Record Number: 31825
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
'Meeting held at Gower Cottage, 20.II.’39
R. D. L. Moore, & subsequently H. Stevens in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
[...]
5. R. H. Robson told of The Stately Homes of Thames, + we heard of Bisham
Abbey, Mapledurham, Ufton Court, of Jesuits hunted by Walsingham, of the
incident of The Rape of the Lock, of Lovelace, Lady Place, Hurley, and Soames
Forsyte.
6. H. R. Smith, dealing with the Story of the River, + passing lightly over the
Danish incursions upstream, spoke of the thousand years in which the Thames had
been in bounds. Weirs had been made by millers, navigation had been slow and
perilous, the modern lock was a matter of the last hundred + fifty years. Twenty-
six mills were named in Domesday Book[.] The Thames Conservancy had brought
order out of chaos.
[...]
8. S. A. Reynolds read from Mortimer Menpes of warehouses + houseboats, the
boat race + Henley Regatta, Kingfishers + quick backwaters, fishing + the
vagaries of the towpath.
9. R. D. L. Moore gave us Literary Gleanings, touching on Spenser and Shelley,
quoting from The Scholar Gypsy + Thyrsis, + reading Soames Forsyte’s thoughts
in the early morning on the river, Kipling’s The River’s Tale, + Virginia Woolf’s
astonishing account in Orlando of the great frost, when a girl dissolved into
powder + fish were frozen twenty fathoms deep!
[...]
11. Muriel Stevens read a friend’s notes on Deptford + its river scenes.
12. A. B. Dilkes from Three Men in a Boat.
[Signed] S A Reynolds
27/3/93 [i.e. 27/3/39]'
1900-1945
Date:20 Feb 1939
Country:England
Timeevening
Place:city: Reading
county: Berkshire
specific address: Gower Cottage, Elm Road
(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary reactive unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: Age:Adult (18-100+)
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:1863
Socio-Economic Group:Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation:Chartered accountant with own practice
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
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:?The Thames
Genre:Geography / Travel
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication DetailsProbably Mortimer Menpes and Geraldine Edith Mitton, The Thames (London: A. & C. Black, 1906) – watercolours by Menpes, text by Mitton.
Provenanceunknown
Source Information:
Record ID:31825
Source:Manuscript
Author:n/a
Title:XII Book Club Minute Book, Vol. 4 (1938-1943)
Location:private collection
Call No:n/a
Page/Folio:37–9
Additional Information:
Although Victor Alexander was secretary to the XII Book Club at this time, it is clear from the handwriting that he was not the author of these minutes.
Citation:
XII Book Club Minute Book, Vol. 4 (1938-1943), private collection, 37–9, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=31825, accessed: 05 November 2024
Additional Comments:
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).