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Record Number: 29811

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue 15. I. 35.
Sylvanus Reynolds in the Chair

1. Minutes of last read & approved.

5. It was with a great pleasure to the club to welcome back Charles and Katherine Evans, who with the latter�s brother Samuel Bracher, came to entertain us with their programme of �Bees in Music and Literature.�

6. Charles Evans opened with an introduction that gave us an outline of the bee�s life.[...]

7. We next listened to a record of Mendelssohn�s �Bee�s Wedding.�

8. Samuel Bracher gave a longish talk on Bees and the Poets. He classified the poems as Idyllic, Scientific or Philosophical, and Ornamental; by quoting a great variety of works including lines from Shakespeare, K. Tynan Hickson, Pope, Thompson, Evans, Alexander, Tennyson, & Watson, he showed an amazing knowledge of the Poets. [...]

9. Charles Evans then spoke on Maeterlinck and Edwardes.

10. Charles Stansfield read Martin Armstrong�s Honey Harvest.

11. Another gramophone record gave us Rimsky-Korsakov�s �Flight of the Bumble Bee�

12. Katherine Evans read from Victoria Sackville-West�s �Bees on the Land�. Some of the lines were of very great beauty, & much enjoyed.

13 H. M Wallis then read an extract from the Testament of Beauty, concerning Bees. But he & all of us found Robert Bridges, at that hour in a warmish room, too difficult, and he called the remainder of the reading off.

14. A general discussion was the permitted, and members let themselves go.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

15 Jan 1935

Country:

England

Time

evening

Place:

city: Reading
county: Berkshire
specific address: Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary reactive unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Katherine S. Evans

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

12 May 1876

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Wife to retired headmaster. Formerly a teacher.

Religion:

Quaker or associated with the Friends

Country of Origin:

n/a

Country of Experience:

England

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

Members of the XII Book Club

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Vita Sackville-West

Title:

Bees on the Land

Genre:

Poetry

Form of Text:

Unknown

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

29811

Source:

Manuscript

Author:

Victor Alexander

Title:

XII Book Club Minute Book, Vol. 3 (1931-1938)

Location:

private collection

Call No:

n/a

Page/Folio:

121�128

Additional Information:

Victor Alexander was secretary to the XII Book Club from 1931 to 1940. It is inferred from this that he was the author of this set of minutes.

Citation:

Victor Alexander, XII Book Club Minute Book, Vol. 3 (1931-1938), private collection, 121�128, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=29811, accessed: 04 February 2026

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Additional Comments:

The text read is perhaps an extract from the narrative Poem �The Land�.

For Katharine S. Bracher Evans, see Dictionary of Quaker Biography. (Article available from the pilot Digital Dictionary of Quaker Biography, ) Material by kind permission of the XII Book Club. For further information and permission to quote this source, contact the Reading Experience Database (http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/contacts.php).