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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
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Listings for Author:  

Black

 

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William Blackstone : Commentaries on the Laws of England

I now read Blackstone, Hale's Common Law, several other Law Books, and much biography. This course of reading was continued for several years until the death of my landlady.

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Place      Print: Book

  

R.D. Blackmore : Lorna Doone

"Read Lorna Doone in the evening and helped Mother in to bed."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Agnes Blanche Hemming      Print: Book

  

R.D. Blackmore : Lorna Doone

"Much interested in Lorna Doone. It is a truly romantic book."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Agnes Blanche Hemming      Print: Book

  

R.D. Blackmore : Lorna Doone

"Finished reading Lorna Doone and like it very much."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Agnes Blanche Hemming      Print: Book

  

R.D. Blackmore : Lorna Doone

"Read aloud to Maude from Lorna Doone. Very much taken with this little bit - 'the valley into which I gazed was fair with early promise, having shelter from the wind and taking all the sunshine. The willow bushes hung over the stream as if they were angling with tasseled floats of gold & silver, bursting like a bean-pod. Between them came the water laughing like a maid at her own dancing, and spread with that young blue which never lies beyond the April. And on either bank, the meadow ruffled as the breeze came by, opening (through new tufts of green) daisy-bud or celandine, or a shy glimpse now & then of a love-lorn primrose.'"

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Agnes Blanche Hemming      Print: Book

  

Richard Doddridge Blackmore : Lorna Doone

[analysis of a female respondent in Arnold Freeman's 1918 Sheffield Survey] 'Housewife, age twenty-eight... Has read "David Copperfield", "The Old Curiosity Shop", "Lorna Doone", Louisa May Alcott and the travels of Livingstone and Darwin'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent      Print: Book

  

Richard Doddridge Blackmore : Lorna Doone

[imaginative role play] 'One chauffeur's daughter alternated effortlessly between heroes and heroines: "I have plotted against pirates along with Jim Hawkins and I have trembled with Jane Eyre as the first Mrs Rochester rent her bridal veil in maddened jealousy. I have been shipwrecked with Masterman Ready and on Pitcairn Island with Fletcher Christian. I have been a medieval page in Sir Nigel and Lorna Doone madly in love with 'girt Jan Ridd'".

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Wharton      Print: Book

  

R.D. Blackmore : Lorna Doone

'Read "Lorna Doone" and loved it. Must try to get it next hols.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding      Print: Book

  

Sister Black : King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse

'Am reading "King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse", which is really glorious.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding      Print: Book

  

William Blackstone : Commentaries on the laws of England

?The day after this being the last of the year, I managed to finish reading Blackstone?s Commentaries and Goldsmith?s History of England, both for the 2d time over & in the evening danced out the year at the Assembly.?

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh      Print: Book

  

[possibly] William Blackstone : [Commentaries on the laws of England?]

'Finished "Annual Register" for 1832. Reading Blackstone'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud]      Print: BookManuscript: Unknown

  

William Blackstone : Commentaries on the laws of England [?]

'Search in Blackstone and Goldsmith's "History"; much struck with style of latter; deserving [I] think, to be more talked of'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Windham      Print: Book

  

John Black (trans.) : Memoirs of Goldoni (the celebrated Italian Dramatist) written by himself

'Hogg reads the life of Goldoni aloud'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Jefferson Hogg      Print: Book

  

Thomas Blackwell : Memoirs of the Court of Augustus

[Percy Shelley's Reading List for 1816. The diary from May 1815-July 1816 is lost, so this list is our only record of Shelley's reading in early 1816. Later in the year texts are referred to in diary entries so as far as possible these works are not given separate database references based on this list.] 'Works of Theocritus Moschus &c - Greek Prometheus of Eschylus - Greek Works of Lucian - Greek x Telemacho La Nouvelle Heloise x Blackwell's His. of the Court of August De Natura Lucretius Epistolae Plinii Annals by Tacitus Several of Plutarchs Lives - Greek Germania of Tacitus Memoires d'un Detenu Histoire de la Revolution par Rabault and Lacretelle Montaignes Essays Tasso Life of Cromwell Lockes Essay Political Justice Lorenzo de Medicis Coleridges Lay Sermon'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Sir William Blackstone : Commentaries on the Laws of England

Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 1 June 1831: 'I recollect many years ago when I read one whole volume of Blackstone through, I also read a little treatise by a Mr Hawkins an INFINITE Tory, entitled "Reform in Parliament, the ruin of Parliament"'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Thomas Blacklock : [poems]

