Record Number: 7359
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
?A situation as an errand boy at a bookseller?s was then found for me. A circulating library was attached to the business. My duties were to clean books and knives and brasses, and then carry books and magazines to the houses of the gentry who were subscribers to the library. The occupation was not uncongenial? for I was able to steal a peep at literature which would not otherwise have come within my reach. The book that was then in greatest demand, as I gathered from so often carrying it from one house to another, was Eliot Warburton?s "Crescent and the Cross", and next to it, I think, came Tennyson?s poems.?
Century:1800-1849
Date:unknown
Country:England
Timedaytime
Place:city: Cheltenham
other location: between workplace and homes of subcribers, on the street while on errands
(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: Age:Child (0-17)
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:Feb 1832
Socio-Economic Group:Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder
Occupation:Errand boy, later journalist
Religion:n/a
Country of Origin:England
Country of Experience:England
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:[poems]
Genre:Poetry
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication Detailsn/a
ProvenanceBorrowed (circulating library)
where he worked as an errand boy
Source Information:
Record ID:7359
Source:William Edwin Adams
Editor:n/a
Title:Memoirs of a Social Atom
Place of Publication:London
Date of Publication:1903
Vol:1
Page:78-9
Additional Comments:
n/a
Citation:
William Edwin Adams, Memoirs of a Social Atom, (London, 1903), 1, p. 78-9, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=7359, accessed: 07 October 2024
Additional Comments:
From the evidence, it is unclear whether Adams read this book. But as he took the book to so many subscribers as the errand boy of the library, it is probable that he stole a peep at its contents.