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

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Listings for Author:  

Russell

 

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John Russell : [Speech on Reform]

Bro [Barrett's eldest brother, Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett] read prayers. Afterwards he read Lord John Russell?s speech on Reform, in the midst of which, I who am interested in reform & admire Lord John Russell, fell fast asleep. My politics were not strong enough to keep my eyes open.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Moulton-Barrett      

  

Bertrand Russell : Essays in Scepticism

'"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

  

Lord John Russell : 

Letter, 25/11/1860 - 'The opening of the note enclosed from Mrs Browning refers to my having spoken of Lord John's last dispatch as giving me courage to write to her about Italy.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Newspaper

  

Bertrand Russell : 

'An emancipated working woman like Elizabeth Ring was free to read the works of Freud, Havelock Ellis and Bertrand Russell in the late 1920s, but she was familiar with these books only because her schoolteachers had her exchange them at the Finsbury Public Library'.

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

  

Bertrand Russell : 

'Taxi driver Herbert Hodge...knew that years on the dole only produced apathy, and that out-of-work men wanted practical help in dealing with the Board of Guardians far more than ideology. That experience plus his eclectic reading (Bergson, Nietzsche, William McDougall, Bertrand Russell, the new Testament, and Herbert Spencer as well as Marx) led him out of the [Communist] Party towards a socialism that would be brought about by individual volition...'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Hodge      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Our Village

'The title is, The Neighbours ? just a title for Miss Austen you see! ? And for Miss Austen, you shall praise her as much as you please. She is delightful exquisite in her degree! ? only I wdnt have one of your dear hands "cut off" that you shd "write one page like her?s with the other", - because, really & earnestly, your Village and Belford Regis are more charming to me than her pages in congregation. She wants (admit it honestly, because you know she wants it) she wants a little touch of poetry. Her "neighbours" walk about & gossip, all unconscious of the sunshine & the trees & the running waters ? to say nothing of the God of nature & providence. "Persuasion" (ah! You are cunning to bring "Persuasion" to me!) is the highest & most touching of her works ? and I agree with you gladly that it is perfect in its kind, & with touches of a higher impulse in it than we look generally to receive from her genius.'

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

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Belford Regis

'The title is, The Neighbours ? just a title for Miss Austen you see! ? And for Miss Austen, you shall praise her as much as you please. She is delightful exquisite in her degree! ? only I wdnt have one of your dear hands "cut off" that you shd "write one page like her?s with the other", - because, really & earnestly, your Village and Belford Regis are more charming to me than her pages in congregation. She wants (admit it honestly, because you know she wants it) she wants a little touch of poetry. Her "neighbours" walk about & gossip, all unconscious of the sunshine & the trees & the running waters ? to say nothing of the God of nature & providence. "Persuasion" (ah! You are cunning to bring "Persuasion" to me!) is the highest & most touching of her works ? and I agree with you gladly that it is perfect in its kind, & with touches of a higher impulse in it than we look generally to receive from her genius.'

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

  

Rutherford Russell : History and Heroes of Medicine

'I have achieved little during the last week except reading on medical subjects - Encyclopaedia about the medical colleges - Cullen's life - Russell's Heroes of Medicine etc. I have also read Aristophaes Ecclesiazusae, and Macbeth'.

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

  

William Russell : History of Modern Europe

Elizabeth Missing Sewell on her reading at home in the Isle of Wight, after leaving her Bath boarding school in 1830: 'I used to study by myself, for I knew that I was woefully ignorant. Such books as Russell's "History of Modern Europe" and Robertson's "Charles the Fifth", I read, and also Watts on the "Improvement of the Mind", and I plodded through an Italian history of the Venetian Doges, lent me by an intimate and valued friend of my father, Mr. Turnbull [...] I taught myself besides to read Spanish -- for having found a Spanish "Don Quixote" lying about, which no one claimed, I took possession of it, bought a grammar and dictionary, and set to work to master the contents of the books which I knew so well by name. The elements of botany on the Linnean system was another of my attempted acquirements, but I am afraid my studies were very superficial: I knew nothing perfectly, but I read everything that came in my way. There was an excellent town library in Newport, from which I could get any good modern works; and, beside the graver literature, I had always some lighter book on hand, and especially delighted in Walter Scott's novels and poetry. Byron, too was a great favourite.'

