (ed.), The Brontes: Their Lives, Friendships and Correspondence, (Oxford, 1980), 1:2, p. 322, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=28636, accessed: 05 October 2024
Additional Comments:
The other work of Harris's referred to by Brontė is 'A Converted Atheist's Testimony to the Truth of Christianity'; see p.306 in source for her more detailed response to it.