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Record Number: 32947

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

�Here I am beside a French canal, watching the day, and remembering with an ache what Glostershire is in such a season as September, and with whom I usually spent the best of it�with Will Harvey � Yesterday, some misbegotten fool took all my books and burned them. They were in a sack and too near other rubbish sacks for safety as it seems. This includes the French war songs I had promised � We are just going up again and will be on business for a little while now. Old Pepys is a great man, really a great man to be so absolutely interested in everything interesting. Of course he is funny, but that is not the final impression left by the book � The article in the Times Literary on the Navy was very good [�The Tradition of the Navy,� 31 August 1916, p.1] � I read a great deal of Kipling�s "Fringes of the Fleet" in a shell hole, during one of the most annoying times we have had. It was during heavy fatigue, and the Bosches spotted us and let fly with heavy shrapnel and 5.9s � In books, after a careful survey, I find myself reduced to Wordsworth�s "Excursion", and a few blitherings from the �Pastor� have reduced me to a state of �wet� melancholy. (�Wet� is B.E.F. for half-witted.) I bought that book from a 2d box in Putney, and the excruciatingly mild engraving at the beginning alone is worth the money; but not to me. It is lucky that some of my books were distributed, and can be begged back. But alas! Walt Whitman and Browning are na poo.�

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 1 Sep 1916 and 13 Sep 1916

Country:

France

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Laventie
county: Pas-de-Calais
specific address: Fort d'Esquin

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Ivor Bertie Gurney

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

28 Aug 1890

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Private, Gloucestershire Regiment

Religion:

Christian (Anglican)

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

France

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

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Title:

leading article (unsigned) in Times Literary Supplement

Genre:

Essays / Criticism

Form of Text:

Print: Newspaper, Serial / periodical

Publication Details

31 August 1916

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

32947

Source:

Print

Author:

Ivor Gurney

Editor:

R. K. R. Thornton

Title:

Ivor Gurney: Collected Letters

Place of Publication:

Manchester

Date of Publication:

1991

Vol:

n/a

Page:

145-7

Additional Comments:

Letter to Marion Scott, violinist and musicologist, 13 September 1916, from Fort d'Esquin

Citation:

Ivor Gurney, R. K. R. Thornton (ed.), Ivor Gurney: Collected Letters, (Manchester, 1991), p. 145-7, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=32947, accessed: 04 February 2026

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Additional Comments:

None