Record Number: 30651

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Minutes of Meeting held at School House. 3rd April 1943
    R. D. L. Moore in the Chair
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read & signed.

[...]

4. Roger Moore introduced the subject of ‘Ballads’. He spoke of their origin, which is very obscure since anonymity belongs to their very nature. They were never meant to be ‘literature’, since they were not written but have come down to us orally until Bishop Percy in 1765 started making his collection. He quoted Quiller- Couch in saying that almost all the places most celebrated in ballad poetry lie in the Border country between two lines, one drawn from the Firth of Forth to the Clyde & the other from Newcastle-on-Tyne to St Bee’s Head. Quiller-Couch also draws two chronological lines — at the years 1350 and 1550 & holds that the Ballad rose, flourished & declined within that period.

5. Illustrations of Ballads were given as follows:
Tam Lin    read by Elsie Harrod
The Two Magicians    sung by A. B. Dilks
Sir Patrick Spens    read by Kenneth Nicholson
The Suffolk Miracle    [read by] Margaret Dilks
Chevy Chase    [read by] Knox Taylor

Some Berkshire Ballads —
    Archbishop Laud
    Mollie Mog
    The Lay of the Hunted Pig
    Cupid’s Garden ——— read by Howard Smith

John Barleycorn — read by Isabel Taylor

Edward — [read by] Bruce Dilks.

[signed as a true record by] Muriel M. Stevens 8 - 5 - 43. [at the club meeting held at Gower Cottage: see Minute Book, p. 153.]'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

3 Apr 1943

Country:

England

Time

evening

Place:

city: Reading
county: Berkshire
specific address: School House, Leighton Park School

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:

Roger Moore

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

n/a

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

n/a

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:

Roger Moore

Title:

[Address on ballads and folk song]

Genre:

Essays / Criticism, History, Poetry

Form of Text:

Manuscript: Unknown

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

30651

Source:

Manuscript

Author:

Margaret Dilks

Title:

XII Book Club Minute Book, Vol. 4 (1938-1943)

Location:

private collection

Call No:

n/a

Page/Folio:

151–153

Additional Information:

Margaret Dilks was secretary to the XII Book Club from 1940 to 1970. It is inferred from this, and from the handwriting, that she was the author of this set of minutes.

Citation:

Margaret Dilks, XII Book Club Minute Book, Vol. 4 (1938-1943), private collection, 151–153, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=30651, accessed: 09 May 2025

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Additional Comments:

The argument and quotation[s] read out are from the section ‘Ballads’ in Arthur Quiller-Couch, Studies in Literature: First Series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923), pp. 22–47; and in particular pp. 36, 39, and 41. (He may have used another edition, with a different pagination.)

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).