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

  

William Russell : History of Modern Europe

'We finished today to read Russels "Modern History", which is perfectly well wrote and in a very intertaining [sic] manner'.

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth (Betsey) Wynne      Print: Book

  

Russell (ed.) : [Palestine]

'Two other volumes of the same Library, to wit: "Palestine", edited by Dr Russell, and "Persia", by Frazer, I have also read diligently, not without many wry faces - and find them to be of the same indigestible material.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel      Print: Book

  

William Russell : The History of Modern Europe

'Finished the 2d. Vol. of Russell's "History of Modern Europe"...'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Rienzi

Elizabeth Missing Sewell, describing travel from Pisa toward Spezzia in letter of 5 June 1861 to 'My Dear _____', headed 'Bugiasta or Pagiastra, or something of the kind; but we can't quite make out where we are, only it is half-way between Spezzia and Sestri, and on the road to Genoa.': 'We started after six [am], M and myself on the outside seat [?of coach]. What with pleasant conversation, the reading of "Rienzi" and the newspaper, and occasional little naps, I managed to spend an agreeable day.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Miscellaneous Poems

'My dear Miss Mitford, Your good and kind father has just given Nancy a copy of a little volume of poems, in which I find the verses on Maria's winning the cup at Ilsley inscribed to me, and for which honour I beg you to accept of my best thanks; an honour which I value the more because these verses are in company with those elegant and truly pathetic strains, addressed to your dear mother; which, unlike most other poetical effusions of praise, contain nothing but what is founded in truth.'

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

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Miscellaneous Poems

'My dear sir [...] Your daughter's very amiable and interesting book is quite a refreshment to my spirit, wearied on the one hand by labour and on the other by pain; for it would be in vain to tell you how I have occupied my mind on the before-mentioned theme, and this was the very volume to lead me sweetly and softly from myself to many charming scenes, conducted by the hand of virtue and genius. Where all are amiable, it is hard to select, but the poem addressed to yourself (page 70), and that part of the "Epistle to a Friend" which contains the subject beginning with the line, "How true the wish, how pure the glow," to the end of the passage, went nearest to my affections.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: S.J. Pratt      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Miscellaneous Poems

'Sir, I beg leave to acknowledge the receipt of a volume of poems which Messrs. Longman transmitted to me a few days since, and for which I am indebted to your politeness. I have been very much pleased with Miss Mitford's poems generally, and many passages I think excellent. In particular I was delighted to see her muse busy in Northumberland, the scenery of which in many parts is well worthy of a poet.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: J. Mitford      Print: Book

  

Dr Russell : Verses

'Dear Madam, Dr. Russell's verses are very highly welcomed. I like them very much. There is great simplicit, neatness and elegance in them.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: R.A. Davenport      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Blanch of Castile and other poems

'The story of "Blanch", when the poem becomes fashionable, will be dramatized... I cannot help thinking it would make a good drama. The story is busy and pathetic. For the two small poems I thank you much. That to Lord Redesdale is most striking to me, and it is a just tribute to feeling where one would least expect it.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: J.P. Smith      Manuscript: Sheet

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Poems on the Female Character

'Madam, I am really ashamed of not having answered your very obliging and interesting letter, and not hving acknowledged the receipt of the pretty poem which you have done me the honour of submitting to my perusal. The fact is, I have been confined to my room for several days, and though I have run through your entertaining M.S., I have by no means given that attention to it which it deserves, and which alone would entitle me to give you an opinion upon it.... I can, from the very cursory perusal I have hitherto made of it, say very truly that it gave me great pleasure, and is both an elegant and poetical work...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Lord Holland      Manuscript: Sheet

  

Mary Russell Mitford : The Sisters

'I have just finished your poem of "The Sisters", and tell you truly and fairly that I read it with an interest and delight which I cannot express. I like it better than anything you have done (am I right or wrong?) and you have contrived to mix up poetical imagery and expression with such a great degree of interest as I have never before found in any poem.'

