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

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Listings for Author:  

William Blake

 

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William Blake : unknown

'[Henry Crabb] Robinson recorded on 24 May 1812 that "I read Wordsworth some of Blake's poems; he was pleased with some of them, and considered Blake as having the elements of poetry a thousand times more than either Byron or Scott."'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Crabb Robinson      

  

William Blake : 

'"One advantage of leaving school at an early age is that one can study subjects of your own choice", wrote Frank Argent, son of a Camberwell labourer. Taking advantage of the public library and early Penguins, he ranged all over the intellectual landscape: Freudian psychology, industrial administration, English literature, political history, Blake, Goethe, Mill,Nietzsche, The Webbs, Bertrand Russell's Essays in Scepticism, and Spengler's "The Decline of the West".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Frank Argent      Print: Book

  

William Blake : 

'As to what they read [at the Gower Street School in the 1880s] -- and [...] Lucy Harrison [headmistress] read aloud to them untiringly -- it must be what went deepest and lifted highest -- Shakespeare, Dante in Cary's translation, Blake, Wordsworth, and [...] [Miss Harrison's] own favourites, Emily Bronte, Christina Rossetti, the Brownings, Coventry Patmore [...] A reading which all [...] [Miss Harrison's] pupils heard often, and never forgot, was from Alice Meynell's "Preludes" of 1875 -- the sonnet "To a Daisy"'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Harrison, headmistress, Charlotte Mew, and other pupils at Gower Street school     Print: Book

  

William Blake : The Ladies Charity School-House Roll of Highgate

[Marginalia]

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge      Print: Book

  

William Blake : [manuscripts]

'[Having visited Haworth, Gaskell acquired MSS of 'The Professor', 'Emma'], & by far the most extraordinary of all, a packet about the size of a lady's travelling writing case, full of paper books of different sizes, from the one I enclose upwards to the full 1/2 sheet size, but all in this indescribably fine writing. - Mr Gaskell says they would make more than 50 vols of print, - but they are the wildest & most incoherent things, as far as we have examined them, [italics] all [end italics] purporting to be written, or addressed to some member of the Wellesley family. They give one the idea of creative power carried to the verge of insanity. Just lately Mr M Milnes gave me some MS. of Blake's, the painters to read, - & the two MSS (his & C.B.'s) are curiously alike. But what I want to know is if a photograph could be taken to give some idea of the finness of the writing'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell      Manuscript: Unknown

  

William Blake : 

'I wrote endless imitations, though I never thought them to be imitations but, rather wonderfully original things, like eggs laid by tigers. They were imitations of anything I happened to be reading at the time: Sir Thomas Brown, de Quincey, Henry Newbolt, the Ballads, Blake, Baroness Orczy, Marlowe, Chums, the Imagists, the Bible, Poe, Keats, Lawrence, Anon., and Shakespeare. A mixed lot as you see, and randomly remembered'.

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

  

William Blake : Songs of Innocence

'Let me say that the things that first made me love language and want to work [italics] in [end italics] it and [italics] for [end italics] it were nursery rhymes and folk tales, the Scottish Ballads, a few lines of hymns, the most famous Bible stories and the rhythms of the Bible, Blake's "Songs of Innocence", and the quite incomprehensible magical majesty and nonsense of Shakespeare heard, read, and near murdered in the first forms of my school'.

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

  

William Blake : 

'The subject of Wm Blake was then taken Geo Burrow giving us some account of the Poet Painters life & method. Mrs Evans read several short poems showing the two aspects of his work. Mrs Burrow recited three lyrics. We were then to have inspected Blakes drawings which F.E. Pollard was obtaining but the General Strike delayed their arrival. Mrs Robson sang "Piping down the Valleys Wild" & "How Sweet is the Shepherd's Sweet lot". R.B. Graham read from the Prophetic books Marriage of Heaven & Hell The Birds & the Flowers & To the Deists. Mrs Robson sang "Little Lamb Who Made Thee" & F.E. Pollard read from the descriptive catalogue of The Canterbury Pilgrims'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Evans      Print: Book

  

William Blake : Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The

'The subject of Wm Blake was then taken Geo Burrow giving us some account of the Poet Painters life & method. Mrs Evans read several short poems showing the two aspects of his work. Mrs Burrow recited three lyrics. We were then to have inspected Blakes drawings which F.E. Pollard was obtaining but the General Strike delayed their arrival. Mrs Robson sang "Piping down the Valleys Wild" & "How Sweet is the Shepherd's Sweet lot". R.B. Graham read from the Prophetic books Marriage of Heaven & Hell The Birds & the Flowers & To the Deists. Mrs Robson sang "Little Lamb Who Made Thee" & F.E. Pollard read from the descriptive catalogue of The Canterbury Pilgrims'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: R.B. Graham      Print: Book

  

William Blake : Birds and the Flowers, The

'The subject of Wm Blake was then taken Geo Burrow giving us some account of the Poet Painters life & method. Mrs Evans read several short poems showing the two aspects of his work. Mrs Burrow recited three lyrics. We were then to have inspected Blakes drawings which F.E. Pollard was obtaining but the General Strike delayed their arrival. Mrs Robson sang "Piping down the Valleys Wild" & "How Sweet is the Shepherd's Sweet lot". R.B. Graham read from the Prophetic books Marriage of Heaven & Hell The Birds & the Flowers & To the Deists. Mrs Robson sang "Little Lamb Who Made Thee" & F.E. Pollard read from the descriptive catalogue of The Canterbury Pilgrims'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: R.B. Graham      Print: Book

  

William Blake : To the Deists

'The subject of Wm Blake was then taken Geo Burrow giving us some account of the Poet Painters life & method. Mrs Evans read several short poems showing the two aspects of his work. Mrs Burrow recited three lyrics. We were then to have inspected Blakes drawings which F.E. Pollard was obtaining but the General Strike delayed their arrival. Mrs Robson sang "Piping down the Valleys Wild" & "How Sweet is the Shepherd's Sweet lot". R.B. Graham read from the Prophetic books Marriage of Heaven & Hell The Birds & the Flowers & To the Deists. Mrs Robson sang "Little Lamb Who Made Thee" & F.E. Pollard read from the descriptive catalogue of The Canterbury Pilgrims'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: R.B. Graham      Print: Book

  

William Blake : [lyrics]

'The subject of Wm Blake was then taken Geo Burrow giving us some account of the Poet Painters life & method. Mrs Evans read several short poems showing the two aspects of his work. Mrs Burrow recited three lyrics. We were then to have inspected Blakes drawings which F.E. Pollard was obtaining but the General Strike delayed their arrival. Mrs Robson sang "Piping down the Valleys Wild" & "How Sweet is the Shepherd's Sweet lot". R.B. Graham read from the Prophetic books Marriage of Heaven & Hell The Birds & the Flowers & To the Deists. Mrs Robson sang "Little Lamb Who Made Thee" & F.E. Pollard read from the descriptive catalogue of The Canterbury Pilgrims'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Celia Burrow      Print: Book

  

William Blake : Book of Urizen

'During the interval of waiting, my mind dwelt on the evidences of his mental development during recent months; the many drawings and poems which he had sent us; his enthusiasm for Blake's "Book of Urizen", my latest Christmas gift; and finally a letter written at Easter telling me how much he wanted to come home.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: John Catlin      Print: Book

 

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