'He talked of Mr. Blacklock's poetry, so far as it was descriptive of visible objects; and observed, that "as its author had the misfortune to be blind, we may be absolutely sure that such passages are combinations of what he has remembered of the works of other writers who could see".'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      Print: Book

  

Sir William Blackstone : 

'[During summer 1831] Hallam was at Hastings [...] After his holiday Hallam returned to his reading of law, and enjoyed "the old fellow Blackstone," culling for Alfred [Tennyson] poetic words like "forestal."'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Arthur Hallam      Print: Book

  

Black : 

'In respect of contemporary novels he [Tennyson] had a very catholic taste. Latterly he read Stevenson and George Meredith with great interest: also Walter Besant, Black, Hardy, Henry James, Marion Crawford, Anstey, Barrie, Blackmore, Conan Doyle, Miss Braddon, Miss Lawless, Ouida, Miss Broughton, Lady Margaret Majendie, Hall Caine, and Shorthouse. He liked Edna Lyall's Autobiography of a Slander, and the Geier-Wally by Wilhelmina von Hillern; and often gave his friends Surly Tim to read, for its "concentrated pathos." "Mrs Oliphant's prolific work," he would observe, "is amazing, and she is nearly always worth reading."'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson      Print: Unknown

  

R. D. Blackmore : 

'In respect of contemporary novels he [Tennyson] had a very catholic taste. Latterly he read Stevenson and George Meredith with great interest: also Walter Besant, Black, Hardy, Henry James, Marion Crawford, Anstey, Barrie, Blackmore, Conan Doyle, Miss Braddon, Miss Lawless, Ouida, Miss Broughton, Lady Margaret Majendie, Hall Caine, and Shorthouse. He liked Edna Lyall's Autobiography of a Slander, and the Geier-Wally by Wilhelmina von Hillern; and often gave his friends Surly Tim to read, for its "concentrated pathos." "Mrs Oliphant's prolific work," he would observe, "is amazing, and she is nearly always worth reading."'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson      Print: Unknown

  

Sir William Blackstone : Commentaries on the Laws of England

Robert Southey to John James Morgan, 6 March, 1797: 'Blackstone & I agree better than perhaps you imagine. true it is that I should like to write Commentaries upon his Commentaries — but mine would be an illegal book. the study fixes my attention sufficiently, when my attention begins to flag, I relieve myself by employing half an hour differently, & then set to again with fresh spirits. '

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

Sir William Blackstone : Commentaries on the Laws of England

Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 9 August 1797: 'I have now gone thro Blackstone often & attentively, so repeatedly reperusing the more important parts, that I think I know the book well. nor does farther study of it now appear necessary or useful.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

Richard Doddridge Blackmore : Lorna Doone

'I get "Lorna Doone". It is a good book so far.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Kitching      Print: Book

  

Joseph Blacket : poetry

'In Seaham village lived a poet, "an unfortunate child of Genius," -- one Joseph Blacket, a cobbler's son, whom [Anne Isabella Milbanke's] parents actively befriended. Whether they took him seriously as a poet, or (like Byron) very much the reverse, Annabella [i.e. Anne Isabella] was impressed by his attempts. One of the early records is a copy of verses to her, "on her presenting the author with a beautiful edition of Cowper's Poems" -- just a year before Blacket's death in 1810, at twenty-three.'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella Milbanke      

  

Joseph Blacket : poetry

'The only link of which [Byron] was at this time [1811-12] conscious between him and Miss [Anne Isabella] Milbanke was his acquaintance with Joseph Blacket's poetry and fate. He thought slightingly of the poetry, as she was to learn; and not less slightingly of the patronage [from the Milbanke family] which, in his view, had done the poor young cobbler more harm than good.'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron      

  

Algernon Blackwood : Garden of Survival, The

'The main business of the evening was then proceeded with - 5 mins essays upon some book read recently. Mrs Evans read 'An English Lumber Camp' - from internal evidence it is probably true that this was an essay drawn from real life rather than from any book read. It was a magnificent literary effort in the author's best style. Perhaps more of 'H.M.W.' than 'Ashton Hillier'. Mrs Smith read a paper upon 'The Garden of Survival' a book by Alg. Blackwood. The paper gave rise to much interest. The extraordinary beauty of the extracts read from the book and the insight into the spiritual meaning of 'Guidance' displayed by the author impressed us all. Ernest E. Unwin read a paper on 'The End of a Chapter' by Shane Leslie - this paper was written by H.M. Wallis & introduced most of us to a new writer of power. The change in the world, in the balance of the classes & their future importance formed the theme of the book. Mary Hayward described her discovery of 'The Story of my Heart' by Richard Jefferies & read some extracts from it.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Ann Smith      Print: Book

 

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