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

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Foscari

[He wishes to express] 'the high gratification I have received from the perusal of "Foscari". I must frankly tell you that the play has very much surprised me. I gave you credit for a great deal, but not for what you are mistress of. The drama is your proper walk, and I pray you heartily henceforth to make the right use of your great talents, and to contribute something to the solid, permanent literature of your age.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: P. Bayley      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Foscari

'I was much better pleased with it ["Foscari"] than I expected, though I can truly add that my expectations were somewhat highly raised. The interest begins at once, and continues throughout, and there are a thousand little touches of great beauty, although (and this in a drama is perhaps the best praise) there is no one passage on which I can fix as possessing a distinct and paramount superiority... In your "Foscari" I find also a much greater strength than is usual from a female pen, accompanied with many a lambent spark of genuine heartfelt feeling... which none but a woman could have given.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Eleanor Anne Porden      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Cromwell

'Thank you for it ["Cromwell"]. It is a strange, clever, absurd, lively, queer, farcical, indescribable production. It is impossible not to be amused - impossible not occasionally to admire. On the other hand, the Liston farce of part of it - even exceeds my notion of the liberty of the genre romantique.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Dr Milman      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery

'Madam, I can hardly feel that I am addressing an entire stranger in the author of "Our Village", and yet I know it is right and proper that I should apologize for the liberty I am taking. But really, after having accompanied you, as I have done again and again, in "violeting," and seeking for wood-sorrel ? after having been with you to call upon Mrs. Allen in "the dell", and becoming thoroughly acquainted with May and Lizzie, I cannot but hope that you will kindly pardon my obtrusion, and that my name may be sufficiently known to you to plead my case. There are writers whose works we cannot read without feeling as if we really had looked with them upon the scenes they bring before us, and as if such communion had almost given us a claim to something more than the mere intercourse between authors and "gentle readers". Will you allow me to say that your writings have this effect up me, and that you have taught me, in making me know and love your "Village" so well, to wish for further knowledge also of her who has so vividly impressed its dingles and copses upon my imagination, and peopled them so cheerily with healthful and happy beings?'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Felicia Hemans      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Fanny's Fairings

'We have not got a circulating library. It was too near Glasgow to thrive, and I am no ways acquainted in Glasgow. I am, therefore, famishing for the want of books. I have to pick up all my news of literature from the newspapers. I saw a delightful piece of yours quoted there lately from a book called "The Coronet, or Literary and Christian Remembrancer." It was entitled "Fanny's Fairings."'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group:      Print: Newspaper

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Rienzi

'Dear Madam, Accept my best thanks for the copy of "Rienzi", and allow me to assure you that it has not been thrown away, for, as [Rev William] Harness can bear witness, I can repeat long passages of it by heart. I have now the pleasure of forwarding to you the volumes I mentioned...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Alexander Dyce      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery

'Let me tell you that I never see a paper professing to give literary news from England without anxiously looking for your name.. I have read whole pages of extracts from the Annuals and "Our Village" - so well do the savages know how to make their papers sell - but I have not seen, what I chiefly [sic] sought, any account of the noble tragedy, three acts of which you read to me when I last saw you.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Trollope      Print: Newspaper

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Tragedies

'Madam, Having understood from a friend that you wished to obtain the words of "The Bann of the Church of the German Empire," I take the liberty of sending them to you [...] You will find it in "Les Anecdotes Germaniques," page 151, and as I have experienced so much pleasure from the perusal and representation of your beautiful tragedies, I shall have great satisfaction in being of the smallest use to you.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: G.E. Lynch Cotton      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery

'In your delightful sketch of Grace Nugent I was much amused by the donkey messengers. Such mercuries are common in Suffold, and I greeted your boys as old acquaintances.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Susanna Strickland      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery

'My dear Miss Mitford, I cannot employ the formal address of a stranger towards one who has inspired the vivid feeling of intimate acquaintance, a deep and affectionate interest in her occupations and happiness. You cannot be ignorant that your books are re-printed and widely circulated on this side of the Atlantic? your name has penetrated beyond our maritime cities, and is familiar and loved through many a village circle and to the borders of the lonely depths of unpierced woods ? that we eagerly gather the intimations of your character and history that we fancy are dispersed through your productions ? that we venerate "Mrs. Mosse", are lovers of "Sweet Cousin Mary" and have wept and almost worn mourning for dear bright little "Lizzie", that, in short, such is your power over the imagination that your pictures have wrought on our affections like realities.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Catharine M. Sedgwick      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery

'My dear Miss Mitford,I cannot miss the opportunity my aunt allows me of writing to the author of "Our Village," to express my interest in her, and in the perusal of her charming book, one of the most valuable in my library, which I have read several times, and at each repetition have experienced increased delight.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Kate Sedgwick      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Inez

'She speaks of "Inez" as about to be produced. I have been long expecting to hear that it was out. Do you remember reading it to me (excepting the fourth act, which was not then born) just before I left England?'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Trollope      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Mary Russell Mitford : works

'My dear Miss Mitford, May I be permitted to address thus familiarly a lady with whom, though not personally acquainted, I have long been on terms of intimacy, and for whom I have felt the most lively sentiments of regard and esteem. Ever since I had the pleasure of being a fellow contributor of yours in the Ladies? Magazine, I have most anxiously wished for an introduction to you, but was deterred from seeking an opportunity of making myself known by the consciousness of my own obscurity?When, however, I became an inhabitant of the house in Hans Place, which I knew to be the scene of your juvenile days, from the description given in the "Boarding School Recollections," and began to entertain a hope that my intimacy with Miss Landon and the acquaintance of Miss Skerrit would sanction my long-cherished wish?.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Roberts      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery

'It has made me extravagant, for I have ordered the four other volumes. the work is perfectly unique. I know nothing like it in any language, and it is among the few to which one can turn again and again with even new pleasure. The "Farewell" is one of the sweetest bits of writing that I know.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Trollope      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery

'I was reading your inimitable description of Dora Creswell the other day to a friend of mine who was confined to his bed by illness. He laughed and cried by turns, and averred there could not be a word changed for the better, except that of reaper applied to Dora.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Catharine M. Sedgwick      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery

'Dear Miss Mitford, I rejoice in finding an occasion to address you, that I may express the very great pleasure both my husband and myself have always derived from your writing. We know your "village" and all its crofts, and lanes and people, and we wish we had the happiness of peronally knowing you.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Howitt      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery

'The most truly English sketches in the language are your country volumes. Well, through these volumes we have been wending this winter. We had read them before, and many of the stories were as familiar to us as household words; but they have been read this time principally that William might trace out their localities, and a great additional charm has his knowledge of your part of the country given them.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary and William Howitt     Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Belford Regis, or, Sketches of a Country Town

'I have just finished Fanny Kemble's books, and when I say that I read them the next after your most charming volumes, and was amused, and on the whole much pleased with them. I am sure they are meritorious, let the critics say what they may.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Barbara Hofland      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Belford Regis, or, Sketches of a Country Town

'Our little community have been delighting themselves with your "Belford Regis"; accept their untied thanks for it [...] The book is republished rather shabbily by Carey. I am in great hopes that we shall get our ungracious laws altered at the next congressional session, so that you English contributors to our advantage shall get some remuneration for your pains.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Catharine Sedgwick      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Belford Regis, or, Sketches of a Country Town

'Your last book still rolls on, gathering golden opinions, and I for one thank you, for I have been passing the last fortnight in the country, and perhaps there is no book in the world so pleasant to be on the grass with and read to a charming woman. I have only grudged the transfer of leaves from my right hand to my left, and if you had heard the "Is that all?" of my listener as I closed the last volume, you would have felt that you had not lived in vain - as who has, who has given pleasure to the world, or beguiled weariness, or refined the aspect of life?'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: N.P. Willis      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery

'This new edition of "Our Village" I have been coveting ever since I saw the advertisement of it, and I will tell you why. It is one of those cheerful, spirited works, full of fair pictures of humanity, which, especially where there are children who love reading and being read to, becomes a household book, turned to again and again, and remembered and talked of with affection. So it is by our fireside; it is a work our little daughter has read, and loves to read, and which our little son Alfred, a most indomitable young gentleman, likes especially - not so much for its variety of character, which gives its charm to his sister's mind, but for its descriptions of the country... Such, dear Miss Mitford, being the case, when I saw the new edition advertised, I began to cast in my mind whether or not we could not buy it...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Howitt      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery

'This new edition of "Our Village" I have been coveting ever since I saw the advertisement of it, and I will tell you why. It is one of those cheerful, spirited works, full of fair pictures of humanity, which, especially where there are children who love reading and being read to, becomes a household book, turned to again and again, and remembered and talked of with affection. So it is by our fireside; it is a work our little daughter has read, and loves to read, and which our little son Alfred, a most indomitable young gentleman, likes especially - not so much for its variety of character, which gives its charm to his sister's mind, but for its descriptions of the country... Such, dear Miss Mitford, being the case, when I saw the new edition advertised, I began to cast in my mind whether or not we could not buy it...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Howitt      Print: Book

  

Mary Russell Mitford : Rienzi

'I have read Bulwer's "Rienzi" and yours also. I always thought your tragedy the best of your works, and I think so still. It is a glorious thing. I like Bulwer's too, very much, but unless there were historical ground for the love between a Colonna and the family of Rienzi, he has injured his work by the introduction. It is so palpably an imitation of the tragedy and with much less effect...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Howitt      Print: Book

  

William Russell : History of Modern Europe

'I used to study by myself, for I knew that I was wofully ignorant. Such books as Russell's "History of Modern Europe" and Robertson's "Charles the Fifth", I read, and also Watts on the "Improvement of the Mind", and I plodded through an Italian history of the Venetian Doges, lent me by an intimate and valued friend of my father, Mr Turnbull'.

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

  

John Russell : Tour in Germany, and some of the southern provinces of the Austrian Empire, in... 1820, 1821, 1822

'Of course you have read Segur, & Pepys, and with the latter are perhaps "mightily" weary now & then, but on the whole amused - There is a interesting History of the Tower of London lately published, which read when you can, for its historical anecdotes - and also (if you like Tours) read John Russell's Tour in Germany in 1820, 21, 22.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney      Print: Book

  

Bertrand Russell : Which Way to Peace?

Virginia Woolf to Julian Bell, 14 November 1936: 'Politics are still raging faster and fiercer [...] Leonard is trying to convince the labour party that the policy of isolation is now the only one. Berties book convinced him.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf      Print: Book

  

Bertrand Russell : unknown

4 March 1918: 'I found a silent group at the [1917] Club, all men, & unknown to me, with the exception of Alix who sat still as a statue reading one of Berty Russell's books.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Alix Sargant-Florence      Print: Book

  

Bertrand Russell : unknown

6 June 1918: 'I've seen Alix [...] She is able to conceive the possibility of one day finding some book to read. She has tried Bertie's mathematics, relinquished it, but did not altogether dismiss my suggestion of legal history.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Alix Sargant-Florence      Print: Book

  

Lord John Russell : Life of William Lord Russell, with Some Account of the Times

'I employed myself in the evening, reading Lord John Russell's life of his ancestor Lord William Russell. The preface is modest, dignified, and forcible; the narrative is lucid; and the style is unaffected, and devoid of ornament, yet elegant. It is like the author. How much the sobriety of a sensible English book strengthens and refreshes the understanding, especially when we have lived some time in a dearth of English literature'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury      Print: Book

  

Bertrand Russell : On Education

'I had a nice day yesterday lying out under the trees in a deck-chair reading Bertie Russell's "On Education". A good firm book.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Harold Nicolson      Print: Book

  

Russell : 'Modern Europe'

Lady Harriet Cavendish to her grandmother, the Countess Dowager Spencer, 29 August 1807: 'I find Modern Europe really very entertaining, at least as much as is quite independant of the Author, Mr. Russell, who seems insupportably flippant and conceited, but my ignorance makes much of it new to me and I am continually deeply interested in the denouement of events that I dare say the rest of the world know as well as their Alphabets. I am now in the beginning of the 16th century, and am rather proud of being a little tired of the three great rivals -- Charles, Henry and Francis, but these are symptoms of ignorance that I cannot expect you to enter into.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Harriet Cavendish      Print: Book

  

Bertrand Russell : The Problems of Philosophy

'Many thanks. I've just read the first chapter at once to take possession and have laid the book ["The Problems of Philosophy"] aside till Monday -- when the short story will be off my hands.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad      Print: Book

  

Bertrand Russell : Philosophical Essays

'I am glad I read the little book ["The Problems of Philosophy"] before coming to your essays ["Philosophical Essays"]. If in reading the first I felt moving step by step, with delight, on the firmest ground, the other gave me the sense of an enlarged vision in the clearest, the purest atmosphere.' Hence follow another 10 lines of praise and gratitude.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad      Print: Book

  

Bertrand Russell : Analysis of Mind

'As for yourself — I have been dwelling with you mentally for several days between the covers of your book [...].'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad      Print: Book

  

Bertrand Russell : The Problem of China

'When your book ["The Problem of China"] arrived we were away for a few days. Perhaps [...] I should have acknowledged the receipt at once. But I preferred to read it before I wrote. Unluckily a very unpleasant affair was sprung on me and absorbed all my thinking energies for a fortnight. I simply did not attempt to open the book till all the worry and flurry was over, and I could give it two clear days.'
[Hence follow three pages of commentary.]

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad      Print: Book

  

George William Russell : Gandhi

Meeting held at St. Margaret’s, Shinfield Road: 20. 1. 38.

F. E. Pollard in the chair

1. Minutes of last read and approved

[...]

6. C. E. Stansfield opened the proceedings on Æ [A-E ligature, the name adopted by George William Russell] by a detailed biographical sketch of some length, in the course of which we gained some idea of the contradictions and complexities of A. E.’s character. [...] An interesting personal touch was added to the sketch by F. E. Pollard who had been present at one of Æ’s “salon” receptions.

7. Extracts from A. E’s prose were then read by Mary S. W. Pollard on “Gandhi,” and by F. E. Pollard on “The one dimensional mind”.

8. Finally F. E. Pollard and V. W. Alexander read three of A.E.’s poems.

9. By this time most of us were more than ready for a little lighter matter, and we thoroughly appreciated some delightful touches from The Tinker’s Wedding by Synge which Rosamund Wallis gave with evident relish.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard      Print: Book

  

George William Russell : "Shadows and Lights"

'I have just come across these lines by A. E., which I like, because the stars are your only companions on sentry duty in the trenches; and they seem filled with majesty and peace, as does the sunrise too [quotes stanza five of A. E.'s poem "Shadows and Lights"].'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Douglas Herbert Bell      Print: Unknown

 

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